Planned Parenthood to close Longview clinic (WA)

King5.com ^ | 2-19-2007 | AP

[MooseMan]

01:10 PM PST on Monday, February 19, 2007

Associated Press

LONGVIEW, Wash. - Planned Parenthood is closing its Longview clinic next month because of federal Medicaid cuts.

The closure of the small clinic, which is open each Thursday, comes as low-income patients are having difficulty finding reproductive care and Cowlitz County has growing rates of sexually transmitted diseases, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Jennifer Allen said.

The clinic provides STD testing and treatment, condoms, menopause treatment and gynecological exams. It has operated in the county Health Department's Longview headquarters for the past three years.

Allen said Friday that the closure was necessary after federal officials cut family planning services for 7,800 people in the "Take Charge" program. The clinic's last day will be March 8.

"We think it's awful," Allen told The Daily News of Longview. "This is going to have a significant negative impact on folks in Cowlitz County. The folks who have been coming to us for services are not necessarily going to have another place to turn."

The clinic, which is staffed by one nurse practitioner and two office aides, is the first Planned Parenthood facility in Washington to close because of the cuts, Allen said. The organization also shut down a youth education program in Everett, she said, and more clinics may follow.

Lesley Bombardier, interim director of the county's health department, said patients will have to turn to a clinic operated by the county as well as the nonprofit Family Health Center, which has three southwest Washington offices. Patients may also have to travel to Centralia or Vancouver for family planning services, she said.

In the long-run, she said, "People will go without."

[Elsiejay]

Can those Culture of Death clowns actually expect us to believe that they are the only providers of those "beneficial" services in the area?
No federal grants should be provided to PPInc. for any reason.

[silver charm]

they don't perform abortions at the regular Planned Parenthood clinics. A pregnant woman goes to the regular clinic for her preg testing and pre-op (orientation) and a referral is make for her to have the abortion. She will receive a phone call the night before or the morning of her "procedure" telling her where the actual removal will be done. Usually the places where the abortions are done is changed each day to fool and elude the pro lifers.

So even though no abortions where preformed in the clinic that closed, no abortions will be scheduled from it anymore.

[Claud]

I'm sure they did too, but it's strange for conservatives to applaud the closing of a clinic that provided gynecological exams and birth control,

A) there are tons of places where a woman can get gynecological exams without resorting to PP.

B) support for birth control is not a conservative position. It is the very first plank of the sexual revolution of oversexed, underloved social "crusaders" like Sanger, Hefner, and Flynt that has wrought untold evils on our society.