New efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in Missouri alarm health care advocates

After failing to offer abortions in Springfield last year, Planned Parenthood and health care advocates in Missouri are worried that recent government action could cut funding for the organization and reduce its ability to provide health-care services besides abortion.

For more than four decades, there has been a prohibition on using federal money to fund abortions. Narrow exceptions to allow abortions in cases of rape or incest or to protect the health of the mother were added to the law later.

Recent moves by the U.S. and Missouri governments to block funding for Planned Parenthood — the only licensed abortion provider in the state — have alarmed a slew of other women's health-care providers.

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Officials with Planned Parenthood and other organizations — held a conference call Thursday morning to voice their concerns to a handful of reporters.

Missouri lawmakers this year wrote the state budget in such a way that blocks funding from going to "any abortion facility" and "any affiliate or associate thereof." This language was added by floor vote in the House and remains in the final budget.

This clause is worrisome, according to M'Evie Mead, director of policy and organizing for Planned Parenthood Advocates in Missouri. She said the organization serves about 7,000 people combined through a state family planning program and via Medicaid, and warned that the impact of the budget language would be "terrible."

"Access to high-quality family planning services is the best way to prevent abortion," added Janice Thomas, vice president of patient services and research at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri.

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Planned Parenthood is Missouri's only licensed abortion provider, though its 11 clinics across the state offer numerous other services. The organization has clinics in Springfield and Joplin that offer health-care services but do not provide abortions.

Efforts to offer medication abortions at those local clinics were stonewalled in 2017 after Missouri lawmakers passed a battery of abortion-related restrictions in a special session called by former Gov. Eric Greitens.

A requirement for abortion providers to arrange for a physician or physician group to be on call around the clock to handle complications arising from terminations effectively blocked Planned Parenthood from offering abortions in Springfield and Joplin. The organization has been unable to find a willing physician.

Planned Parenthood is fighting Missouri's new abortion laws in court, but so far, the restrictions have had their intended effect.

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The Springfield clinic's application to become an abortion facility is on an "indefinite hold" at this time, a Planned Parenthood official said Thursday, adding that "we are committed and still very interested" in providing abortions in southwest Missouri.

New rules proposed by President Donald Trump's administration also alarm Planned Parenthood amid rumblings that Trump wants to end federal funding for the organization.

Proposed policies from the Health and Human Services Department would de-emphasize contraceptive techniques like "the pill," forbid direct abortion referrals and counseling and require financial and physical separation of family planning and abortion services.

Officials with Planned Parenthood said the two Missouri clinics that offer abortions in Columbia and St. Louis already would meet that financial separation requirement. But both of those clinics would need to find new space in order to comply with the physical separation rule.

There are about 40,000 people in Missouri who participate in Title X services each year, said Michelle Trupiano, executive director of Missouri Family Health Council. About a third of them utilize Planned Parenthood to access these kinds of services.

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"These attacks on the family planning safety net are political, egregious, and shortsighted," the health council said in a statement. "In an effort to 'get' abortion providers, politicians’ actions will leave some of the most vulnerable Missourians with nowhere to go for birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment."

Barring Planned Parenthood from participating in Title X and offering those services in Missouri "could create an enormous hole in Missouri's already strained safety net," the organization warns.

The organization issued a report claiming that only 7 percent of health centers in Missouri besides Planned Parenthood offer evening and weekend hours and comprehensive family planning services. This includes one center in Springfield and five clinics in rural Greene and Christian counties, according to Planned Parenthood's report.

Thursday's conference call was not open to self-described "pro-lifers" like Sam Lee, director of Campaign Life Missouri, a group that lobbies against abortion. Lee offered some perspective from his side of the aisle.

"Planned Parenthood is the largest provider and promoter of abortion in Missouri and in the country," Lee told the News-Leader in a statement. "Taxpayers should not be forced to fund organizations so heavily involved in the killing of unborn children. We are grateful to federal state lawmakers, as well as the federal Department of Heath and Human Services, for cutting off their public funding."

The federal rules are likely months away from being finalized due to a 60-day comment period and the possibility of amendments. The budget awaits Gov. Mike Parson's signature later this month.

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