A Planned Parenthood in Florida is the latest in a string of abortion facilities to announce that they will be closing their doors this year.
The abortion group’s Winter Haven, Florida abortion clinic recently shut down after 23 years of business as part of a merger with Planned Parenthood abortion centers in Orlando and Collier County, The Ledger reports.
Like Planned Parenthood abortion facilities that closed recently in Virginia and Georgia, the reasons for the Winter Haven facility closure were financial.
“We had known it was heading that way just because of finances, and so it finally came to the point there just had to be some changes made,” said Sheryl Strang, a former board member for the Florida abortion affiliate. “We are saddened that we no longer have a clinic in Winter Haven, but on the positive side all the staff has been redirected to either Kissimmee or Tampa and our client base is served at those two sources.”
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Planned Parenthood still operates a second clinic near Winter Haven that refers women for abortions but does not do them there, the report states. Another abortion business not affiliated with Planned Parenthood still is operating in the area, according to the report.
The closure is part of a larger trend that LifeNews reported about last week. Abortion clinics are closing at a record pace across the country as they fail to meet new health and safety requirements and the demand for their business drops, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
While abortion activists blame the closures on laws that require basic health and safety protections for patients, the report indicates that many factors are involved, including the lack of business and fewer doctors willing to do abortions. These numbers, coupled with plunging national abortion statistics, point to the fact that fewer women are having abortions. As modern technology shows clear pictures of unborn babies in the womb, and as more pro-life groups offer women alternatives to abortion, more women have access to the education and resources to choose life for their unborn babies.
Between 2011 and 2015, at least 162 abortion clinics have shut or stopped doing abortions in the U.S.; 21 new abortion clinics opened in that same time period, the report states. The top four states that saw abortion clinics close were Texas with 30-plus, Iowa with 14, Michigan with 13 and California with 12, according to the report. A report from Operation Rescue also showed 53 abortion clinics closed in 2015 alone.
Lack of business has been a major factor in the closing of abortion clinics, according to the Bloomberg report. The news group found that of the 162 abortion clinics that closed, 19 percent were in counties with fewer than 100,000 people. This seems to indicate that rural abortion clinics aren’t doing as well financially.
In February, Planned Parenthood abortion facilities in Blacksburg, Virginia and Augusta, Georgia also announced that they were closing because they were losing business, LifeNews reported. And a Bridgeport, Connecticut abortion clinic told Bloomberg it closed in 2015 because of reduced demand.
An independent abortion facility in Marietta, Georgia also announced it was closing this week, possibly in connection to a lawsuit against it, LifeNews reported.
