I should be ashamed of myself for not reporting on this whole affair earlier since it comes from my home state. The pro-life (and pro-choice, for that matter) blogosphere and the national media alike have been dilligently reporting on Missouri’s HB 1055 which was signed into law a few weeks ago by our semi-pro-life Governor Matt Blunt. Among the many things in the bill that bothers the likes of Planned Parenthood, the one with that causes them the most discomfort is the revision of the definition of an “Ambulatory surgical center” to include, “any establishment operated for the purpose of performing or inducing any second or third trimester abortions or five or more first trimester abortions per month.” For information on what this means see Jill Stanek’s WND column.

Planned Parenthood owns two of the four abortion clinics in Missouri and has been fighting the passage of this bill from the beginning. One would think that an organization concerned with helping women and providing abortions that are legal and safe would gladly comply with a common sense law that aks abortion clinics to adhere to the same medical standards as those providing other invasive medical procedures. However PP is complaining that the new law would require $2 million worth of renovations to their clinics. The original plan for the PP clinic in Columbia (30 mi. NW from my home) was to challenge the bill in court and raising money to comply with the regulations. But now it appears that those plans have changed. A story by our local TV station asserts:

Planned Parenthood in Columbia has no formal fundraising plans to collect the $2 million for renovations. It will stop offering abortions when the law goes into effect August 28th.

This story came out Friday and I am told that this is the first confirmed report that the Columbia clinic will cease performing abortions because of the new law. There is another PP clinic in Kansas City and I am also told that earlier reports indicated that they will also stop performing abortions. This is a very welcome side effect to a law that was meant to make abortions truly safer for women who, despite popular belief, still die from abortions – something PP is obviously not interested in doing.

I can’t understand why anyone would even want to do business with PP in the first place, given their track record of failing to protect young girls in obvious situations of sexual abuse. Jay at LTI blog has more on this.