(Oregon Right to Life) — A Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Wisconsin has become the one of the latest locations to permanently close its doors amid a nationwide trend of abortion facility shutterings.
On Wednesday, Pro-Life Wisconsin State Director Dan Miller announced in a blog post that the Planned Parenthood facility in Delavan, Wisconsin, a small town about 45 minutes southwest of Milwaukee, had closed its doors for good.
“Yes! It is true!” Miller wrote, explaining that he had fielded numerous calls asking whether the reports had been accurate. “Planned Parenthood in Delavan is CLOSED! Google Maps lists them as permanently closed.”
“Congratulations to the pro-life community of Delavan!” Miller said. “Praise the Lord!”
Though Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin did not release a public statement concerning the closure, Miller said he personally drove to Delavan and saw that the Planned Parenthood marquee had been removed and that signs posted on the door and window indicated the facility had been permanently closed as of July 31.
“Why did they close? Could it be because of the many bills Pro-Life Wisconsin has pushed over the years to cut off public funding of contraception to Planned Parenthood? Hard to say,” Miller said. “However, if we start to see more abortion referral facilities like this close in their network, I think that would be a safe guess, but only a guess.”
The Wisconsin closure comes as Planned Parenthood has been actively shuttering abortion facilities due to inadequate funding and the enactment of laws protecting the unborn, partly spurred by the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning Roe v. Wade and allowing states to pass laws limiting or banning abortion.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute recently reported that the number of brick-and-mortar abortion facilities has dropped by 5% between 2020 and March 2024, “a net loss of 42 clinics.”
And that number is rising.
In March of this year, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) announced that it would be closing its “Manhattan Health Center” abortion facility located at 26 Bleecker Street in New York City. The building was previously called the “Margaret Sanger Center” in honor of Planned Parenthood’s founder, but the name was changed due to concerns about Sanger’s connections to the racist eugenics movement.
READ: Manhattan Abortion Facility to Permanently Close After Decades of Pro-Life Prayers
In April, the Trump administration’s HHS temporarily froze “family planning” funding under the federal Title X program – the move quickly led to the permanent closures of more abortion facilities. In Michigan, Planned Parenthood closed three of its health centers and announced plans to consolidate two others.
Now, hundreds more facilities are expected to close due to the July 4 budget reconciliation bill slashing federal funding for Planned Parenthood for a full year. Planned Parenthood, which has received approximately 40% of its annual revenue from federal grants and reimbursements, is estimated to see the shuttering of almost 200 of its abortion facilities across the country.
“Life is winning and the nation’s abortion giant won’t be missed as their long decline continues,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s Katie Daniel said in a July statement.
Daniel pointed out that, without a prevalence of Planned Parenthood facilities offering abortion as the solution to a difficult or unsupported pregnancy, more women and families would be likely to reach out for other options, including pro-life pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes that provide life-affirming resources.
“With far more accessible and comprehensive community health centers outnumbering Planned Parenthoods 15 to 1, women have real choices for their health care needs,” she said.
