The Planned Parenthood abortion business closed one of its northern California centers effective yesterday. The local Six Rivers Planned Parenthood affiliated closed up shop in Weaverville, California.
“For quite some time, this health center has been struggling with decreased patient volume and increased costs,” a Planned Parenthood official told the Trinity Journal newspaper.
“We have worked hard with our Trinity County Advisory Council and the Weaverville community to brainstorm solutions, expand marketing, get creative, and do anything and everything we could to maintain the current level of service,” the official said. “We have been part of the Trinity County community for over 25 years and know that patients like you need and value our services.”
Weaverville is a community in the national forest area west of Redding in the northern part of the state too far from the Oregon border. Although the center there did not perform abortions or give out the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug, that has killed 13 women worldwide and injured another 1,100 more in the United States alone as of 2006 FDA figures, it made abortion referrals to the Planned Parenthood abortion business in Eureka.
The closing comes after Planned Parenthood of Central Texas announced last month it would close two of its centers that make abortion referrals to its main location. The affiliate of the national abortion business did not give any reasons for closing the locations in Groesbeck and Marlin, Texas.
The closings follow the permanent closure of a Planned Parenthood abortion referral center in Ohio. Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio will be closing one of its centers north of Columbus, in Galion, because it says it is has come up on financial difficulties that make it necessary to consolidate.
The Galion Health Center at 401 Harding Way East has been open for decades but, in a letter sent to the Galion Inquirer newspaper last week, Trish Malko said it would close. Malko and Tara Broderick, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio urged financial support for the troubled abortion business and said patients at the Galion clinic can go to the one it operates in Mansfield. They said the Galion center was seeing fewer clients and it required the closing of the facility.
A March report from the organization STOPP International shows that, for the fifth straight year, the number of Planned Parenthood centers has declined. In 2010, the Parenthood Federation of America opened 18 new clinics and closed 49, bringing its total clinic number down to 785 – the lowest it has been since 1986. That indicates the Planned Parenthood abortion business is closing centers faster than it can open new ones and the total number of facilities it operates has hit a 25-year low.
The abortion business ended the year with a total of 321 abortion facilities with 165 doing surgical abortions and giving out the abortion drug mifepristone, and another 156 dispensing the abortion drug but not doing surgical abortions. This represents an increase of 5.5 percent from the 304 abortion facilities it operated at the end of 2009 and, although Planned Parenthood likes to talk about the low percentage of abortions it does compared to other “services,” more than 40 percent of its centers do some type of abortion.
The STOPP report also indicates Planned Parenthood appears to have abandoned the Express Clinic concept it began in 2003, whereby it would open small storefront operations in smaller cities and rural areas where a freestanding facility would prove too costly to operate. Although some facilities still carry the “Express” name, all have returned to offering the range of services and physical exams as is done at a standard PPFA clinic, the report says.
