According to local Pro-Life activists, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast permanently closed a Dickinson, Texas, location earlier this month. Although this news may appear at first like a positive sign of Planned Parenthood’s weakening foothold in the Lone Star state, many Pro-Life groups point to the fact that the closure may merely indicate the next step in the abortion-centered, profit driven business model of America’s largest abortion business.
Operation Rescue reports that the shuttered Planned Parenthood affiliate in Dickinson referred mothers seeking elective abortion to the Planned Parenthood mega-abortion mill in Houston, Texas, but the Dickinson clinic did not commit abortions. The closure of a Planned Parenthood affiliate that does not contribute directly to the lucrative abortion business of Planned Parenthood is not new. Operation Rescue monitors Planned Parenthood’s business operation, and the group notes that this is one of nearly 20 such closures.
The closure of some Planned Parenthood locations indicates a decreasing demand for the abortion business, which Pro-Lifers celebrate. However, the closures also represent Planned Parenthood’s strategy to ensure the business remains lucrative. Planned Parenthood is shuttering affiliates that do not make a profit or do not commit abortions. Live Action noted:
Planned Parenthood has been consolidating and closing facilities for years, “since in 2011, Planned Parenthood announced that by 2013, it would require every affiliate to offer abortions… and this has since come to pass.” However, Planned Parenthood isn’t losing money. The organization is referring patients to facilities which offer medication abortions (abortion pill), and to larger, more profitable abortion centers, like the Houston “abortion mega-center.”
The Houston mega-abortion mill is the largest freestanding abortion mill in the Western Hemisphere. The facility gained further notoriety when the Center for Medical Progress released shocking footage of top executives at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. The undercover video showed Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s director of research, Melissa Farrell, discussing “intact fetal cadavers” for harvesting high quality baby organs for sale and disguising profits from such sales as “just a matter of line items.” The disturbing implications of the footage were confirmed by Freedom of Information Act requests and revealed that the mega-abortion clinic sold body parts from aborted babies to the University of Texas.
Following the news of the recent closure, Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, said, “Any time a Planned Parenthood facility closes, it is great news for women and babies, who have one less business marketing abortions to them.” Pro-Life Texans agree. Nevertheless, Pro-Lifers must remain wary of the developing business model of America’s largest abortion business. As smaller affiliates close, more vulnerable women are pushed toward mega-abortion mills like the one in Houston, which has demonstrated unprecedented mistreatment of pregnant mothers and of their preborn children. Texans must build on the hard-won victories of the 2017 Legislative Session and First Called Special Session to ensure that Texas women and children receive legitimate health care and the abortion industry is not funded through any means of state or local government.