Missouri abortion site denied exemption

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A federal judge denied Planned Parenthood’s request for a mid-Missouri clinic to be temporarily exempted from certain abortion regulations, ensuring that the Columbia clinic will not be able to resume abortions.

U.S. Western District Court Judge Brian Wimes wrote in his ruling late Wednesday that even if he did lift the requirement that doctors at the clinic have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals before they perform abortions, the Columbia center still would not be able to provide abortions because the clinic’s license expired Tuesday. Missouri is down to one clinic performing abortions, which is located in St. Louis.

Attorneys for Planned Parenthood had requested that Wimes temporarily exempt Columbia from the hospital privileges requirement as Planned Parenthood’s broader challenge to abortion regulations plays out in court.

The Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic has been unable to secure physician privileges or find a doctor with those privileges after a panel of medical staff at University of Missouri Health Care voted to stop offering those privileges altogether in 2015 during a Republican-led legislative investigation on abortion in the state.

Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson in a Thursday statement called Wimes’ ruling a “victory for protecting the sanctity of life.” Brandon Hill, president of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement that the ruling is a “disappointing setback in our effort to protect access to safe, legal abortion in Missouri.”