BRAVE MAG

Dozens of abortion clinics closed in the US after the Supreme Court Dobbs decision revoked the federal right to an abortion in June 2022 — mostly in states that enacted bans. But the churn has continued, leaving even states with some of the most protective abortion policies to do more with less.

There were 753 brick-and-mortar abortion clinics in the US at the end of 2025, according toa new reportby the Guttmacher Institute — ​54 fewer than in ​2020, including a net loss of 12 abortion clinics since March 2024.

"Running a clinic in an environment like we have today is oftentimes not sustainable," said ​Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation. Both financial and community support play critical roles, she said.

In New York, abortion is legal and protected; voters enshrined the right to abortion in the state's constitution in 2024. But the state has eight fewer abortion clinics than it did at the start of 2024, Guttmacher data shows, one of the most significant decreases in that timeframe nationwide.

Among the clinics that closed last year was a Planned Parenthood in New York City, the nonprofit's only location in Manhattan.

The closure was "a big blow," said Chelsea Williams-Diggs, executive director of the New York Abortion Access Fund.

"All clinic closures are a travesty," she said. "But the Planned Parenthood on Bleecker Street was a powerhouse of a clinic that was able to do so much for folks."

Planned Parenthood typically accepts a wider set of insurance coverage than smaller independent clinics can, and locations in New York could often enroll eligible patients in Medicaid on the same day as their appointment. The clinic in Manhattan was also one of a small and shrinking number that provide abortions after the first trimester, which can be particularly expensive.

"That has direct impacts on abortion access and on abortion funds," Williams-Diggs said. "If more folks don't have health insurance, if more folks are strained economically, that means more folks will be calling NYAAF to help them pay for an essential health care service."

In a statement about the closure, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York said that "the gap between inflation and stagnant reimbursement rates has forced us to make difficult but necessary decisions."

Additionalmoves by the Trump administrationhave further strained clinics, including a block on Medicaid reimbursement to large abortion providers. Planned Parenthood closed more than 50 health centers last year, some of which provided abortion care.

Clinics are left with "unsustainable financial realities," said Angela Vasquez-Giroux, vice president of communications for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

"When a health center is forced to close, all patients lose access to their trusted provider, and entire communities are left unable to get high-quality reproductive health care, including abortion in many places," she said. "These are not easy decisions to make."

It's important to track changes to the number of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics in the US, said ​Rachel Jones, a principal research scientist with Guttmacher and lead author of the new report. But the overall change in the number of clinics is only one measure of abortion access that can mask a lot of nuance, she said.

"If it's a place that doesn't advertise that they provide abortion care, then it's not really accessible to a lot of people. If it's a place that only takes private health insurance or you have to be a pre-existing client, that's not necessarily going to make abortion care accessible to people," Jones said. "If you want a procedural abortion and they only offer medication abortion then you might still have to travel outside of your community or even to another state to access care."

Since the Dobbs decision, the number of people who travel out-of-state for abortion care each year has doubled — and about a quarter of those who travel go to Illinois.

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The state has become a critical access point for abortion care, welcoming tens of thousands of patients from other states each year — but there are fewer clinics to serve this surge in patients. Illinois had 31 brick-and-mortar abortion clinics at the end of 2025, two fewer than in March 2024, according to the new Guttmacher report.

However, experts say that a strong network of support from the community and policymakers make Illinois particularly resilient. So while number of clinics in the state dropped overall, there were some important additions.

Hope Clinic opened a second location in Illinois last summer, offering abortions up to 34 weeks and other reproductive health care services in the uptown neighborhood of Chicago.

Clinic co-owner Julie Burkhart said that the team started talking about where another clinic might be needed in the country soon after the Dobbs decision, but it took nearly three full years to open their doors in Chicago. About half of that time was spent on construction after purchasing a building.

"We took a look around the country to see where abortion care, specifically later in pregnancy, would be needed and essential for people in this country, and it seemed that Chicago, was the best point for us to locate a new clinic," Burkhart said. "But these projects definitely don't happen overnight."

Telehealth abortion — with medication abortion provided to patients through the mail — has become increasingly common since it first became an option in late 2021.

In the first half of 2025, more than a quarter of all abortions within the US health care system were provided via telehealth, up from less than 10% in the first half of 2023, according todata from #WeCount, a project sponsored by the Society of Family Planning.

But the vast majority of abortions still happen in person, sometimes because of individual preference and sometimes because it's necessary.

And experts say that later abortions that require in-person care are becoming more common amid post-Dobbs restrictions.

"When there are abortion bans and people can't get access to the care they need earlier in pregnancy, that doesn't necessarily stop their need for that care," Fonteno said. "So one of the outcomes of abortion bans is seeing people be pushed further into their pregnancy by the time they get the care that they need, so we are seeing more providers focus on sort of this specialty form of abortion care."

Hope Clinics in Illinois have seen patients from 28 different states, Burkhart said.

"I think that that really illustrates how critical our clinics are," she said.

There is also concern among abortion advocates that the federal government may put new limits on access to medication abortion, which could further strain clinic resources.

The Trump administration isconducting its own reviewabout the safety and efficacy of one of the drugs used in medication abortion to investigate how it can be safely dispensed, despite clinical studies and decades of use that have established the drug's safety and effectiveness.

But providers are already thinking through possible contingency plans, Fonteno said.

"One of the things that is so incredible about abortion providers is that there's a lot of resilience and a lot of energy to continue to innovate and think about different ways to provide care," Fonteno said. "Brick-and-mortar clinics will always have a place in communities across the country."

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CHICAGO (AP) — From jokes about his well-known stubbornness to tears grieving the loss of a parent, the adult children of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. gave an emotional tribute Wednesday honoring the legacy of the late civil rights icon, a day after his death.

Jesse Jackson

Jackson died Tuesdayat his home in Chicago after battling arare neurological disorderthat affected his ability to move and speak. Standing on the steps outside his longtime Chicago home, five of his children, including U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, remembered him not only for his decades-long work in civil rights but also for his role as spiritual leader and father.

"Our father is a man who dedicated his life to public service to gain, protect and defend civil rights and human rights to make our nation better, to make the world more just, our people better neighbors with each other," said his youngest son, Yusef Jackson, fighting back tears at times.

The family said details on funeral arrangements for Jackson would be announced at a later time, but services will begin next week, with him lying in repose at the headquarters of the organization he founded, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago, which his son Yusef oversees. Services will follow at a church large enough to accommodate expected crowds.

Jackson rose to prominence six decades ago as a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., joining thevoting rights marchKing led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King later dispatched Jackson to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers.

Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was slain.

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Remembrances have poured in worldwide for Jackson, including flowers left outside the home where large portraits of a smiling Jackson had been placed. But his children said he was a family man first.

"Our father took fatherhood very seriously," his eldest child, Santita Jackson, said. "It was his charge to keep."

His children's reflections were poetic in the style of the late civil rights icon — filled with prayer, tears and a few chuckles, including about disagreements that occur when growing up in a large, lively family.

His eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr.,a former congressman, said his father's funeral services would welcome all, "Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative, right wing, left wing — because his life is broad enough to cover the full spectrum of what it means to be an American."

The family asked only that those attending be respectful.

"If his life becomes a turning point in our national political discourse, amen," he said. "His last breath is not his last breath."

School districts across the country are reconsidering their picture day partnerships after social media posts pointed to a link between a major school photo company and a billionaire investor found in the Justice Department's files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

At least 10 districts across four states have canceled or paused their contracts with Lifetouch, the nation's largest school photographer. Other districts have announced they still plan to work with the company, while conducting ongoing reviews to ensure it is in the best interest of their students.

The controversy centers around Leon Black, who was an associate of Epstein's and the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, an investment fund that bought Lifetouch's parent company, Shutterfly, in September 2019.

In recent weeks, viral posts on Facebook and elsewhere have called Lifetouch's proximity to Epstein's orbit a "parental red flag,"and have warned families against allowing their children's photos and data to bekept by a company that could have been linkedto Epstein. There has been no evidence that has emerged that any children's photos were accessed inappropriately as news organizations review the thousands of Epstein documents released by the Department of Justice, and Lifetouch says on its website that when a student's photo is taken, "that image is safeguarded for families and schools, only, with no exceptions."

Lifetouch has called the alleged ties to Epstein "completely false." The company said it is committed to students' privacy and added that the timeline of events does not support a direct connection: Apollo's acquisition of Shutterfly came two months after Epstein was jailed on federal sex trafficking charges and a month after his suicide while awaiting trial.

"No Lifetouch executives have ever had any relationship or contact with Epstein and we have never shared student images with any third party, including Apollo," the company said in an email. "Apollo and its funds also have no role in Lifetouch's daily operations and have no access to student images."

Epstein and Black intersected as far back as 2001, when Epstein served as the director of Black's family foundation, a family statement in the Epstein files shows. Emails and texts in the trove of documents released by the Justice Department show the two had meetings over the years and indicate that Black received financial advice from Epstein. Black's full nameappears in the Epstein filesmore than 8,200 times, though some records may be duplicative.

Through his attorneys, Black declined to comment on Lifetouch.Citing health problemsthat he said were exacerbated by the public scrutiny over his dealings with Epstein, Black left Apollo Global Management in 2021, two years after the fund acquired Lifetouch's parent company.

Black's lawyer, Susan Estrich, has previously denied wrongdoing on his behalf.

Nonetheless, some families with schoolchildren feel uncomfortable.

East Texas mother Brittney McLain, who has three daughters, said she asked her children's school to cut ties with Lifetouch after she read about Shutterfly and Apollo's connection. When her kids' district, Malakoff Independent School District, announced last week that it was canceling Lifetouch's spring portraits, McLain was relieved — despite previously trusting the Lifetouch brand.

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"It just feels tainted," she said in a phone interview. "You have images, plus kids, plus data, that exist anywhere near corruption, and most parents — especially mothers — want distance."

Social media posts linking Lifetouch to Epstein and to broader conspiracy theories began to take off earlier this month. In one post onFeb. 3, an X account sympathetic to theunfounded QAnonandPizzagate conspiracy theoriesposted an 18-minute video that claimed Lifetouch, along with several other major brands, including Chuck E. Cheese, were part of a global child trafficking ring connected to Epstein. (In an email, Chuck E. Cheese said "There is no story here" and said its CEO was in the Epstein files only on a forwardedlist of conference speakersfrom 2018.)

NBC News identifiedseveral Feb. 5 postson Facebookand Xfrom accounts with as many as 324,000 followers that alleged photos of children taken by Lifetouch were at risk. Many Facebook posts used identical language, urging parents to "Ask questions" and "Protect your kids."One X postalone received 1.4 million views.

As online discussion increased, awidely-read Reddit postlast week from a self-identified teacher said the Epstein link caused their school to cancel picture day. The Reddit user did not identify the district but, by then, local news outlets in multiple states had reported that schools in their communities were scrambling to address parental concerns about Lifetouch.

NBC News reached out to 10 school districts in states including Texas, Arizona, Michigan and New Jersey that have announced they are canceling or suspending their contracts with Lifetouch. None responded other than Malakoff, which said in an email that "after feedback from our parents, we have decided to keep all photos in-house for the time being."

Lifetouch photographs more than 25 million students each year at over 50,000 schools,according to its website. The 90-year-old company has gone viral for more light-hearted matters in the past — such as whether the laser-themed photo backgrounds it offered in the 1980s were too corny.

Some school districts are still open to using Lifetouch despite the recent controversy. In California, Alisal Union School District administrators said they are figuring out how to proceed.

"The Alisal Union School District takes very seriously its responsibility to protect the safety and security of its students and families," the district said, adding: "A decision like that must be made through consultation with a variety of stakeholders, including parents, staff, and its Board members."

And at the 32,000-student Weber School District in Utah, public information officer Lane Findlay said it has been "evaluating the situation" since receiving a few concerns from parents. After speaking with a contact for Lifetouch in Utah, the district felt confident that students' information was safe.

"Whatever that connection is, it is so far removed from where we're at locally. It's just such a jump," Findlay said. "We're comfortable, confident that there's been no compromise of any type of student data, student photos, and we are going to continue our relationship with Lifetouch."

But McLain, the Texas mother of three, does not feel she can trust the photography company.

"I understand that there may or may not be a direct or current connection, but I think for many parents, that doesn't erase the discomfort," she said, "Even the perception of association matters when children are involved."