Pro-Lifers Boot Planned Parenthood from Michigan Counties

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Pro-Lifers Boot Planned Parenthood from Michigan Counties
By Kathleen Gilbert

COLDWATER, Michigan, September 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews) - Southern Michigan pro-lifers celebrated victory last week after steady grassroots pressure prompted local health administrators not to renew Planned Parenthood's health provider leases.

The Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency board on Thursday defeated a motion to renew the abortion giant's lease in the three counties' health system with a 3-3 vote. A majority would have been needed to renew the lease, which expires next month, for Planned Parenthood's four locations.

The health commissioners had heard from pro-lifers at their monthly meetings since January. The concerned citizens urged the commissioners to terminate the board’s agreement with the abortion provider, which became widely known two years into the three-year lease.

Jim Goethals, the president of St. Joseph County Right to Life, told LifeSiteNews.com that when the local pro-life community learned last October that Planned Parenthood was operating in their local hospital, pastor Chuck Vizthum of Hope Community Church led a grassroots protest with parishioners holding homemade signs saying "Planned Parenthood must go." Media picked up on the protest, and demonstrations against Planned Parenthood's presence spread.

Meanwhile, 2,000 signatures were gathered voicing discontent with Planned Parenthood’s presence in the community’s backyard. Local right-to-life groups began searching for an appropriate replacement health provider, and now expect to settle on one within one to two months.

Goethals noted that locals in the deeply pro-life area were upset that Planned Parenthood would be funneling women towards their one abortion facility in Kalamazoo. "For Planned Parenthood to come down in these counties was a bold move on their part to begin with," he said.

Goethals credited the combined efforts of St. Joseph County Right to Life, Branch Right to Life, and Hillside County Right to Life, all affiliates of National Right to Life, as well as the area's abundance of pro-life parish communities.

While some objected that Planned Parenthood did not perform surgical abortions in the counties, Goethals said that wasn't the whole picture. "What about the morning after pill? What about the chemical abortions? You don't hear anything about these," he said.