Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has been investing in upgrades at its Madison and Milwaukee facilities, Williams said, but the Appleton clinic is an older building and upgrades there would have cost almost $300,000.
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A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin emailed The Daily Caller News Foundation the organization’s statement on the closure Monday, and said “The decision not to reopen Appleton North as made to meet our commitment to safety – not due to a staffing shortage”.
Before the clinic’s operations were suspended, Planned Parenthood provided about 4,000 abortions per year throughout its three sites.
A security review estimated upgrades at the Appleton clinic on Gilett Street would cost almost twice what the building was worth. Planned Parenthood officials said Monday that they reviewed security in the wake of an attack on a Colorado Springs clinic and decided they could not meet security standards. A federal judge blocked that law and an appeals court upheld the ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down a similar law in Texas, essentially invalidating admitting privilege requirements for abortion providers nationwide. The abortion providers are now seeking .8 million from Wisconsin taxpayers to cover their legal costs.
Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services were successful earlier this year in challenging a law that required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, arguing in part that the law would shut down clinics. The Appleton clinic will be the sixth to close.
The organization will continue to offer abortions at its clinics in Madison and Milwaukee, but women in northern and central Wisconsin may have to drive hundreds of miles to reach those facilities. Others have been shifted to the Milwaukee abortion clinic.
“We have never participated in that”, Weininger said. “I think it has to do with the changing of hearts and minds”.
The Appleton clinic performed about 600 abortions per year, Williams said.
She said Planned Parenthood is “doing everything we can to minimize the impact on our patients”, some of whom might have to travel 200-300 miles to the Milwaukee or Madison clinics.
Shortly after the Appleton facility suspended services, there was the fatal shooting at a Colorado Springs abortion clinic in November, in which three people were killed.
Crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, are nonprofit organizations that counsel pregnant women against having abortions and promote abstinence instead of safe sex. The service is also provided, on a very infrequent basis, in Marquette, Mich., in the Upper Peninsula. That clinic, which provides cancer screenings and birth control, will remain open.
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Planned Parenthood says an Appleton clinic that provided access to abortion services will remain closed due to security issues.
