Despite increases in taxpayer funding and donations from celebrities, Planned Parenthood facilities are closing rapidly throughout the country due to financial problems.
Three of the six Planned Parenthood affiliates in New Mexico are slated to close by the end of September. The abortion vendor’s Casper, Wyoming, location will also close on July 21, making Wyoming and North Dakota the first two states in the nation without Planned Parenthood clinics.
Planned Parenthood’s facilities in Parker and Longmont, Colorado, are also scheduled to close, as are four more of its Iowa clinics. Planned Parenthood and its president, Cecile Richards, blame Iowa’s closures on a new state law that redirects taxpayer funding to other community healthcare centers. Since 2010, however, 16 facilities in Iowa have closed:
Adrienne Mansanares, an official at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM), admitted to the Star-Tribune that there are other places for women to receive comprehensive reproductive health care.
“Our No. 1 priority and concern is to ensure that we have coordination of care for our patients,” Mansanares said. “We’ll be working really closely with our patients to make sure we get them connected to another provider.”
Whitney Phillips, spokesperson for PPRM, said the clinic closures in her area were due to “a shifting health care landscape nationally and in the states we serve,” and to allow the organization to “maintain a fiscally solvent operation.”
“After careful and extensive evaluation, PPRM is making some difficult but necessary organizational changes to ensure that we can continue to meet our patients’ needs in both the short and long term,” Phillips said. “This is necessary for us to position PPRM for long-term sustainability in the communities we serve.”
“Planned Parenthood’s enterprise is crumbling, even while they are still raking in over half a billion dollars a year from taxpayers,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Their abortion-centered business model isn’t just morally wrong, it’s a failure. In a market where there are so many better options, women don’t need to get their health care from Planned Parenthood.”
Dannenfelser points to Planned Parenthood’s own annual reports, which show a dramatic drop in non-abortion services, including cancer screenings, STD testing, and even contraceptive services – the last of which the organization often touts as one of its primary areas of service:
“Their latest annual report is five months overdue,” Dannenfelser continues. “We urge Congress to redirect tax dollars to community health centers that outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities by an average of 20 to one nationally.”