Author: Steven Ertelt on LifeNews.com
Original date: Apr 2, 2025

The Planned Parenthood of Michigan abortion business announced Wednesday it will close four centers and cut 10% of its staff. That’s great news for women and unborn babies.

The closures, affecting abortion clinics in Marquette, Petoskey, Jackson, and one of two Ann Arbor locations, mark a significant reduction in the pro-abortion organization’s footprint in the state even though Michigan approved abortions up to birth.

The decision comes amid a broader wave of challenges for Planned Parenthood nationwide.

[…]

The Marquette, Petoskey, and Jackson abortion centers will cease operations by the end of April, while the two Ann Arbor facilities will consolidate into a single location by July 1st. The staff reductions, affecting about 30 employees, will occur over the same period.

Read the rest here.

Author: Kate Wells
Original date: April 2, 2025

Planned Parenthood of Michigan closing 4 clinics, cutting 10% of staff

What does this mean for abortion, reproductive health access in Michigan?

PPMI [Planned Parenthood of MI] provided care to more than 51,500 patients in the 2024 fiscal year, according to a spokesperson. (About 10,500 of those were through telehealth, including PPMI’s virtual health center.)

Petoskey and Marquette each saw about 1,000 in-person patients per year, with just over 2,000 in-person patients coming annually to the Jackson clinic and about 3,400 at the Ann Arbor West site that’s being consolidated.

“The three health centers in the communities of Marquette, Petoskey and Jackson are our smallest health centers that saw the fewest number of patients,” Wallett said. “Those patients are important. Their healthcare is important. But operationally, because of their small size, [they] are the most difficult to operate.”

None of the health centers being closed currently offer procedural abortions, but they do provide medication abortion, birth control, STD testing and treatment, pregnancy testing and planning, as well as a range of other health services.

That will leave 10 brick-and-mortar Planned Parenthood clinics remaining in the state, plus a virtual health center. The Marquette Health Center was the only PPMI clinic in the Upper Peninsula.

PPMI leaders said they’re hoping to help offset the closures by ramping up telehealth access, to eventually be able to offer 40% more virtual appointments than they currently do, including new weekend and evening hours.

“With the expansion of telehealth, I think we’ll actually be able to see more patients,” said Thornton Greear.

[…]

Why are the cuts happening now?

Executives said they expect an already-challenging financial picture to darken under the current Trump administration.

That includes cuts to Planned Parenthood’s Title X funding. In 2019, the previous Trump administration instituted a so-called “gag rule,” barring Title X providers from including abortion services in their referrals to patients, […]

But that time, the funding cut only lasted two years, until the Biden administration rescinded the Trump-era regulations in 2021. Now, PPMI executives believe the funding freeze announced on Monday will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

And PPMI did not see a “Trump bump” in fundraising after the 2024 election, Thornton Greear said, referring to the increase in donations some progressive organizations saw in 2016.

“This is a different time,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that [donors] are not supportive, that they do not care, that they’re not here for us. But we understand that they have important decisions to make about where they put their dollars.”

Even before the current Trump administration, PPMI had experienced some financial headwinds. In its most recent publicly available tax filing, PPMI reported a loss of some $2.4 million in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, with $27.5 million in net assets. That year, the organization reported spending about $15.7 million in medical services, with a revenue of about $11 million from medical services (total revenues for the year were about $26.3 million, including contributions, grants, investment income and other sources.)

The Michigan cuts are also part of a larger trend: Planned Parenthood of Illinois recently announced the closure of four clinics, including one in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, citing financial shortfalls and an “uncertain patient care landscape,” according to WTTW and the Chicago Tribune.

In August last year, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York closed four clinics and stopped offering abortions past 20 weeks at its Manhattan site, saying it could no longer support the costs of “deep sedation” required, according to the New York Times. The New York organization is also looking to sell its Manhattan clinic’s building, according to Gothamist.

The New York chapter also instituted executive pay cuts, which Thornton Greear said PPMI is not currently considering, though “everything is always on the table.”

And in February, the New York Times published an investigation alleging patient care problems and staffing issues at numerous state Planned Parenthood affiliates. Those issues, some staff members told the Times, stem from financial and political pressures, as well as a funding structure in which the national Planned Parenthood federation focuses the majority of its spending on the legal fight over abortion access, more than providing direct support for the medical care provided by state affiliates. [emphasis mine]

Read the rest over there.