Planned Parenthood affiliate to close 8 clinics in Iowa and Minnesota
Four of the six Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa and four in Minnesota will shut down in a year, the Midwestern affiliate operating them has announced, blaming a freeze in federal funds, budget cuts proposed in Congress and state restrictions on abortion.
The clinics closing in Iowa include the only Planned Parenthood facility in the state that provides abortion procedures, in Ames, home to Iowa State University. Services will be shifted, and the organization will still offer medication abortions in Des Moines and medication and medical abortion services in Iowa City.
Two of the clinics being shut down by Planned Parenthood North Central States are in the Minneapolis area, in Apple Valley and Richfield. The others are in central Minnesota, in Alexandria and Bemidji. Of the four, the Richfield clinic provides abortion procedures.
The Planned Parenthood affiliate said it would lay off 66 employees and ask 37 additional employees to move to different clinics. The organization also said it plans to keep investing in telemedicine services; it sees 20,000 patients virtually each year. The affiliate serves Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.
'We have been fighting to hold together an unsustainable infrastructure as the landscape shifts around us and an onslaught of attacks continues,' Ruth Richardson, the affiliate's president and chief executive, said in a statement Friday.
Of the remaining 15 clinics operated by Planned Parenthood North Central States, six will provide abortion procedures — five of them in Minnesota, including three in the Minneapolis area. The other clinic is in Omaha.
The affiliate said that in April the Trump administration froze $2.8 million in federal funds for Minnesota to provide birth control and other services, such as cervical cancer screenings and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.
While federal funds can't be used for most abortions, abortion opponents have long argued that Planned Parenthood affiliates should not receive any taxpayer dollars, saying the money still indirectly underwrites abortion services.
Planned Parenthood North Central States also cited proposed cuts in Medicaid, which provides health coverage for low-income Americans, as well as a Trump administration proposal to eliminate funding for teenage pregnancy prevention programs.
In addition, Republican-led Iowa last year banned most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant, causing the number of abortions performed there to drop 60% in the first six months the law was in effect and dramatically increasing the number of patients traveling to Minnesota and Nebraska.
After the closings, Planned Parenthood North Central States will operate 10 brick-and-mortar clinics in Minnesota, two in Iowa, two in Nebraska and one in South Dakota. It operates none in North Dakota, though its Moorhead, Minn., clinic is across the Red River from Fargo, N.D.
Hanna writes for the Associated Press.
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