For Abortion Providers, a Tough Business Gets Even Tougher

Providing abortion services has always been a difficult business, with tiny-to-nonexistent profit margins and often-challenging logistical obstacles. And the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson two years ago, which eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, has made the landscape of reproductive services even tougher.

The fall of Roe v. Wade has pushed many abortion clinics to explore alternative markets for their services. Some clinics are moving to abortion-rights states or expanding their presence there, hoping to meet the needs of a more concentrated customer base. According to a recent analysis by The New York Times, out-of-state travel for abortions more than doubled in 2023 compared with travel in 2019, and made up nearly a fifth of recorded abortions.

Caitlin Myers, a professor of economics at Middlebury College who tracks clinic openings and closures nationwide, estimated that at least 12 new clinics opened directly in response to Dobbs and another six relocated after abortion was banned in their states.

Many clinics are finding out, however, that blue states can often be almost as hostile to their presence as red ones.

In September 2022, Dr. Matthew Reeves signed a lease for a new branch of the DuPont Clinic in Beverly Hills, Calif., as he sought to expand his reproductive health care clinic beyond its original location in Washington, D.C. In January of that year, as the future of Roe v. Wade looked increasingly uncertain, Dr. Reeves and Jennefer Russo, the chief medical officer of DuPont Clinic, had begun to think about opening an additional practice in a state that allowed access to abortions

“Dobbs was percolating and it became apparent that the Supreme Court was likely to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Dr. Russo said in an interview earlier this year. “Our thinking was that patients could come to L.A. if they lived west of the Mississippi.”