By Dave Andrusko
Gosh, where have we heard this before? Planned Parenthood, which already had 16 “health centers” in the state of Illinois, quietly and without notifying sympathetic local officials, opened up a 17th.
Located at 19831 Governors Highway in Flossmoor in south suburban Cook County, the 11,470-square-foot, single-story brick building is 29 miles from Chicago and is expect to “provide services to about 1,200 patients annually,” according to Julie Lynn, Planned Parenthood of Illinois manager of external affairs.
The abortion clinic opened in January, which was news to Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun. Braun told reporter Ted Slowik “he and other village officials did not receive invitations to the Jan. 11 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new center at 19831 Governor’s Highway, near Vollmer Road and Kedzie Avenue.
“‘I have no problem with Planned Parenthood. The village is not in the business of regulating morality,’ Braun said. ‘I personally was disappointed by the way they opened.”
Slowak’s highly sympathetic story and Braun’s “no problem with Planned Parenthood” couldn’t hide that the nation’s largest abortion provider’s approach was, to put it politely, stealthy. Slowak wrote
Planned Parenthood needed no zoning variances or special-use permits and invested about $3 million renovating the building, Braun said. The building-permit applicant was identified as a health care corporation, he said, and Braun and other village officials didn’t learn the identity of the new tenant until a final occupancy permit was sought a few days before the opening.
“We looked around and found out that’s their MO,” which stands for modus operandi, or way of doing business, Braun said. “It’s a different way of coming into the community than we’re used to.”
So why still another abortion facility, beyond the usual excuse of an “unmet need”? As NRL News Today reported in September, Illinois’s pro-abortion Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the highly controversial HB 40 into law. The Chicago Tribune summarized the bill’s reach:
The new law expands taxpayer-subsidized abortions for women covered by Medicaid and state employee insurance. The state already covers abortions in cases of rape, incest and when there is a threat to the health and life of the mother. The law expands the Medicaid coverage beyond those limited cases.
Thus, one reason is there’s more money available to be made.
Another, according to W.J. Kennedy is
The out-of-state demand is increasing as neighboring states enact tougher restrictions on abortion. Newly released statistics from the Illinois Department of Public Health covering 2016 show the number of abortions performed on out-of-state women increased by 1,333 from 2015 to 2016. Even higher numbers are expected when the department releases its 2017 figures.
Conclusion? Just 321,384 dead babies for fiscal year 2016-2017 isn’t enough. More clinics, especially more megaclinics, must be built.