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 Another area resident, retired public health official Merrilyn
Brady, began mobilizing supporters of the proposed clinic, which
aimed to provide primary care and abortion services in a part of the
state where both are in short supply.
In handwritten letters, emails and telephone calls, more than 200
people shared their opinions about the clinic, communications
obtained from the city show. For two months, residents of Visalia, a
city of 140,000 in the conservative San Joaquin Valley, along with
nearby communities, attended crowded city council meetings.
"This proposal will bring shame to our city," opponent Jaime Zamora
wrote in an email in early February.
"Expanding health care is crucial," supporter Linda Collishaw argued
in another email.
The fight over the Visalia clinic is a window into the complicated
and emotional politics of abortion, even in a largely liberal state
like California. Last week, in the face of fervent resistance,
Planned Parenthood leaders said they would seek a different site in
the city.
Abortion proponents are scrambling to expand services in states such
as California and Illinois, where reproductive rights are enshrined
in local laws, while conservative states including Texas, Missouri
and Florida move aggressively to limit access to the procedure.
The deeply conservative U.S. Supreme Court will rule this spring on
a Mississippi law outlawing abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The case is widely expected to end or severely limit the right to
abortion, some 50 years after a prior court legalized it in the
landmark Roe v. Wade case.
If that happens, battles like the one in Visalia will become more
common, predicted Wynette Sills, director of the anti-abortion group
Californians for Life.
"Once it moves from being a federal issue and becomes a more
state-by-state dynamic, I think we’ll see polarization even within
California," she said.
PARKING AND PROTESTS
In Visalia, patients seeking to terminate a pregnancy at Planned
Parenthood are referred to clinics an hour away in Fresno and
Bakersfield.
Looking to expand beyond their small existing clinic, and eventually
provide abortions and abortion pills in Visalia, Planned Parenthood
leaders spent about six years searching for a new site, said Stacy
Cross, president of the Planned Parenthood chapter that includes
much of central California and Nevada.
Last year, a property owner they were working with applied for
permission to open a medical center on Mooney Boulevard, one of the
city's main shopping streets. Cross said they intentionally left
Planned Parenthood's name off the application to avoid provoking
opposition.
Developer David Paynter caught wind of the plans anyway.
In a Dec. 10 letter to the city's planning commission, Paynter said
the clinic would create parking issues for his nearby tenants, which
included Hobby Lobby, Regal Cinemas, Marshalls and Bed Bath &
Beyond.
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He also complained that protesters of Planned
Parenthood would disrupt the nearby businesses.
After the planning commission approved the
project, Paynter filed a formal appeal to the
city council. He declined further comment when
reached by Reuters.
Local furor grew when anti-abortion group
Tulare-Kings Right to Life learned about the
proposed clinic. The group asked residents to
voice their opposition at city council meetings.
"We are standing up against this organization
and being a voice for the voiceless," the group
said in a Feb. 2 Facebook post.
Brady, the retired public health official, wrote an op-ed defending
the clinic and spoke at city council meetings. A Republican who
voted twice for former President Donald Trump, Brady said she helped
bring a Planned Parenthood clinic to provide contraceptive and
sexual health care to a local community college more than 20 years
ago.
"I am so upset with the way conservative people, especially the far
right, look at this," she said in an interview. "If we had open
access and better education around sexual health, we wouldn’t be
seeing the abortion rate that we see."
DIFFICULT ROAD AHEAD
Cross and her team worked to persuade the city to support the
clinic, speaking with council members and emphasizing the objective
of providing more primary and sexual health care.
But days before a scheduled public hearing, Cross concluded the plan
would not win support from a majority of the council. Reluctantly,
she withdrew from a deal to purchase the Mooney Boulevard property.
Even so, an impassioned discussion about the proposal ran for nearly
two hours at last week's city council meeting. Opponents vowed to
fight any new locations.
In an interview, city councilwoman Liz Wynn declined to say how she
would have voted. She said she expected the city would help the
reproductive rights organization find a more discreet site for a new
clinic.
The four other council members did not respond to requests for
comment.
Cross said the city has sent a list of potential locations, but she
is prepared for a difficult road ahead.
"California is the most progressive state as far as reproductive
healthcare in the entire country," she said. "But even within this
state there are pockets like Visalia that are making it
challenging."
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and
Aurora Ellis)
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