By Dave Andrusko
Can you imagine the conflicting responses to this news? It comes from a story written by Danny Wicentowski:
The numbers show St. Louis’ Planned Parenthood performed abortions for just three patients in February — a drop from the 174 recorded in February 2019.
Three babies—not 174 babies—lost their lives in this particular Planned Parenthood killing factory.
To the pro-abortion mind, this is nothing short of a tragedy. Surely some women went elsewhere, but Planned Parenthood would be despondent. Lives saved, money lost.
To pro-lifers, it is a reminder that elections have consequences; that unyielding perseverance is rewarded; and that there were as many as 171 chances to find a win-win solution.
The headline for Wicentowski’s story is, “Data show Abortion is Already Effectively Over in Missouri.” The headline for the NPR story, written by Sarah McCammon’s headline is equally grim: “As Missouri Clinic Awaits Its Legal Fate, Abortions In State Have Virtually Halted.”
What are they talking about and how did it happen?
As NRL News Today has written on many occasions, there is only one functioning abortion clinic in Missouri. “The clinic, Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, is at the center of a licensing dispute between the organization and Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s administration,” McCammon writes. “That clinic’s future is in the hands of a state commission that is expected to issue a decision in the coming weeks or months.”
“Licensing dispute” hardly captures the contours of this life-and-death battle. As Susan Klein of Missouri Right to Life explained
Planned Parenthood has lost their license due to their incompetence, and for no other reason. The blame for the deficiencies and infractions at the Planned Parenthood abortion site in St. Louis can be laid specifically and only on those who operate that abortion facility. Women’s lives were put at risk and the law was broken at the St. Louis Planned Parenthood. No one and no healthcare facility is above the law.
Some women are having abortions in nearby Illinois, mostly at an abortion clinic in Fairview Heights that had been constructed in secret. Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood’s acting president and CEO, “said the shift is the result of strict abortion laws in Missouri,” according to McCammon.
“This is what happens when you impose these very onerous and burdensome restrictions on patients,” she said. “What it means is that abortion access is narrowed so dramatically [in Missouri] that it’s almost a right in name only.”
Great news for unborn babies in Missouri, terrible news for unborn babies taken to be destroyed in Illinois. The battlelines are clear: strengthen and fortify existing protections in Missouri, take back gains secured by pro-abortionists in Illinois.