Abortion services can continue for now in Missouri after a judge ruled that its license would not expire at the end of the day Friday. The state had refused to renew Planned Parenthood’s license to continue providing the procedure.
If the clinic had to stop providing abortion services, Missouri would have been the first state in the nation to block the procedure in more than 45 years.
A lawsuit against the state was filed earlier this week by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, which has provided abortions for more than two decades and is the last remaining clinic to do so in Missouri. Its license to continue offering abortions was set to expire Friday, and the organization argued that withholding the license amounted to another tactic in a years-long effort to „restrict abortion access and deny Missourians their right to choose abortion.“
The lawsuit was brought against Missouri Gov. Michael Parson and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which administers the license the clinic needed. It sought a temporary restraining order against the state, in order to avoid the disruption of services.
„This is not a drill. This is not a warning. This is a real public health crisis,“ Dr.
