Abortion clinic that opened days after Roe fell is inundated with pro-life visitors.
Linda Smith, president of Reproductive Health Services Clinic, said the number of women seeking abortion at her facility grew by 20 percent in the last month; many times the number of women in the past.
“We had a whole new group of women come in,” she said.
The clinic is one of three in the state. Another is Planned Parenthood of North Carolina, which also saw a 20 percent increase in women seeking abortions in the last month, but by a smaller amount of women at the clinic itself, Smith said.
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Last month, legislators were planning to approve a nearly $300 million abortion provision in the state budget, a measure that would have prohibited the state from defunding Planned Parenthood. The state senate approved the measure on Monday on a 3-3 vote, but it stalled after it failed in the House.
“I don’t think any politician, even our own, or our governor, should decide that we have to put a woman’s life in jeopardy,” said Rep. Bill Broughton, R-Pender, one of the legislators who opposed abortion funding in the budget, explaining his vote.
“Our job is not to pick and choose which parts of the budget we can get through while protecting the other parts we cannot,” he said.
Planned Parenthood was one of the groups that opposed the measure.
Planned Parenthood spokesperson Shari Satz said the group has not seen an increase in the number of abortion services that it provides since the last fiscal year, when it provided more than 9,000 abortions a year.
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But others are not so sure.
The clinics in Nash and Iredell counties have seen more women seeking abortions since the Supreme Court struck down abortion restrictions in Roe v. Wade in 1973, said Mary Staley, president of the Association of Reproductive Health Providers.
“Over the last year and a half, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of women seeking abortion services,” she said. “Our offices have not been inundated in the same way, but our
