Abortion clinics

An abortion clinic is a medical facility that provides abortions. Such clinics may be public medical centers, private medical practices or nonprofit organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

Abortion clinics have frequently been the site of protests by anti-abortion activists. Protesters often engage in what is known as "sidewalk counseling", in which they warn people entering the clinic about alleged risks of abortion, attempt to offer alternatives to abortion or show pictures of fetuses. In 1985, 85% of abortion providers were experiencing either picketing, clinic blockades or invasion of the facility, with 19% or providers receiving bomb threats and 16% were picketed at their homes . In 2000 82% of facilities received protests with 61% receiving 20 or more pickets.

The 2007 film Juno contains an example of such protest. The protagonist enters a clinic with the purpose of procuring an abortion, but sees a fellow student protesting outside the clinic who tells her that the fetus "has fingernails". This causes Juno to change her mind about having an abortion, and she leaves the clinic, with her friend calling out to her, "God appreciates your miracle."

Another tactic in which protestors film or photograph patients entering the clinic utilizes the societal stigma surrounding abortion and attempts to expose or shame women who are seeking the procedure.Anti-abortion activists have also attempted to access abortion clinic medical records by breaking into dumpsters, proposing state legislation that would require clinics to provide information regarding their patients to the government and hacking online databases containing confidential patient information.

In some countries, a buffer zone is enforced to prevent protesters from standing within a certain distance of the clinic entrance. In the United States these buffer zones have been the subject of many lawsuits and legislative actions on both statewide and national levels. In 2014 the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts bill that had legalized a 35 foot buffer zone around abortion clinics in the state in 2007.

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