A new all-trimester abortion clinic is aiming to open in 2026 in New Jersey, making it one of the few clinics nationwide and one of the only facilities in the northeast that will perform abortions through the third trimester of pregnancy.
New Jersey is one of only nine states, along with Washington, D.C., that have no gestational age limits on abortion, but the Garden State currently does not have a facility that will perform abortion services past 28 weeks of pregnancy, the start of the third trimester.
The founders of the Luminosas Wellness Collective, Dr. Kristyn Brandi and Nurse Practitioner Catherine Obando, told local news outlet NJ.com that they hope to change that by opening their clinic by summer 2026 in Hudson County, between Newark and New York City.
Abortion later in pregnancy, after 21 weeks, often described with the controversial term “late-term abortion,” occurs in less than 1% of the more than 1 million abortions in the United States each year, according to information collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 48 reporting jurisdictions.
But later-in-pregnancy abortion has received significant pushback from anti-abortion advocates because, although a fetus is considered “full term” at 38 weeks of pregnancy, infants given proper medical care can survive when born several months premature.
A study from 2022 found that more than 49% of infants born alive at 23 weeks of gestation survived. Roughly 95% of infants survived when born at 28 weeks, the start of the third trimester.
Tessa Cox, senior researcher for the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, told the Washington Examiner that the clinicians’ plan is “heartbreaking and gruesome.”
“Research shows that many late-term abortions in the final months of pregnancy are performed for similar reasons as abortions earlier in pregnancy, and the abortion center cofounder herself acknowledges that they will perform late-term abortions for the ‘same circumstances’ as earlier abortions,” said Cox.
According to the Luminosas website, the clinicians plan to provide “all-trimester abortion care” so that patients “can safely access this crucial service without judgment.”
The clinic is also slated to provide hormone therapy and mental health referrals for trans-identifying patients as well as comprehensive gynecological services “for women and gender expansive folx with uteri.”
“New Jerseyans shouldn’t have to leave their state to get the care that they need,” Obando told the local news outlet.
Brandi and Obando told the local news outlet that they have raised nearly $20,000 from individual donors, but most of their efforts will be funded by grants and donor contributions. LWC did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for more information on which grants they intend to apply for.
The opening of the new clinic cuts against the trend of more than 50 Planned Parenthood abortion clinic closures in 2025. Closures have ramped up significantly since Republicans voted this summer to prohibit funding for one year for large abortion providers.
Abortion in New Jersey
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed a bill passed in January 2022 eliminating all gestational age limits on abortion in the state, saying that the legislation allows “each individual person to make their reproductive choices for themselves.”
Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned the federal constitutional right to an abortion, New Jersey became a destination for residents of other states seeking to obtain an abortion that had been entirely banned or limited where they live.
In November 2023, Rutgers School of Public Health and the New Jersey Family Planning League reported that the abortion rate in the Garden State in 2020 was 29.2 per 1,000 women. That was more than twice the national rate of 14.4, making it the sixth-largest number of abortions in any state.
Although the Rutgers study only examined data from 2013 to 2020, the authors of the report noted that these figures likely increased following the Dobbs decision, but the figures are murky because New Jersey does not report abortion statistics to the CDC.
Kelsey Pritchard, political communications director for the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the Washington Examiner that it’s “not surprising” at news of the facility opening.
“With at least 1.1 million abortions a year in America, this underscores the need for national leadership to protect unborn babies. We shouldn’t be in the company of human rights violators like Communist China with radical abortion policies, but these Democrat states aren’t going to stop unless they are reined in,” said Pritchard.
Most public opinion polling on abortion only asks respondents about whether or not laws should restrict abortion, not when to draw the cutoff line.
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A Harvard Harris Poll from 2023, which asked when in pregnancy a woman should “have the sole right to decide whether to have an abortion, found that only 15% of respondents supported abortion up to 38 weeks of pregnancy, which is considered full term.
Only 12% of respondents reported supporting abortion for any reason up to 24 weeks of gestation, the average age medical professionals estimate a fetus can survive outside of the womb.
