In the first month after a drastic ruling on abortions, eleven US states are massively restricting the right to abortion – in several of them the procedure is now completely banned. This has consequences for numerous medical institutions.
Since the US Supreme Court’s controversial decision on abortion law, at least 43 US clinics have stopped providing abortions. In the month since the historic June 24 ruling, 11 states have banned abortion either entirely or after the sixth week of pregnancy, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute.
As a result, at least 43 abortion clinics have closed or switched to other services. 23 of the clinics were in Texas, five in Oklahoma and five in Alabama. Access to abortion, already very poor in much of the country, will continue to deteriorate as more states enact abortion bans in the coming weeks and months.
Some US states, such as Louisiana and North Dakota, have already enacted laws banning abortion, but their introduction has been delayed by legal disputes. Other states, such as Indiana, have called special sessions of Parliament to pass new legislation.
Half of US states, mostly in the predominantly conservative South and Midwest, are expected to ban abortion. On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 landmark “Roe v. Wade” ruling that enshrined a nationwide fundamental right to abortion. The decision caused a political earthquake and is considered a historical turning point.
