Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood has announced plans to open a clinic in New Orleans and provide telehealth services in the state.
The announcement also comes less than a year after Trump administration cuts led Planned Parenthood to close its two previous clinics in Louisiana. Planned Parenthood Great Plains network announced June 24 it will add Louisiana to its coverage area that already includes Arkansas, Kansas, western Missouri and Oklahoma.
Services that Planned Parenthood plans to provide from the New Orleans clinic include contraception, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, gender-affirming care, pregnancy testing, perimenopause and menopause care, vasectomies, cancer screenings and other preventive care. It will not provide abortion services, but it will provide support to patients who travel to states where abortion is legal.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill criticized Planned Parenthood.
“Planned Parenthood built a business around promoting death,” Murrill said in response to Wednesday’s announcement. “Abortion remains illegal in Louisiana – including any attempt by activists to facilitate the trafficking of dangerous and illegal pills through the mail or via ‘telehealth.’”
Murrill has sought to enforce the state’s abortion ban and a separate law against mailing abortion drugs to Louisiana. She’s asked Congress to override other states’ shield laws that have prevented her from extraditing and prosecuting doctors who have prescribed the medication through telehealth consultations.
Murrill also has also sued the federal government to end its telehealth policy allowing doctors to prescribe abortion drugs without an in-person doctor’s visit. The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed that lower court ruling in that case.
On May 14, the court issued a stay of the May 1 ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that would have banned mifepristone from being mailed. The stay means the drug will be available as the case brought by the state of Louisiana against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration proceeds through lower courts.
“It’s shocking that the Supreme Court would block this common-sense return to medically ethical practices and oversight,” Murrill said of the stay. “DOJ did not defend Big Pharma, which is profiting from the illegal and unethical distribution of abortion pills. We will keep fighting.”
