Planned Parenthood's Iowa leader stepping down as chapter merges with Minnesota's

The president of Iowa’s Planned Parenthood chapter will step down as the organization prepares to join a larger chapter based in Minnesota, the agency announced Tuesday.

Suzanna de Baca became president of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland in 2014. She has led the chapter during a time when anti-abortion activists have gained traction in Iowa, cutting money for Planned Parenthood and gaining passage of the nation's strictest abortion limits, which the private agency is suing to overturn.

De Baca succeeded Jill June, who led the Iowa-based organization for more than 30 years. De Baca will step down as president and chief executive officer Sept. 30, the organization said Tuesday.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which operates in Iowa and eastern Nebraska, is joining Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. Together they will form a new regional affiliate, called Planned Parenthood North Central States.

In an interview at her Des Moines office, de Baca portrayed the consolidation as a way for the Planned Parenthood chapters to focus their efforts at a time when their mission and financing have come under attack by abortion opponents. She said there are no plans to close any of Planned Parenthood’s eight clinics in Iowa or two in Nebraska.

“This is not a strategy to cut,” she said. “Planned Parenthood is still open and getting stronger. … We are not going to back down.”

The new structure could allow the Iowa organization to improve some services, including use of video-conferencing to dispense birth control in rural areas, she said.

Sarah Stoesz, the longtime leader of the Minnesota-based chapter, will be the president of the new consolidated organization. It will have a total of 29 clinics. De Baca plans to fill an unpaid seat on its board.

Planned Parenthood has been battling to maintain its funding, particularly in Iowa. The Iowa chapter closed four clinics last year after abortion foes in the state Legislature cut its annual Medicaid funding by more than $2 million by excluding the organization from a family planning program. A recent Trump administration move to exclude Planned Parenthood from another family planning program could cost the chapter another $1 million, de Baca said. The chapter’s annual budget is about $21 million.

The organization is suing the state to block a new "fetal heartbeat" law, which would bar almost all abortions. The law, passed in the Legislature last month, would be the strictest in the nation. Planned Parenthood contends it violates the Iowa Constitution. Proponents hope the new law will lead the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion legal throughout the country.

As de Baca prepares to leave her job, two Iowa Planned Parenthood managers will be promoted as part of the reorganization. Erin Davison-Rippey, director of public affairs for the chapter, will become Planned Parenthood’s executive director for Iowa. Jenna Knox, who is director of strategic partnerships, will become deputy director.

A leading abortion opponent said Tuesday that Planned Parenthood of the Heartland's pending merger with a bigger chapter shows how the organization has been weakened. "For us, it's just an indication of their decline in providing services to women," said Maggie DeWitte, executive director of Iowans for Life.

DeWitte noted that Planned Parenthood of the Heartland closed several rural clinics in the years before announcing last year that it would close facilities in Bettendorf, Burlington, Keokuk and Sioux City in response to the loss of state family-planning money. She said the closures were due to women choosing to use other clinics that aren't associated with an agency providing abortions. "Iowa's a pro-life state," she said.