Facility Closings Limit Access To Abortion Services In Cape Cod, Mass., Area

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 10 Nov 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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Five Massachusetts outpatient women's health facilities that provided abortion services have closed since 2002, leaving women on Cape Cod, Mass., without local access to the procedure, according to a recent report by NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, the Barnstable Patriot reports. Andrea Miller, executive director of NARAL Massachusetts, said the closures affect approximately 125,000 women of reproductive age in Barnstable, Dukes, Franklin, Hampshire, Nantucket and Plymouth counties.

Miller said transportation issues can "be a tremendous challenge to obtain[ing] timely care" for women who "don't have easy access to public transportation, don't have a car, or can't get away due to family obligations." Even if women do have transportation, "it can take a couple of weeks to get an appointment," Miller added.

Miller attributed the closings in Massachusetts to two factors: a national decline in the number of physicians who become ob-gyns and the threat of violent and non-violent actions against abortion providers. Of physicians who become ob-gyns, a small proportion offer abortion services. "Physicians are not (generally) trained in providing this care, even though many of the techniques involved in terminating a pregnancy are the same as those used to manage complications during a pregnancy," she said. For a physician to provide abortion care is an "extraordinary challenge and takes tremendous courage," largely because offering such services "is still stigmatized," according to Miller. She added, "Massachusetts has been at the forefront in improving access to health care, but when it comes to abortion care, we're going in the opposite direction, and that's of deep concern" (Szmit, Barnstable Patriot, 11/6).

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