Planned Parenthood Shutting Down 1/3rd of Portland-Area Facilities

Planned Parenthood of Columbia Willamette in Portland, Oregon has announced that three of its nine locations will be shuttered this year due to fiscal shortfalls.

Columbia Planned Parenthood (PP) president and CEO, Stacy M. Cross, bemoaned the decision to shutter the locations and fire employees, saying the move “was difficult but necessary in order to maintain a fiscally solvent operation that continues to keep our doors open to patients in our region for the long-term.”

The offices being closed are in Clackamas, Gresham and the Salmon Creek area of Clark County, Washington, the Oregonian reported on June 3.

Along with the reduction in work force from the closures, Cross reported that workers will also be laid off in some locations that are remaining open.

“We are confident that with this realignment of resources, we can evolve our health care practices to create a sustainable model for patients today and the future, ensuring we are in a position to continue providing expert, quality health care for women, men and families in Oregon and SW Washington.” Cross said in the statement.

The group’s communication director identified new rules for pap tests, wider use of longer-term contraceptives, and a nation wide reduction in abortions as reasons for a loss of traffic necessitating the reduction in locations and employees.

The paper found that public records reveal that the income of the area PP service was $21.3 million in 2011 with operating expenses of $20.5 million. But between 2007 and 2011 donations to the group fell nearly $1.5 million.

Further, endowment figures were almost halved. In 2011 PP held some $10 million in endowments but by this year that had fallen to $5 million.

A recent study seems to show that across the country abortions are at their lowest rate since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade abortion decision. The reports show that in 2011 abortion rates were 13 percent lower than rates in 2008. Those 2011 rates, the last year about which full statistics are known, are only a bit higher than the rates measured in 1974.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com