Missouri Planned Parenthood Found with Health Violations Celebrates Abortion Is ‘Still Here’

Pro-choice supporters pose for photos outside the Planned Parenthood Reproductive Health S
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

A Missouri Planned Parenthood abortion clinic that was found to have numerous health and safety violations is celebrating a judge’s decision to allow it to remain open.

As a tweet by Reuters showed Monday, the Reproductive Health Services (RHS) Planned Parenthood in St. Louis — the state’s only abortion clinic — displays a sign on its building celebrating the clinic is “Still Here”:

Planned Parenthood and its allies in the media have continued the narrative throughout June that the facility is a victim of the state’s health department and that it is best to have a clinic providing abortions, regardless of whether it provides substandard care.

The abortion vendor has celebrated Circuit Court Judge Michael Stelzer’s preliminary injunction that has allowed it to remain open — now until Friday — even though the state’s health department has refused to renew its license.

Stelzer previously granted Planned Parenthood’s request to seal Missouri DHSS’s “statement of deficiencies,” which pro-life watchdog group Operation Rescue received (Exhibit A) prior to the court’s order.

The list of deficiencies included the absence of a pelvic examination in a patient, which ultimately led to two failed abortion attempts; another patient’s failed abortion attempt that resulted in sepsis and hospitalization; and another botched abortion without report of complications. In addition, the list noted a failure to give informed consent to patients and the absence of a standard level of care leading to a patient’s hospitalization and status as “critically ill” when she lost “over two liters of blood” and needed a “uterine artery embolization.”

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, said Planned Parenthood has been given “preferential treatment.”

“We have already documented 74 ambulances at this Planned Parenthood,” he said about the St. Louis facility. “Judge Stelzer is making it possible for more women to suffer needlessly from substandard practices that the clinic has yet to correct.”

Pro-life leader Obianuju Ekeocha this month tweeted her disgust at Planned Parenthood’s celebratory “Still Here” sign when the facility had been found with health violations:

Planned Parenthood Advocates Missouri is urging abortion activists to call the office of Gov. Mike Parson (R) and “demand” that he renew the clinic’s license immediately — apparently regardless of health violations:

Kimberly Ross wrote at the Washington Examiner of the abortion lobby’s use of the Missouri licensure saga to show its concern for women’s “reproductive rights.”

“In reality, their unwillingness to yield shows that no amount of human suffering means anything as long as the ability to perform abortions remains unhindered,” she observed.

Judge Stelzer is allowing the Planned Parenthood clinic to remain open until Friday when the case will be turned over to the state Administrative Hearing Commission, which settles disputes between state regulators and private organizations.

Until Friday, Dr. Colleen McNicholas, attending physician at the abortion clinic, said abortion access is “hanging by a thread.”

“Abortion care is health care and patients in need of this service shouldn’t have to wait day by day wondering if they can access care tomorrow,” wrote McNicholas, according to KCUR.

“We will continue this fight in the Administrative Hearing Commission, and we won’t stop until every person can access the care they need when and where they need it,” she added.

The case is Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region v. Michael L. Parson, in Missouri Circuit Court (City of St. Louis), No. 1922-CC02395.

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