A Nevada border city will not become a destination spot for abortions after its city council rejected a permit request Tuesday from the Planned Parenthood abortion chain.
Stacy Cross, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, admitted they have been eyeing the city of West Wendover since early last year because of its close proximity to Salt Lake City, Utah, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Aborting unborn babies is legal right now in Utah, but state leaders are battling in court to enforce its abortion ban. State lawmakers also just passed a bill to ban abortion facilities, and many predict unborn babies will be protected from abortion soon in Utah.
West Wendover is located just a few miles across the border in Nevada, which allows unborn babies to be aborted for any reason up to 24 weeks.
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Cross told the Salt Lake Tribune that Utah pro-life laws were “certainly something that we considered in our planning.”
However, the billion-dollar abortion chain’s plans came to a halt Tuesday when the West Wendover City Council voted 4-1 against granting it a permit to open a medical facility, KSLTV 5 reports.
Mayor Jasie Holm vetoed the decision, but her action basically was symbolic because the permit cannot be granted without a majority of the council’s approval, according to KSLTV. Holm said their rural community is hurting for basic health care, and Planned Parenthood would provide it.
“Health care has been the No. 1 complaint about living in West Wendover for years,” Holm wrote in a Facebook post. “Prenatal care, for instance, usually involves 10-15 visits to the (doctor) during pregnancy.”
However, LifeNews could not find any mention of prenatal care services on Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s website. A Live Action investigation found 95 percent of Planned Parenthood facilities do not offer prenatal care, including some that advertised it.
Many local residents spoke out against the plan, including Pastor Dennis Draves of the Blessed Hope Church, according to the Tribune.
“If you destroy a rattlesnake egg, you can be prosecuted and spend time in jail because that is considered a rattlesnake,” Draves said. “I don’t understand in society why we’ve gotten to the point that [an unborn baby] is not a human being.”
City resident Gary Richards said he would feel “ashamed” if their city becomes known for abortions, and Patty Waldvogel described the idea as abhorrent.
“I think it’s a bit of an oxymoron to call this agency Planned Parenthood, since the planning I see is killing the babies that would make one a parent,” Waldvogel told the city council. “… I abhor the idea of abortion and think of it as legalized killing.”
Here’s more from the Salt Lake Tribune:
Prior to the city council meeting, Cross said Planned Parenthood Mar Monte has land ready for purchase, a building plan approved by an architect and a construction company that would bring it to life.
Under the application, the clinic would sit on a now-empty lot an approximate 2-mile drive over the border, around the corner from the Wendover Will Neon Cowboy.
After the vote, Planned Parenthood leaders did not say what they plan to do next.
Currently, Utah has four abortion facilities, including the Wasatch Women’s Center in Salt Lake City and three Planned Parenthoods. According to the report, the four facilities did almost all of the 2,818 abortions in the state last year.
However, the situation is expected to change soon.
Last week, the Utah Legislature passed a bill that prohibits abortion facilities from operating in Utah starting in 2024 and prohibits state authorities from granting licenses to abortion facilities after May 2.
State Attorney General Sean Reyes also is fighting court to enforce the state trigger law that bans elective abortions and protect the lives of unborn babies.
If Reyes succeeds, Utah would join 14 other states that protect unborn babies by banning or strictly limiting abortions. Pro-life leaders estimate these laws already have saved thousands of unborn babies’ lives.
