Are We Ready?

Check out this great blog post from Jill Stanek about unPLANNED.

As I think about Jill's post, I think it's important to know that American Life League’s Stop Planned Parenthood project (STOPP) reports, in part, that a 2009 survey of PP facilities revealed the following:

· A total of 38 PP facilities closed in 2009 and the number of PP surgical abortion facilities has decreased. Over a two-year period, six surgical abortion facilities were closed.

· In the last four years, PP has increased the number of facilities that commit medical abortions by 74. Drugs administered by doctors for this deadly purpose include mifepristone (RU-486) and methotrexate.

The large increase in medical abortion facilities is due to the fact that medical abortions are more profitable for PP, since the first drug dose (which kills the preborn baby) is taken at a PP facility, and the second dose (which causes contractions) can be taken at home (where the mother then gives birth to her dead baby). PP spends less to commit those abortions, but charges as much as it charges for surgical abortions. By providing chemical abortions, PP can schedule abortions every day of the week, whereas surgical abortions are limited to the days that an on-site abortionist is available.

Barbara Ellis, at a 1996 National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting said, “The right to abortion doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t access it.” I pray that she is right and that there will be help available for women who choose life.

Here in Minnesota, there are seven clinics providing abortion services for women. Additionally, Regions Hospital houses a HealthPartners clinic that performs over 700 abortions each year. This fall, Planned Parenthood began preparing the site where they plan to build a new “mega-abortion clinic” at the corner of Charles and Vandalia in the Midway area of St. Paul.

So, even as clinics are closing in some cities, others may rise up to fill the void. As more abortion clinics close, abortion doctors age, clinic workers leave the business and access to abortion becomes more challenging, that we will be ready to help those women who choose life. As the need for REAL practical help grows, I pray that we will be ready.

“I have noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.”
--Ronald Reagan