Abortion clinic

• There were 197 abortion providers in Canada in 2001.[1]
• 34 of the 197 providers in Canada in 2001 were clinics and 167 were hospitals.[1]
• The provinces with the most providers were Ontario (76 hospitals, 6 clinics), Quebec (30 hospitals, 19 clinics), and British Columbia (37 hospitals, 3 clinics) in 2001.[1]
• The provinces and territories with the fewest providers were Prince Edward Island (none), Nunavut (one hospital), and Yukon (one hospital) in 2001.[1]

• There were 14 abortion clinics in the Netherlands in 2019.[2][3]
• In 2013, 92% of all pregnancy terminations were performed in these clinics; the other interventions were carried out by gynaecologists in hospitals.[4]^{: p. 10}
• In 2017, 30,523 women had their pregnancies terminated in the Netherlands; 11% of abortions were performed on women who travelled to the Netherlands for the treatment.[2]

• There were 1,671 abortion providers in the United States in 2014.[5]
• 267 of the 1,671 abortion providers in the U.S. in 2014 were clinics at which the majority of patient visits were for abortions. [6]
• As of 2014, the states with the most providers were California (512) and New York (218).[7]
• As of 2014, the states that only had one provider include Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.[8]
• 90% of all counties in the United States do not have a provider in 2014. [9]
• Every state (and the District of Columbia) had at least one provider in 2014. [10]
• 31% of metropolitan counties and 3% of non-metropolitan counties had a provider in 2005.[11]

An abortion clinic in Zwolle, Netherlands (2019)

Abortion was criminalised in the Netherlands in 1911; nonetheless, a demand for terminating pregnancies remained, and an illegal abortion market grew. In 1962, about 25,000 abortions were performed in the entire country, all of them illegal and unsafe. 70 amateur abortionists were sentenced that year.[12]^: 12:27 Illegal abortions were mostly performed with very risky and dangerous methods, which led to serious infections and internal bleeding. About 20 to 30 women died of complications each year, while many others were disabled for life and resigned to wheelchairs.[12]^: 10:28

In the late 1960s, the taboo on abortion was gradually broken in public discourse. More and more experts came to the point of view that abortions would happen anyway, whether or not the act was criminalised, and it was to conduct them safely for those women determined to end their pregnancy.[12]^: 12:43 In the early 1970s, the first specialised abortion clinics emerged such as in Arnhem (Mildredhuis, 1971) and Heemstede (Bloemenhove Clinic, 1973).[12]^: 16:01 By 1975, abortion clinic network Stimezo (an abbreviation of Stichting Medisch Verantwoorde Zwangerschapsonderbreking, "Medically Responsible Pregnancy Termination Foundation", set up in 1969) ran nine clinics throughout the country.[13] The government tolerated these illegal clinics until 1976, when Minister of Justice Dries van Agt tried to close the Bloemenhove Clinic, which was promptly occupied by hundreds of pro-choice activists from numerous women's rights organisations. After a two-week standoff, a judge ruled in favour of the clinic, and Van Agt had to back down from taking the clinic by force. It would take until 1984 when abortion was finally legalised after long-winded heated parliamentary debates, with high pressure from the pro-choice and pro-life camps.[13]

Between 2011 and 2016, 162 abortion clinics in the United States closed or stopped offering abortions due largely to legislative regulations enacted by Republican state lawmakers.[14] These bills, referred to as TRAP laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider) implement medically unnecessary restrictions for clinics that will be difficult or impossible for providers to meet, therefore forcing clinics to close under the guise of increasing the safety of the procedure.[15]

Access to abortions is extremely limited, particularly in rural and conservative areas. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 31% of women in rural areas traveled over 100 miles in order to receive an abortion while another 43% traveled between 50–100 miles.[16] These numbers are only increasing as more clinics are forced to close. Between 2011 and 2016 the number of abortion clinics in Texas dropped from 40 to 19[17] as a result of the state's House Bill 2, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in June 2016.[18]