The clinic was coastal Georgia’s sole surgical abortion provider.
QUICK FACTS:
- Savannah Medical Clinic (SMC) is closing its doors after 40 years of facilitating the death of unborn children.
- SMC, which is the Georgia cost’s only surgical abortion clinic, is closing despite abortion still being legal up until 20 weeks in the state, at least for now.
- The clinic saw its last patient on Friday, the same day the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade was overturned by the United States Supreme Court.
- “After 40 years of serving Coastal Georgia in providing abortion services, Savannah Medical Clinic is sad to announce we have closed our office and are no longer taking appointments,” the clinic’s website states.
ABORTION IN GEORGIA:
- The state of Georgia still allows abortions up to 20 weeks, despite the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, which removed the federal protection of abortion allowing access nationwide.
- In 2019, a federal court blocked the “heartbeat” abortion bill from being enacted which would have ended abortion after about six weeks of gestation, when the first heartbeat of an unborn child is detectable.
- However, that injunction is likely to be repealed, allowing the ban to take effect, in light of the change in federal protections for abortion rights.
BACKGROUND:
- In 2020, 31,248 unborn babies were aborted in Georgia, according to data provided by the state health department.
- Over 60% of the unborn children aborted were outside of the six-week gestation period, meaning that Georgia’s paused abortion law will likely save tens of thousands of lives every year.
