Missouri May Shut Down Remaining Abortion Clinic By Friday

By Friday, Missouri stands to become the only state in the United States without an operating abortion clinic.

This will be the first time something like this has occurred since 1974, the year after the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973 that legalized abortion was passed by the Supreme Court across the country.

Planned Parenthood operates the lone abortion clinic under siege by the state government. It said the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) "is refusing to renew" its St. Louis clinic's license to provide abortions.

DHSS also wants to require the seven doctors who perform abortions at the clinic to submit to questioning before their medical licenses are renewed.

Media reports said the state is disinclined to renew the clinic’s license due to "a large number of possible deficiencies." The state government has refused to enumerate these alleged deficiencies, however.

The license for the Planned Parenthood clinic was issued by the DHSS and will expire on Friday if not renewed. And to hedge against the license being dismissed, Planned Parenthood on Tuesday announced they are filing a lawsuit for a restraining order to stop the state from closing this single clinic.

The lawsuit names as defendants the DHSS, DHSS director Randall Williams and Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican. On May 24, Parson signed into law a bill that criminalizes abortions in the state after eight weeks of pregnancy.

Missouri is one of a string of Red States that have approved abortion prohibitions over the past few months.

"This is not a drill. This is not a warning. This is real and it is a public health crisis," said Dr. Leana Wen, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Dr. Wen said the clinic’s closure will impact more than one million women of reproductive age in Missouri.

"This has nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with politics," said Dr. Wen.

She noted that if the St. Louis clinic loses its license, that will be the "first time since 1974, the year after Roe v. Wade was passed, that safe, legal abortion care will be unavailable to an entire state."

Dr. Colleen McNicholas, who works at the St. Louis clinic, said the actions by Missouri’s Republican-led government “is the foreshadowing of what is going to happen in other states.”

She said that given the spread of abortion restrictions in several states, Missouri’s tactic might not be limited to the state. She described the elimination of abortion providers in Missouri as a "dismantling of the rights and freedoms we fought for over decades."

She also said if the clinic is closed, it will "unsurprisingly and perhaps by design" have a greater impact on lower income women who will have to travel to other states for an abortion.