Another New Mega-Clinic Planned for Massachusetts: Planned Parenthood Remaking Abortion Empire with Openings, Closings, Mergers.

The announcement that Planned Parenthood is building yet another mega-clinic, this time a new three-story "reproductive health center" in Worcester, Massachusetts, comes on the heels of similar stories of major building projects by PPFA affiliates in Illinois, Colorado, Florida, and Oregon. Newspapers are carrying news of mergers between different Planned Parenthood affiliates across the county, along with stories of individual Planned Parenthood clinic openings or closings. So what's up at America's largest abortion chain?

Putting all the pieces together, it becomes apparent that Planned Parenthood, despite record revenues and record numbers of abortions, is undergoing a major overhaul.1 It describes itself as a service-oriented non-profit, but Planned Parenthood has been engaging in some very aggressive corporate restructuring. It is pruning non-performing clinics and affiliates, reducing expensive middle management, and maximizing the most profitable aspects of its business. In the parlance of business, especially applicable in this case, Planned Parenthood is making itself "leaner and meaner."

Massachusetts Gets a Mega-Clinic

After a year of tinkering with plans to renovate a 33,000-square-foot two-story medical office building, the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) finally decided in February that it would raze the old building and construct a new modern three-story building to house its Worcester "reproductive health care center" (Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 2/21/08).

Officials for PPLM said that the move from the clinic's current location to a new, larger building was "driven by a need for more and higher-quality space closer to public transportation." The clinic that the new mega-clinic will replace saw about 11,000 patients in 2006, officials told the press (Telegram & Gazette, 1/18/07). The Worcester clinic has been offering abortions since 1982 (Harvard Crimson, 10/29/94).

Further details on the facilities, services, and staffing were not available and no date was given for the construction or completion of the new mega-clinic. A city councilwoman said the new building would be a "substantial upgrade aesthetically" to the neighborhood and noted that it had the support of local residents and businesses (Telegram & Gazette, 2/21/08).

From Mega-Clinic to Merger