Judge allows Planned Parenthood to keep abortion license

In the wake of Friday’s shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood facility, pro-abortion politicians, lobbyists, and members of the media have jumped at the chance to blame pro-life advocates for somehow encouraging the violence by speaking out for life.

Planned Parenthood’s doctor, Colleen McNicholas, will lose her privileges with the University of Missouri tomorrow, and the state has said because of this it will revoke the clinic’s license at close of business today.

It comes after MU Health Care ended it’s refer and follow privileges given to the doctor that works with Planned Parenthood. The portions of the bill that have already been implemented have reduced the number of clinics in Texas from 41 to 18; if it is upheld by SCOTUS, the state will be left with only ten clinics to serve the more than 60,000 Texan women who require abortions annually – making the procedure so inaccessible in the state as to be essentially illegal. MU officials voted to end these privileges back in September, however they were officially discontinued at 11:59 Monday night.

Chancellor Foley’s decision goes into effect Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey issued a temporary injunction that will allow the abortion clinic to stay open in response to a lawsuit that Planned Parenthood filed earlier Monday against the state Department of Health and Human Services, according to the Associated Press.

“(The Department of Health and Senior Services’) revocation of (Planned Parenthood’s) license does not give (Planned Parenthood) sufficient time to maintain its license and therefore violates (Planned Parenthood’s) right to procedural due process”.

Even with a license, the clinic can not terminate pregnancies because it has no doctor with privileges.

State Solicitor General James Layton argued Wednesday that there’s no harm in allowing the state to immediately revoke the license because no abortions are being performed there anyway, a fact that Laughrey instead cited in her ruling in Planned Parenthood’s favor.

Schaefer has tried to strip the university of all associations with Planned Parenthood after the release of a series of surreptitiously recorded and highly edited videos published by the anti-choice front group known as the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). ABC 17 News will keep reaching out to those involved in Wednesday’s hearing to ask what was discussed.