The Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic resumed providing chemical abortions over the summer. In a chemical abortion, a woman is provided with a regimen of two drugs. The first one causes the death of the unborn child in utero. The second drug prompts the delivery of the remains of the unborn child, which are usually flushed down the toilet at home. The RU-486 regimen is dangerous, resulting in many cases of
excessive hemorraghing and the incomplete expulsion of fetal tissue.
It was further exposed over the summer that Planned Parenthood had collaborated with the University of Missouri to enable the abortion provider to reactivate its operating license with the state. University Hospital appointed Colleen McNicholas to the hospital's organized medical staff last December, despite the fact that her only medical practice is in St. Louis more than a hundred miles away. Her medical credentials included the grant of unlimited privileges in emergency situations.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reissued Planned Parenthood's Columbia abortion clinic license based on these new staff privileges granted to McNicholas. State legislators who learned of the
collusion between officials at Mizzou and Planned Parenthood were incensed. Missouri law expressly prohibits the use of any state employees, facilities, or funding to assist in the performance of abortions.
After receiving considerable heat for its underhanded conduct, former University of Missouri Chancellor Bowen Lifton announced that the clinical privileges granted to Dr. McNicholas were being terminated by University Hospital's medical staff. The privileges issued to McNicholas were described as "outdated and unnecessary." Hospital spokesman Steve Whitt said at the time: "It is time to just get better and get rid of crummy doctors..."
Planned Parenthood seized on the recent turmoil involving racial issues on campus to demand that
Interim Chancellor Hank Foley restore the university's affiliation with Planned Parenthood's
abortionist. Last week Foley declined to do so. While he said he had "been touched" by these appeals, he said that the University was required to comply with state and federal laws, and would not renew the hospital medical credentials of Dr. McNicholas.
As we reported recently, the U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide the constitutionality of state health requirements that abortionists have clinical, staffing, or admitting privileges at a local hospital. The High Court will be hearing an appeal of a Texas law that was upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In late November, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Wisconsin hospital privileges law. The appeals court majority ruled in part that the Wisconsin statute had unfairly singled out abortion providers. However, Missouri's law, which dates back in its origin to 1986, applies the hospital privileges requirement to all outpatient ambulatory surgical centers.
In the meantime, Planned Parenthood is scrambling to find ways to put McNicholas or some other abortionist back to work. The Associated Press has reported that University of Missouri Health Care "is compiling documents" so that a new application for hospital credentials can be accepted from the Columbia clinic. It is also possible that a Planned Parenthood abortionist could seek staffing privileges from Boone Hospital Center in Columbia. That hospital is owned by BJC Health Care, which has a close working relationship with the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis.
Should the University of Missouri renew their partnership with Planned Parenthood in Columbia, it will invite a titanic showdown with the pro-life Missouri Legislature in the coming legislative session in January. Legislation has already been introduced to tighten state law to ban future shenanigans by University of Missouri officials and staff. We will report on that legislation in next week's
Jeff City Update. For now, Colleen McNicholas and her ilk are no longer exterminating the lives of preborn children in mid-Missouri.