Missouri Planned Parenthood fights to keep aborting babies

The last abortion facility in Missouri asked a state panel for an extension Tuesday after a judge ruled its license would run out on Friday. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services last week refused to renew the St. Louis Planned Parenthood affiliate’s license. The department had allowed the license to lapse over patient safety issues.

Missouri Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer ruled Monday that the facility must take its case before the Administrative Hearing Commission (AHC), which handles licensing and other disputes between state agencies and businesses. The AHC hearing is set for Aug. 1 in St. Louis, and Planned Parenthood wants the assigned commissioner, Sreenivasa Rao Dandamudi, to issue a stay until then. No hearing has been scheduled on the stay request. If the Planned Parenthood 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.