Last abortion center in Missouri loses license

Missouri Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer will determine whether the state’s last abortion facility can stay open after Missouri health officials declined Friday to renew its license. The license for the Planned Parenthood abortion center in St. Louis expired on June 1, but Stelzer issued rulings earlier this month that kept the facility open.

Stelzer wanted the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to make a decision to deny or renew the license, not just let it lapse. Now that the department has officially rejected the license renewal, Stelzer said he will issue orders for the next steps, possibly as early as Friday. If the center closes, Missouri would become the first abortion facility–free state since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which led to the legalization of abortion nationwide. The state health department cited failed abortions at the center that ended in additional surgeries and one that caused life-threatening complications for the mother as reasons for denying the license.

Last month, Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, signed a law that protects babies from abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy, with an exception for the life of the mother.