{"id":166223,"date":"2017-05-18T17:55:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T21:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=166223"},"modified":"2017-05-19T11:29:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T15:29:03","slug":"four-iowa-planned-parenthood-clinics-to-close-after-being-defunded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/four-iowa-planned-parenthood-clinics-to-close-after-being-defunded\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Iowa Planned Parenthood clinics to close after being defunded"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last week, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad signed a bill that would prevent state Medicaid money from going to Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider. And it took just that one week for Planned Parenthood to respond by announcing that\u00a0the abortion chain would be closing four of its clinics in Iowa<\/a>. Susana de Baca, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, said facilities in Bettendorf, Burlington, Keokuk, and Sioux City will be closed. Eight other Planned Parenthood facilities throughout the state will remain open.<\/p>\n

According to de Baca, the facilities are closing specifically because Planned Parenthood will be losing approximately $2 million in taxpayer funding, thanks to the bill signed into law by Branstad. Predictably, de Baca lamented that thousands of people would lose access to health care. Jodi Tomlonovic, executive director of the Family Planning Council of Iowa, had also opposed the bill and said the closure of the four Planned Parenthood clinics was especially devastating, as other health care clinics could not replace the care that Planned Parenthood provides.<\/p>\n

The clinics in Burlington, Keokuk, and Sioux City will close on June 30, and while the Bettendorf clinic will cease “family planning services,” it will remain open indefinitely to provide telemedicine abortions before it closes at a later date \u2013\u00a0further proving Planned Parenthood’s ultimate<\/a> focus on abortion<\/a>. It’s not clear if the Bettendorf center will provide health care services as it waits to close, but it will reportedly end its birth control program. (Telemedicine abortions are the distribution of\u00a0abortion pills by a doctor who usually speaks to a patient on a screen and does not see her in person. The video below describes the abortion pill process. To potentially reverse the effects of an abortion pill, see Abortion Pill Reversal<\/a> and contact the 24-hour\u00a0nurse-staffed hotline<\/a> at 1-877-558-0333.)<\/p>\n