Planned Parenthood to Open Largest Abortion Business Soon in Houston, Texas

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 6, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Planned Parenthood to Open Largest Abortion Business Soon in Houston, Texas

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 6
, 2010

Houston, TX (LifeNews.com) — Planned Parenthood is planning to open its largest abortion business in the nation — a 78,000 square foot behemoth in Houston, Texas. When it does, a coalition of local and national pro-life advocates will be on hand to protest the grand opening of the massive new abortion facility.

Housed in a six-story building that formerly housed a prominent bank, Planned Parenthood’s new center in Houston dwarfs new ones in Denver (50,000 sf) and outside the Chicago area (22,000 sf) that have garnered attention.

The new center is located at 4600 Gulf Freeway on the southeast side of Houston on the way to Galveston, Texas. Ironically, the bishop of Houston-Galveston recently became the head of the pro-life office at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Lou Engle, founder of the pro-life group The Call to Conscience, which is organizing the rally to oppose the January 18 opening, spoke with CNS News.

“It’s an abortion super center,” he said.

“As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘It is time to subpoena the conscience of America,’” he said of the need to oppose the new center.

Engle said Planned Parenthood chose a location to specifically target minorities and located it in a part of town surrounded by black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

“We want to say that it’s not right to have an abortion super center that targets the minority community,” Engle said.

CNS indicates that Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, will join pro-life advocates for the opposition rally.

They will also be joined by Abby Johnson, the former director of a Planned Parenthood facility in nearby Bryan-College Station. She resigned her position after becoming pro-life following the witnessing of an ultrasound of an abortion procedure.

In previous communications, Planned Parenthood has said the new facility "will allow us to provide a safe and welcoming health care home for our current clients, and to meet the future needs of clients throughout the Houston area."

The Houston Coalition for Life told LifeNews.com previously that when the abortion business opens "Houston will have the notoriety of having the largest freestanding abortion facility in the Western Hemisphere."

"This six-story building is 78,000 square feet, and the ambulatory surgical center will take up the entire third floor," the group added. "This is where unborn babies up to 25 weeks will be aborted. This is more than half way through a woman’s pregnancy."

The group indicates Sterling Bank sold the building to Planned Parenthood and it has urged local pro-life advocates to write the bank in response.

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