What We Do
Independent abortion care providers (Indies) provide care to the majority of people in the US who have abortions.
The sustainability and well-being of Indies is essential to ensuring access to abortion care in this country. Abortion Care Network (ACN) is dedicated to the unique needs of these providers and the people they serve.
In the 1970s, feminists and physicians started opening locally-owned abortion clinics in communities throughout the US, setting a new standard for patient-centered healthcare and laying the groundwork for affordable, exceptional outpatient specialty services within and beyond reproductive health centers. Today, independent clinics are centers of care in their communities, often providing a breadth of sexual and reproductive health services and working with their communities to ensure that services are available to those with the fewest resources. They are bold advocates in their states—often fighting for and ensuring the legal right to access abortion.
Over the last decade, abortion clinics have been closing at an alarming rate, with indie clinics most likely to be forced to close. Outright abortion bans, medically unnecessary restrictions, financial barriers, and anti-abortion extremism make it
challenging for many clinics to keep their doors open at all.
Additionally, independent providers face the same challenges that impact other small, community-based providers, including infrastructure, staffing, and legal costs. Combined with insurance reimbursement rates that are lower than the cost of providing care and increasing anti-abortion violence and extremism, it is becoming too expensive and/or logistically impossible for independent facilities to remain in business.
In every state, the challenges facing local clinics are urgent and substantial. But unlike other healthcare specialties, there is no safety net for independent abortion care providers. When clinics close, access to abortion care diminishes; people with low incomes, Black and Indigenous people and people of color, young people, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ people, and rural communities are disproportionately impacted.
When you support Abortion Care Network (ACN), you are helping us provide independent providers the tools and resources to keep exceptional, patient-centered abortion care available in communities throughout the United States. Our work includes:
