Planned Parenthood adds procedural abortion at Grand Rapids clinic

Rachel Van Gilder
·2 min read
5

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Planned Parenthood is now offering procedural abortions at its Grand Rapids clinic.

“We knew that (people in) West Michigan were in an abortion access crisis and we wanted to take steps as soon as possible to help mitigate that,” Planned Parenthood of Michigan Chief Medical Operating Officer Dr. Sarah Wallett said.

Planned Parenthood was already offering medication abortions in Grand Rapids and procedural abortions in Kalamazoo. Medication abortions are available up to the 11th week of pregnancy. Procedural abortions can happen after 11 weeks.

The Heritage Clinic for Women, previously the city’s only procedural abortion clinic, closed last year after the doctor who ran it died. It had offered abortion services since 1973. Wallett said the closure meant some people seeking a procedural abortion had to go to Kalamazoo, southeastern Michigan or Chicago.

“All of those places were already experiencing an increase in patients. Our Kalamazoo Health Center, for example, sees many patients who were coming from Indiana, where there’s a complete abortion ban,” she said. “What happens when abortion bans occur is there is a domino effect. Those people still need health care and they go to a health center and then delays happen for everybody.”

She said a recent change in Michigan law allowed the Planned Parenthood to offer the procedure at more locations.

“When we knew that the Reproductive Health Act was going to go into effect, we made a commitment to open up that service as soon as possible,” Wallett said.

Planned Parenthood says that act, which went into effect Feb. 13, threw out so-called “Targeted Restrictions of Abortion Providers” or “TRAP” laws that made it difficult to offer abortions by listing specific building requirements.

“Prior to the Reproductive Health Act going into effect, we were barred with providing procedural abortion at all of our health centers because they couldn’t meet arbitrary regulations for freestanding outpatient surgical facilities that were specifically designed to prevent abortions from happening,” Wallett said. “They’re not based on science or best medical evidence. They’re really designed to make provide abortion harder for providers and to put barriers in place for patients to access abortion.”

—News 8’s Meghan Bunchman contributed to this report.

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