More good news from the front lines of the abortion wars: according to the pro-abortion media outlet Jezebel, Planned Parenthood clinics in Georgia and Alabama has both cancelled abortion appointments as well as stopped scheduling abortions. The reason? They are running out of abortionists. Prior to this, Planned Parenthood was offering abortion at three clinics in Georgia and two in Alabama.
This is a significant victory considering that the five abortion clinics which have cancelled appointments until further notice killed 5,893 pre-born children last year.
“We have elected to scale back some of our services across the affiliate while we onboard new staff at our health centers and at the executive level,” a spokesperson with the Southeast Planned Parenthood affiliate told Jezebel. “This is a temporary change, and we expect to be operating at full capacity by the end of the month.”
Jezebel noted that with only two days left in April at the time of the statement, there was no indication that abortions could be scheduled.
Robin Marty, an abortion activist, journalist, and director of an abortion clinic in Tuscaloosa, noted that the West Alabama Women’s Center has been dealing with patients being rerouted to their facility after Planned Parenthood abruptly cancelled their appointments and noted that it is difficult to find abortionists willing to work in the “Deep South.”
Additionally, the clinic is also dealing with women from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas who are seeking abortions as pro-life legislation there has successfully curtailed an increasing proportion of the abortion industry.
In fact, Planned Parenthood has suffered so much from recent pro-life laws that according to Jezebel, there are only independent abortion clinics left in Mississippi, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. According to the Guttmacher Institute, as of 2021 over 1,300 pro-life laws had been passed since Roe v. Wade.
State legislatures are also falling back on their well-worn playbook of imposing unnecessary and intentionally burdensome restrictions on abortion clinics and providers. Five states—Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky and Oklahoma—enacted restrictions on abortion clinics, an issue that has not been hot in state legislatures since the Supreme Court in 2016 struck down regulations enacted in Texas. Most notably, Arkansas and Kentucky passed laws making it easier for state agencies to close abortion clinics.
The mainstream media is already warning that if Roe v. Wade falls, many more clinics will close and abortion access will dry up across vast swathes of America. The Guardian this week referred to the areas where clinic closures are guaranteed or likely as being “abortion deserts”; abortion activists are already engaged in covert planning to figure out how to get abortion pills to women in states likely to pass laws to protect pre-born children (or those with trigger bans that will come into effect should Roe be overturned.)
