One Year, 61 Clinics: How Dobbs Changed the Abortion Landscape
Dozens of clinics have closed or halted abortions since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
A grid of alternating photos show dozens of abortion clinics that have closed or halted abortions.
We set out to see what happened to them and the surrounding communities.
A grid of alternating photos show dozens of abortion clinics that have closed or halted abortions.
In the year since Roe fell, 20 states enacted laws banning or restricting abortion, forcing a rapid shift in the country’s patchwork of abortion access. Clinic owners scrambled to adjust, canceling appointments and helping patients travel elsewhere.
Some clinics relocated, while others stayed open to provide the services they still could. Many simply closed, leaving behind empty buildings.
In Milwaukee, this former clinic is for sale for $1 million. The real estate agent says he’s had a hard time finding buyers.
Mary Mathis for The New York Times
Elsewhere, patients still show up, knocking on closed doors. CeeJ, 20, who asked to be identified only by her first name, recently stopped by a shuttered Montgomery, Ala., clinic because she could not afford $50 for emergency contraception at Walmart.
Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times
Protesters come by, too. The same people who used to picket a Bristol, Tenn., abortion provider now stand outside a new clinic, less than a mile away in Bristol, Va.
Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times
At least 61 clinics, Planned Parenthood facilities and doctors’ offices stopped offering abortions in the last year.
Most were in the 14 states that banned abortion outright. But the uncertainty surrounding laws in several other states also caused providers there to shut down.
Physicians said the laws in some states were unclear. Others pointed to the possibility of criminal penalties, including prison time, making the prospect of offering abortion services risky.
A map showing the locations of abortion providers that have closed, stopped offering abortion services or opened a new location. Most of the clinics shown that have closed or stopped offering abortions are in the 14 states that ban abortion, and most new abortion providers shown are in states that do not.
Note: Provider locations are approximate.
About half of the clinics have shifted their focus to other services, such as birth control and prenatal care. Some see patients who have gotten abortions elsewhere for follow-ups. At least a dozen providers moved and opened new clinics in friendlier states.
A handful of the buildings, including the clinic at the center of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe, were sold and turned into something else.
A year ago, the Jackson clinic was the last one standing in Mississippi.
A man walks down the sidewalk in front of a brightly painted pink building with its blinds closed.
Today, it is a luxury consignment store offering $1,750 toile drapes.
The same building, now painted white, with a sign reading “Hunt” displayed prominently in gold letters.
David Carpenter bought the building last July. He spent months renovating, removing the exam rooms to open up the space inside. “I wanted a clean, fresh start,” he said.
A woman sits at a desk with her back to the camera and another talks on the phone. In the foreground is a white orchid.
Mr. Carpenter wasn’t interested in talking about what the building once was. Only a few people have turned up looking for the clinic, he said. “We just explain that it’s closed.”
A grand piano sits open in the middle of a room, surrounded by arrangements of furniture including pink armchairs and a table set with white dishware and wine glasses.
Many clinic owners said they couldn’t afford to stay open without providing abortions. Instead, they decided to move.
A grid of photos of abortion clinics in nine locations. Labels indicate that four of the clinics have closed – in Dallas; Savannah, Georgia; and Fort Worth. Five of the clinics are no longer providing abortions – in Birmingham, Alabama; Charleston, West Virginia; Milwaukee; San Antonio; and Fort Worth.
Most of the movers were independent clinics, which typically have performed more than half of the country’s abortions. They usually offer financial assistance, don’t require insurance and won’t turn away patients who can’t afford the cost of the procedure — about $500 in the first trimester and $2,000 or more in the second trimester.
This clinic in Shreveport, La., closed and moved to western Florida. The director, Kathaleen Pittman, plans to open there once her license is approved, despite the state’s recent passage of a six-week abortion ban.
Emily Kask for The New York Times
“It was a calculated move on our part to help as many people as possible, particularly those from Louisiana,” Ms. Pittman said.
Diane Derzis has helped set up three new clinics in the last year, including one in Bristol, Va., not far from where a Tennessee doctor had provided abortions for 30 years.
A portrait of Diane Derzis, who has short blonde hair and is wearing a floral top and pink lipstick.
She did not foresee resistance to the clinic in Virginia, where abortion is legal. An anti-abortion group helped draft a zoning code change that would prohibit local land from being used to end “pre-born human life.”
A view down the center of a street shows a sign arching over it. It points to Virginia on one side and Tennessee on the other and reads: “Bristol, a good place to live.”
The proposed change has not passed. But the clinic’s landlords are also suing it, claiming they were not told that the facility would offer abortions.
A view through a rose-tinted window into a medical office waiting room, containing two chairs and a clock on the wall.
“If this were easy, everybody would do it. This all just goes along with being an abortion provider,” Ms. Derzis said.
A brown brick building with a brown roof and a small “No Trespassing” sign.
Anti-abortion advocates said they had celebrated clinic closures in their communities, but some said that their work was far from over.
A grid of photos of abortion clinics in nine locations. Labels indicate that five of the clinics have closed – in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; New Orleans; Mt. Juliet, Tennessee; San Antonio; and Houston. Four of the clinics are no longer providing abortions – in Indianapolis; St. Louis; Oklahoma City; and Twin Falls, Idaho.
“I was hoping they’d tear it down,” Doug Lane, 71, a pastor and longtime protester, said of the clinic in Jackson. “It’s still a reminder of what they did there.”
In Huntsville, Ala., community members still gather every Thursday morning outside the Alabama Women’s Center to pray. The center hasn’t performed an abortion since last June.
Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times
“We will come until the building is torn down or someone buys it,” said Josefina Montoya, 30. “We are trying to end abortion everywhere.”
Rather than reduce abortions, the bans enacted since Roe was struck down appear largely to have pushed patients across state lines or to find pills online. Illinois, Florida and North Carolina have reported thousands more abortions compared with the months before the Supreme Court ruling.
Nationally, average monthly abortions fell by about 3 percent in the nine months after the ruling.
Even though they can no longer perform abortions, many providers have stayed put, continuing to offer other services.
A grid of photos of abortion clinics in nine locations. Labels indicate that two of the clinics have closed – in Houston; and McKinney, Texas. Seven of the clinics are no longer providing abortions – in Flagstaff, Arizona; Little Rock, Arkansas; Austin, Texas; El Paso; Houston; Waco, Texas; and West Bend, Wisconsin.
Most providers that have remained open are Planned Parenthood health centers, which have the backing of the national organization and already offered a range of other services.
Others, like Dr. Darin Weyhrich, an OB-GYN in Boise, Idaho, who had performed abortions at his private practice since 2002, have also stayed open. Dr. Weyhrich now keeps his stock of abortion pills locked in a filing cabinet.
Sarah Anne Miller for The New York Times
“It’s really hard to feel that you’re not able to provide optimal care and all the services you were trained to do,” he said.
In many communities, clinics had offered the only free or low-cost access to reproductive health care. It’s one reason why some are trying to keep their doors open.
Terreisha Rancher, 26, recently sat in an exam room at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, pregnant and uninsured.
Terreisha Rancher, wearing a long blue dress, sits in a green chair inside a medical office. She holds her hand to her chin.
Ms. Rancher was stuck: A local OB-GYN office had said she needed insurance before she could come in. But to apply for Medicaid, she needed proof of her pregnancy.
A table and stool inside a medical office. A box of tissues and a cup of pencils sit on the table. Medical equipment is in the background.
At the clinic, Dr. Leah Torres gave her the paperwork she needed to apply for insurance and connected her with a dentist to help her with gum pain.
Dr. Leah Torres, wearing green scrubs, stands in the hallway of a medical office, examining a piece of paper.
“If this person wasn’t here,” Ms. Rancher said, “I don’t know what I’d be doing right now.”
A red brick building with a black-and-white sign reading “West Alabama Women’s Center.” In the foreground, a law sign reads, “Still open for non-abortion services.”
Across states with abortion bans, legislators and health care providers are preparing for more pregnancies and births.
A grid of photos of abortion clinics in nine locations. Labels indicate that three of the clinics have closed – in Little Rock, Arkansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Houston. Six of the clinics are no longer providing abortions – in Meridian, Idaho; Louisville, Kentucky; Oklahoma City; Memphis; Nashville; and Houston.
Dr. Yashica Robinson and Dalton Johnson want to transform their former abortion clinic in Huntsville into one of Alabama’s first birth centers, for patients who want to deliver outside of a hospital. They are waiting for regulators to finalize licensing requirements.
They stopped performing abortions last year but continue to run two OB-GYN offices. They have seen deliveries rise 30 percent this year.
Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times
Many of their patients have little or no insurance and face high-risk pregnancies. “They can’t travel to a state to exercise other options,” Dr. Robinson said. “Instead, they start their prenatal care reluctantly.”
Some states that restricted abortion have at the same time promised to help pregnant women and new parents.
In Texas, clinics started closing even before Roe was overturned, after the state passed a restrictive six-week ban in 2021. The state has since extended Medicaid coverage to one year after birth, and gave $100 million to “alternatives to abortion” like crisis pregnancy centers, which are largely operated by faith-based groups without medical training.
Last fall, the owners of a Texas abortion clinic sold the building to a group of local doctors. One was on the board of the McAllen Pregnancy Center, which bought the space days later.
A colorful mural painted on an outer wall of the abortion clinic shows people holding hands and the words “empowerment” and “compassion.”
The clinic’s colorful mural has been painted over. Yolanda Chapa, the center’s founder, had rites of exorcism performed inside. She will offer baby supplies, counseling and prayer.
The same building, now owned by a crisis pregnancy center, is shown with its exterior walls painted dark gray..
“We are delighted that a place primarily devoted to ending life is no longer open in our community,” said the Rev. Derlis Garcia, who is on the center’s board.
The entrance to a white and gray building has two signs in blue type that read: “McAllen Pregnancy Center” and “free sonogram and pregnancy tests.”
Many clinics had been in their communities for decades. For their supporters, the loss is greater than a building.
A grid of photos of abortion clinics in nine locations. Labels indicate that three of the clinics have closed – in Austin, Texas; and Houston. Six of the clinics are no longer providing abortions – in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Memphis; Austin, Texas; San Antonio; and Madison, Wisconsin.
Bekki Vaden, 38, was a surgical assistant at a shuttered Knoxville, Tenn., clinic that had been open since 1975. She took the job after having two abortions there. “They were so good to me when I was so alone,” she said.
Jessica Tezak for The New York Times
She now works as a truck driver and spends some of her long hours on the road crying in grief and anger, thinking about the patients she can no longer help.
“I’ve realized how quickly something can get pulled out from underneath you,” Ms. Vaden said.
In at least one case, the people who took over a former clinic said they were trying to honor the building’s history.
The day before the Dobbs decision, Tammi Kromenaker, the director of Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, N.D., closed on the purchase of a building two miles away in Moorehead, Minn.
A woman in a white checked shirt and black pants stands beside wooden framing for an unfinished wall. Pipes hang from the ceiling.
The new clinic is larger and has a private parking lot that protesters can’t enter. She started seeing patients there last August. “Our patients are still getting the same services they need,” she said.
A medical exam room with a blue exam table and computer is shown in semi-darkness. A calendar hangs on the wall.
Still, it’s been hard for Ms. Kromenaker to shake the feeling that she lost. Red River had been the only abortion provider in North Dakota for more than 20 years.
A woman in a black shirt stands before an open cabinet inside a medical exam room.
Ms. Kromenaker rents the old clinic building to an artists collective. They’ve repainted, converted the former exam rooms into studio spaces and adorned the walls with artwork for sale.
A former exam room is decorated with a hodgepodge of artwork. Inside the room, a person is using a tattoo gun on the forearm of a second person.
They added a plaque commemorating the clinic in the lobby, and kept the old sign outside. “People need to know that it existed,” said Anj Karna, who runs the collective.
A room with bright pink walls adorned with paintings, drawings and textiles. In the foreground, a table holds three red candlesticks and a paper rainbow.
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