Planned Parenthood Closes Abortion Center in Waco, Texas

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 4, 2012   |   6:32PM   |   Waco, TX

The Planned Parenthood abortion business has closed one of its centers in Waco, Texas that does abortions. The closing of one facility and consolidation at another location comes after the abortion business laid off staff this fall.

These decisions follow Texas’ decision to yank a considerable amount of taxpayer funding the abortion business receives.

Planned Parenthood in Waco closed its facility at 1927 Columbus Avenue and will shift abortions to it sole remaining abortion center at 1121 Ross Avenue. John Pisciotta, the director of Pro-Life Waco, says the news is good for pro-life advocates in the community who have been organizing against the abortion business and he explained that Planned Parenthood would shift employees from the Columbus location to the one on Ross Avenue.

“We now see the first major result of the Planned Parenthood Austin takeover of Planned Parenthood in Waco,” Pisciotta said. “The closing of the Planned Parenthood Waco abortion facility at 1927 Columbus Avenue is wonderful news for the immediate neighborhood and, in particular, the nearby Waco Montessori School.”

“Amid community controversy, Columbus Avenue Planned Parenthood launched its abortion business in 1994. At this location, Planned Parenthood has extinguished the lives of 16,932 innocent preborn babies through 2010,” Pisciotta added. “Sadly, Planned Parenthood apparently will now continue killing the unborn at its lone remaining clinic at 1121 Ross Avenue.”

By merging the family planning and abortion locations, the pro-life Waco leader said, “This shatters any pretence that Planned Parenthood’s abortion business is separate from its birth control business.”

“Countless hours were spent and prayers offered by dedicated pro-lifers to bring the closure of the Columbus Avenue abortion mill.  We will continue to shine the light on Planned Parenthood in Waco until their doors are closed entirely,” he added.

In 2011, Planned Parenthood Waco closed its satellite clinics in Groesbeck and Marlin.

In September, Planned Parenthood of Central Texas informed the Waco Tribune newspaper it was scaling back the number of appointments it is making at its abortion center, where it had 8,000 customers for abortion and non-abortion “services” last year. The abortion facility was also cutting staff and has reduced the number of nurse practitioners from three to one.

The legislature, when it made the budget cuts involving Planned Parenthood, put a renewed focus on providing women and community residents with better health care in non-abortion settings and shifted funding priority in Waco to Waco’s Family Health Center for primary health care services. Allen Patterson, Family Health’s chief financial and operating officer, told the newspaper that the health clinic, which does not do abortions, will expand if necessary to accommodate new clients seeking non-abortion health care or family planning services.

Previously, Planned Parenthood Association of Hidalgo County announced that will close four of its centers and lay off half of its staff in response to the cuts the state legislature approved, which state pro-life groups like Texas Right to Life and Texas Alliance for Life supported. The abortion business plans to shut down centers in Rio Grande City, San Carlos, Progreso and Mission.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate will consolidate its offices and refer existing customers to remaining centers in McAllen, Edinburg, San Juan and Weslaco.

While it claims the cuts will deny women access to some non-abortion health care Planned Parenthood also provides, thousands of other agencies and medical offices are located throughout the state that provide the same or better quality health care for women without the trappings of also destroying lives in abortions.

The closings come after another Planned Parenthood affiliate closed its abortion-referral facility in Sherman in the northern part of the state as a direct result of the bill Governor Rick Perry signed that the Texas legislature approved revoking taxpayer funding for the abortion business.

The center closed our months after former manager Ramona Trevino resigned her post at Planned Parenthood. Trevino is now speaking out about her pro-life conversion and resulting exodus from the organization responsible for the most abortions in the United States.

According to the pro-life group 40 Days for Life, which publicized the closing and which helped Abby Johnson leave a Bryan, Texas Planned Parenthood center, Trevino explains that, although this particular Planned Parenthood did not perform surgical abortions, she was struggling “with [her] conscience . . . on contraception, abortion and [her] role in it all.” All Planned Parenthood centers make abortion referrals and some of them dispense the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug that has killed dozens of women and injured another 2,200 in the United States alone.

Also recently, pro-life advocates were given the good news that an abortion center shut down in Pensacola, Florida.

The closing follows news last week that Planned Parenthood would no longer do abortions at some Arizona locations because it declined to follow new pro-life laws enacted in that state.

Meanwhile, a California-based abortion business closed in July after 40 Days for Life pro-life prayer events there.

Earlier this year, Family Planning Associates, one of the largest abortion center chains in California, closed the abortion business it runs in Newport Beach. Operation Rescue president Troy Newman informed LifeNews about the closing of the FPA abortion facility and he said the Newport Beach location is one “where pro-lifers have been sidewalk counseling and praying for decades” and “its closure is an encouragement that we are winning.”

With FPA closing up shop in Newport Beach, it joins the closing of all five Golden Gate Community Health locations in the San Francisco area. Formerly known as Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, the GGCH abortion centers closed after financial problems and mismanagement forced national Planned Parenthood officials to disaffiliate the local affiliate.

Also earlier this year, two Pennsylvania abortion clinics operated by abortionist Soleiman M. Soli were closed by state officials in the wake of the discovery of Kermit Gosnell’s “house of horrors” where he killed a woman in a botched abortion and killed hundreds of babies in birth-induced abortions that are essentially infanticides. Soli closed the clinics and retired rather than clean them up.

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.