Saginaw’s only Planned Parenthood Center will be shutting down at 5:00 p.m. Friday due to the organization’s shifting to focus its resources in “places they’re needed most.”
“These are challenging times and we face constant political attacks that can impact our patients, and we take our mission to provide care no matter what very seriously,” Planned Parenthood of Michigan spokeswoman Angela Vasquez-Giroux told MLive. “Part of that is concentrating our resources in the places they’re needed most.”
Vasquez-Giroux added the Lansing facility saw only 500 patients in 2018 compared to 2,450 people the Flint Planned Parenthood attended to.
Planned Parenthood has been undergoing many changes as an organization this year as it withdrew from Title X funding after the Trump administration implemented a rule prohibiting Title X receivers from referring people to abortion services if it was not an emergency.
“We’re committed to providing compassionate, quality health care. We refuse to let the Trump administration bully us into withholding abortion information from our patients. The gag rule is unethical & dangerous. We will not subject our patients to it,” Planned Parenthood of Michigan tweeted at the time of the decision.
We're committed to providing compassionate, quality health care. We refuse to let the Trump administration bully us into withholding abortion information from our patients. The gag rule is unethical & dangerous. We will not subject our patients to it. https://t.co/r6fNSchytm
— Planned Parenthood (@PPofMI) August 19, 2019
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood announced Wednesday that it would be spending $45 million on politicians in local, state and national races who support abortion rights.
“BREAKING NEWS: Today, Planned Parenthood Votes and Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations are launching their largest-ever electoral effort for the 2020 cycle. Michigan will be a battleground state and we are ready to MARCH. VOTE. WIN,” Michigan Planned Parenthood advocates wrote.
Right to Life of Michigan reacted to Planned Parenthood’s decision to invest $45 million into political races, writing on Facebook:
President Trump’s Protect Life Rule took $60 million from Planned Parenthood and will give it to organizations that don’t take lives. Planned Parenthood said their clients would be hurt, but look at how much cold hard cash they have lying around, paid for by you and their abortionists at work.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of Battleground State News. Follow Zachery on Twitter.
Photo “Planned Parenthood Poster” by James McNellis. CC BY 2.0.
