By Emily O’Connor
Planned Parenthood of Northeast, Mid-Penn, and Bucks County announced that they would be closing their Carlisle Health Center on June 13, 2013. Previously located in a suite alongside several other healthcare facilities, the clinic does not provide abortions, but does refer patients to local abortion providers. “Feeder” clinics such as this often send patients to other Planned Parenthood facilities, but more and more of them are closing in favor of their abortion-providing counterparts.
The clinic’s website directs patients to have their records forwarded to a Planned Parenthood in Harrisburg, Gettysburg, Chambersburg, or York, two of which do provide abortions. The trend of Planned Parenthood closing facilities that do not provide abortions and directing patients to those that do demonstrates its focus on its lucrative abortion business, rather than the commitment to accessible healthcare services it espouses.
This is one of many recent closings of Planned Parenthood facilities around the country. Thirty abortion clinics have closed in 2013 alone, according to Life News. For example:
- A Planned Parenthood center in Herkimer, NY that did not provide abortions recently closed and referred patients to the Utica, NY Center, where abortions are provided.
- In northern Texas, where several clinics have closed due to lack of funding, Planned Parenthood is still planning to spend millions creating a new, much larger center that will provide abortions.
- In Wisconsin, four “feeder” clinics have closed. Life News reports that in 2010, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin “performed 4,827 Wisconsin abortions …Its annual report for that year lists zero adoption referrals and zero prenatal care recipients.”
Planned Parenthood is unmistakably focusing more and more of its efforts and energy on abortion. And this only makes sense. According to Live Action, abortion made up around $148 million of Planned Parenthood’s health care services revenue in 2010. With salaries like Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards almost $400k to maintain, money is an obvious motivator.
Closing “feeder” facilities such as Carlisle Health Center is a good thing for communities, because it removes an abortion-referring clinic from the area. But the choice to divert patients and funding back to abortion-providing facilities reveals Planned Parenthood’s emphasis on revenue-generating abortion procedures.
