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Planned Parenthood Clinic Banned From Resuming Abortions in Missouri

A federal judge on Friday refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would have allowed Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in Columbia.

By Rudi Keller

A federal judge on Friday refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would have allowed Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in Columbia.

In the order, U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes found that attorneys for Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains had not shown that regulations requiring abortion providers have hospital privileges are a "substantial obstacle" in the path of women seeking an abortion.

While Planned Parenthood did show that the regulation preventing abortion services in Columbia will increase the distance Missouri women must travel to obtain an abortion in the state, it is not enough to issue an injunction, Wimes wrote. There was no evidence presented, Wimes wrote, on the issues raised by the other tests that must be met to show the regulation is a substantial obstacle.

Wimes' ruling means that Missouri will continue to have only one clinic, operated in St. Louis by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, offering abortions services.

The clinic seeking the injunction was attacked by an arsonist in the early morning hours of Feb. 10. The FBI joined the Columbia Police Department investigation the next day and is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist.

The clinic was closed for a week after the fire and resumed offering family planning services and health screenings on Tuesday, spokeswoman Emily Miller wrote in an email.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains did not have an immediate response to inquiries about the Friday ruling. No one from Attorney General Eric Schmitt's office was available to comment Friday on Wimes' ruling.

To win a preliminary injunction, a party in a lawsuit must show they are threatened with "irreparable harm," that preventing that harm is a greater good than any injury caused by an injunction and that the party seeking the injunction is likely to win the lawsuit.

The most important of those tests, Wimes wrote, is the likelihood of success.

Planned Parenthood has not presented evidence it tried to find a doctor with hospital privileges willing to provide abortions in Columbia and has not shown that the lack of abortion services in Columbia has resulted in fewer doctors, longer wait times or increased crowding at the clinic in St. Louis, Wimes wrote.

"In sum, evidence of increased driving distance relative to the privileges requirement standing alone, for purposes of the motion for preliminary injunction, is not sufficient, even when weighed against the assertions of benefits conferred by the privileges requirement, to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits," Wimes wrote. "In the court's view, the law directs this conclusion even considering the defendants' dubious assertions of benefits conferred by the privileges requirement."

The Columbia clinic since 2015 has been in an almost continuous legal battle with the state over the hospital privileges requirement. The clinic was licensed for medication-induced abortions in 2015 after three years without a physician. The clinic met the hospital privileges requirement in place at that time when the University of Missouri Hospitals granted "refer and follow" privileges to Colleen McNicholas, a St. Louis-based obstetrician and gynecologist.

MU revoked McNicholas' privileges on Dec. 1, 2015, when it stopped offering "refer and follow" privileges to any physician after intense political pressure was put on the university to sever all ties to Planned Parenthood.

Abortions resumed in October 2017 when U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a similar Texas law, ordered the state to issue clinic licenses without enforcing the privileges requirement.

Abortion services were interrupted again on Oct. 1 when the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Sachs' ruling in an order finding that perhaps "there was a unique problem Missouri was responding to under its inherent police power ... and the hospital relationship requirement may be appropriate given Missouri's legitimate interest in seeing to it that abortion, like any other medical procedure, is performed under circumstances that insure maximum safety for the patient."

Wimes rejected a request to renew the injunction on Oct. 3, noting that the Columbia clinic had not met all the other requirements for a license. The ruling Friday was in response to a third request for an injunction, filed after the clinic was notified in December that it had met every licensing requirement except the hospital privileges rule.

(c)2019 Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.

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