No-Choice: 87% Of U.S. Counties Have No Access To Abortion Clinic (VIDEO)

There are three states in the country that have only one abortion clinic, Rachel Maddow reported on MSNBC last night. Others heavily restrict abortion, ban abortions in clinics or any facility that receives public funds, or ban abortion counseling or clinic recommendations. The effect, she explained, is that in 87% of all U.S. counties it is not possible to get an abortion. "Why bother making it illegal if you can just make it impossible to get?"

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Comments

[tbone99]

11:43 AM on 06/03/2009

A quiet war against abortion rights is being conducted by many local governments in the United States. Cities and counties are placing repressive legal restrictions on abortion providers under the guise of women’s health laws. These restrictions can include: width of hallways, jet and angle type of drinking fountains, the heights of ceilings, and how long one must wait between initially seeing the doctor and when the procedure can be performed.

These legal ordinances are known as TRAP laws. TRAP stands for Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. These laws attempt to restrict all aspects of the physical environment related to an abortion. While called women’s health laws, they are seldom applied to any medical facility other than abortion clinics. The goal of TRAP laws is to discourage and make extremely difficult a woman’s legal right to choose abortion. In the words of one right-to-life leader, the idea is to create an environment “where abortion may indeed be perfectly legal, but no one can get one.”

TRAP laws have been passed in at least 15 states .Complying with TRAP laws can be very expensive. Remodeling modifications such as hallway width, angle and jet types for drinking fountains, ceiling height, doorway width, counseling room dimensions, air-circulation rates, outdoor weed-control practices, and separate changing rooms for men have resulted in the closing of cash-poor abortion clinics.Often the clinic is forced to cease operating altogether.

[Vegan Valorie]

10:19 AM on 06/03/2009

87% of the US does not have coat hangers?

[kiwiman122]

04:41 AM on 06/03/2009

I live in a county with at least 20 clinics where that could happen. Why do people at MSNBC lie without actual facts all the time...
Maddow is a very intelligent person.........I wish she could be open-minded and not swayed the ideals of her contract. The contract from a network that has no HD transmission. hahahahahahahahahah

[Nicon]

04:27 PM on 06/03/2009

1. you don't live in all of America, and 2. Most of America looks nothing like where you live.

and 3, why in the world would you want cable news in HD?

[Guin White]

10:50 PM on 06/14/2009

Threats against abortion providers and the inaccessibility of services to more than 82% of the country are completely unacceptable. The terrorist tactics Operation Rescue and similar groups use are illegal and must be stopped. Abortion is legal in this country, while murder, bombings, arson, threats of violence, battery and stalking are all ILLEGAL. Any other group would be considered a terrorist threat and arrested. By law, our government is implored to stand up to these bullies and protect the rights of medical professionals and patients.

[kiwiman122]

04:36 AM on 06/03/2009

She is obviously reading that off of an uncredited source. Abortion is legal in every single state............she is talking about late term abortion. Which is the abortion of a child that is already viable.

[Tommygun264]

07:41 AM on 06/03/2009

Yeah, Rachel Maddow NEVER does her homework, right? Get real. Just because something is legal does not mean it is readily available. More than two decades of domestic terrorism, seven murders, eleven attempted murders, and scores of bombings and arson attacks have had a chilling effect, forcing doctors who fear for their safety and that of their families to quit performing legal medical procedures and putting clinics out of business. Not all women's health clinics have doctors on staff to perform abortions, so they offer birth control and family planning services.

[Beachchick]

08:36 AM on 06/03/2009

Actually, Rachel Maddow is reporting the facts. Frontline has a great documentary on this topic.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/clinic/interviews/

[Disuberence]

01:18 AM on 06/03/2009

This is definitely a problem. Imagine if 87% of US counties had no access to chemotherapy.

[Beachchick]

12:31 AM on 06/03/2009

I have to commend Rachel Maddow for focusing on this extremely important issue with facts and rational.

I watched Bill O’Reilly’s slanderous rant against NBC and hope that NBC and other news outlets and journalists who care about this country to please stand up to Bill O’Reilly. Whenever any honest criticism or even a hint of criticism is leveled against O’Reilly and Fox, the response is always the same: bully, harass, name call, and intimidate the reporter or network that levied the criticism. This is free speech? Harass and intimidate everyone else for their free speech.

There is desperate need for media reform, and I believe it is one of the most important issues facing our society if we want to save American democracy and live in a civilized society.

[tommy8]

11:00 PM on 06/02/2009

OMG, you just might need to travel a little bit to have an abortion. Cry me a river.

[anothervoice2]

11:15 PM on 06/02/2009

Why are there so many hospitals? We can save a whole bunch of $ in healthcare costs if there were fewer hospitals and clinics. For those people who get ill or need medical attention?Too bad.

[Tommygun264]

07:47 AM on 06/03/2009

Yes, I cry for the women who enter their seventh month of pregnancy and are told that the child they carry is so deformed that it will be stillborn, but because of callous, ignorant people who believe the fairytale that every fetus will live if only given the chance, they will have to carry the baby to full term, then go through labor to give birth to a dead child. And I pity people like you who lack basic human empathy.

[tommy8]

01:56 AM on 06/04/2009

You know the case you describe happens only a small fraction of the time. Nice try though.

[Bobrobert]

10:39 PM on 06/02/2009

OH MY GOD...

May doctors have seen the light...

Could it be that doctors for the most part take the belief to "First do no harm." to mean they should not perform abortions that might harm a child in the mothers womb????

[tbone99]

11:13 PM on 06/02/2009

Or could it be they are afraid of getting shot and harassed by Christian terrorists?

[swift goat pet for truth]

12:24 AM on 06/03/2009

And a woman who is pregnant and wants a child but finds out she has cancer and need chemo that will kill the fetus should do... what?

[Bobrobert]

10:24 PM on 06/02/2009

roflmao

No one here wants to believe that there are so many places without abortion clinics because there are so few people wanting abortions?????

Abortion clinics are going anywhere they can make money... if 87% of the counties don't have them... there is no demand for them.

I really don't think anyone can justify an abortion clinic that will only do 1 or 2 abortions a year.

There are alot of backward places that teach their kids that all life should be protected... even children in the womb.

[hereinlou]

11:42 PM on 06/02/2009

There are many, including myself... (who carried to children to term)... that do not believe a fetus is the same as a child. Don't kid yourself, there is and always will be a demand for women to have reproduction options.

[Solsister]

10:41 AM on 06/03/2009

I had two abortions and then gave birth to a wonderful girl who is now 17. I do not believe that a fetus is a baby. And I want my daughter to have access to safe, legal abortion if that is her desire.

That said, she and I have had many discussions about birth control in my effort to make SURE she never needs to make that decision. Every child should be a wanted child, and I would like to see abortions be safe, legal and RARE!

Yet I see the very same people who are anti-abortion voting against sex education. WTF??!! Makes me wonder if they aren't just anti-woman.

[roald]

09:41 AM on 06/03/2009

I hope for the day when this operation is rarely needed. Today is not that day. There is demand, but many health care workers are not willing to put their lives and the lives of their families and friends on the line to defy the terrorists.

[SENCvoter]

09:49 AM on 06/03/2009

I totally agree there. Have an effective sex-ed implemented in schools so that these procedures will no longer be necessary.

[POINT84]

09:35 PM on 06/02/2009

Hmm, pro choice over here. But I feel a little weird putting convenience and abortion in the same sentence...idk, is that wrong?

[Bobrobert]

10:26 PM on 06/02/2009

A breath of fresh air...

Thank you!!!

[tbone99]

11:19 PM on 06/02/2009

Not when you are talking about poor and working women who don't have reliable transportation or can't get off work , women who need to arrange for childcare, and women who may need to return for after care or contraceptives.

[jimrs6]

09:09 PM on 06/02/2009

Maddow neglects to explain why all those women are trapped in their counties. All those fences and checkpoints keep them locked in.

[Vurz]

05:29 AM on 06/03/2009

Not everyone has a car or access to public transportation.

[Vegan Valorie]

07:24 PM on 06/02/2009

This is unacceptable. We need abortion rates on the rise, not on the decline.

Obama needs to do something to force 100% of America to have drive through, low cost abortions.

We need to advertise abortion on TV, and encourage young girls to get pregnant just to have an abortion.

[anothervoice2]

09:04 PM on 06/02/2009

Why bother? Women are here only to breed after all. Even if it means their health is in danger. The almighty fetus is of critical importance.
Not after it is born though. Then jail, poverty & violence are all okay. Taking care of a human being is considered "socialism" - ewww!

[tbone99]

09:14 PM on 06/02/2009

Don't worry with the economy going the way it is, the increase in homelessness and joblessness, lack of healthcare that goes with that and resulting increased divorce we will see a a big rise .

Economics has more to do with abortion than most other factors.

[anothervoice2]

09:17 PM on 06/02/2009

And jail the rest of those unlucky suckers that are born into poverty or violence! Why not!

[rwext]

04:34 PM on 06/02/2009

Now , I bet Olbermann could come up with a WTF moment that would denounce everything Rachel said

[RachelMc]

03:59 PM on 06/02/2009

hey pro-birth, pro-fetus, anti-choice, anti-abortion, anti-women, zealots, kick rocks...

[jckapla]

04:48 PM on 06/02/2009

I'm curious...

Does it bother you that in the United States, black children are aborted at 5 times the rate as white children?

Does it bother you that eugenic principles drove Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger?

Does it bother you that she once wrote:

"We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the [black] population." (word replaced for the sake of HP filters)

[Broughton]

05:28 PM on 06/02/2009

How many times are you going to repeat you post. This article don't have anything to do with race, so it out of your repeating post. big-got.

[Hollywooddeed]

05:30 PM on 06/02/2009

So you've got the talking points down. Yawn.

[Bobrobert]

03:47 PM on 06/02/2009

roflmao...

Separation of church and state... made America what it is today... a pathetic world power that tortures POW's and kills children because woman are not capable of bringing them up in a civilized manner.

Yep... kill the children... torture the POW's ... makes folks proud it does.

roflmao... NOTHING to brag about there!!!

[tbone99]

09:08 PM on 06/02/2009

Imagine what it would be like if we were a 100% theocracy!!
Religious people support torture by far over non religious types.
They have that extra zeal to punish someone who doesn't believe in their God.

Inquisition anyone?

[Disuberence]

01:19 AM on 06/03/2009

Imagine what it would be like if we were a 100% theocracy!!

See: Iran