Judge Will Block Pro-Life Missouri Law That Closed Multiple Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinics

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Apr 5, 2017   |   5:23PM   |   Jefferson City, MO

A federal judge announced plans this week to block a Missouri law that requires abortion facilities to meet basic health and safety regulations.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in Missouri challenged the law after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Texas last summer. The Missouri law requires abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges for patient emergency situations, and abortion facilities to meet standards similar to outpatient surgical facilities.

U.S. District Judge Howard F. Sachs filed a memo Tuesday saying that he would grant the abortion group’s request for a temporary block of the law while its lawsuit continues in court, according to the Associated Press.

Sachs did not immediately block the law. The Kansas City Star reports why:

Sachs’ injunction memo potentially sets up a showdown with Missouri lawmakers who are against abortion. Responding to concerns that invalidating the outpatient surgical portion of the bill might also invalidate other abortion requirements that fall outside the Texas ruling, Sachs said he was open to delaying the effective date of such a ruling for 60 to 90 days to give Missouri lawmakers time to carve out those requirements.

The state law has saved thousands of unborn babies’ lives since it passed in 2005. Many of the state’s abortion facilities closed, dropping from seven in 2005 to two in 2014. Abortion numbers also dropped steadily after the law went into effect.

Once the judge’s block is in place, Missouri abortion activists said three Planned Parenthood facilities could begin doing abortions again. One, a Planned Parenthood in Columbia, had to stop doing abortions last year after its abortionist lost admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

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The abortion clinic’s last abortionist, Colleen McNicholas, had her hospital admitting privileges revoked by the University of Missouri Health Care in December 2015. State officials tried to take away the abortion clinic’s license after McNicholas lost the privileges, but a judge blocked the state’s actions, LifeNews reported.

The judge’s order gave the abortion facility more time to find a replacement for McNicholas, but its search was not successful; and its license to do abortions expired in 2016.

The Planned Parenthood in St. Louis currently is the only abortion facility in the state. It has developed a terrible reputation for botched abortions, sending at least 65 women to the hospital in ambulances since 2009, according to Operation Rescue. State inspection reports between 2009 and 2016 also showed more than 200 health and safety violations that endangered women’s health.

McNicholas also is an abortionist at the St. Louis abortion clinic, and in Kansas and soon Oklahoma. She is heavily involved in the pro-abortion movement, not only doing abortions in three states but also setting up fundraising organizations to pay for them, lobbying state and federal legislators and hosting campaign events for pro-abortion candidates like Hillary Clinton, according to Marie Claire.

According to the women’s magazine, the St. Louis abortion facility charges a woman between $545 and $1,470 for an abortion. McNicholas reported doing about 31 abortions a day, which means that clinic is bringing in up to $45,570 per day on abortions alone.

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