Some US clinics stop doing abortions as ruling takes hold
Associated PressAbortion bans that were put on the books in some states in the event Roe v. Wade was overturned started automatically taking effect Friday, while clinics elsewhere — including Alabama, Texas and West Virginia — stopped performing abortions for fear of prosecution, sending women away in tears. “Some patients broke down and could not speak through their sobbing,” said Katie Quinonez, executive director of West Virginia’s lone abortion clinic, whose staff spent the day calling dozens of patients to cancel their appointments. In Alabama, the state’s three abortion clinics stopped performing the procedure for fear providers would now be prosecuted under a law dating to 1951. Carol E. Tracy, the executive director of the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia, was “absolutely furious.” “They want women to be barefoot and pregnant once again,” she said.