These are the locations of the Planned Parenthood (PP) Centers with no Community Health Centers (CHCs) within five miles, arranged by state, according to a web search on PP Centers matched to federally-qualified CHCs. We remove a location when we find a Rural Health Clinic within 5 miles.
We have a separate page listing the U.S. Representatives in the districts these PP centers are in, with contact information.
We have a White Paper called: Expanding Community Health Centers: Information to Aid Effectiveness. An Area of Bipartisan Agreement. It has the information in a format and approach suitable for national legislators.
White Paper – Expanding CHCs (January, 2023)
The first version was published January 1, 2021. For the second version, 10 PP centers were removed because they had permanently closed. In the current version, 8 more PP centers were removed as new CHCs had opened in their vicinity.
Current count: 48 locations.
California (3): Clearlake, Rancho Mirage, San Ramon
Colorado (2): Littleton, Salida
Illinois (2): Orland Park, Ottawa
Maine (1): Topsham
Maryland (2): Annapolis, Towson
Massachusetts (1): Marlborough
Minnesota (6): Alexandria, Bemidji, Brooklyn Park, Eden Prairie, St. Cloud, Woodbury
Missouri (1): Manchester
New Hampshire (1): Keene
New Jersey (4): Delran, Flemington, Hamilton Square, Washington
New York (7): Clifton Park (currently closed), Cobleskill, Corning, Elmira, Ithaca, Johnstown, Saratoga Springs
Pennsylvania (4): Bridgeville, Moon Township, Warminster, West Chester
Texas (5): Addison, Bedford, Cedar Hill, Fort Worth (Southwest)
Utah (1): Orem
Vermont (1): Brattleboro
Washington (1): Pullman
Wisconsin (7): Delavan, LaCrosse, Portage, Racine, West Allis, West Bend, Wisconsin Rapids
Is “Closest” Good Enough?
If the distance is less than 25 miles, we’ve listed the closest CHCs found in the web search in the state listings. Some of these are in small towns where travel times on open roads are more normal and expected than they are in congested cities. People who live in the vicinity may know better what’s reasonable.
Rural Health Clinics, County Clinics, and Teaching Hospitals
Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) are a separate program from CHCs, and will be especially valuable for the PP Centers without nearby CHCs, since many of those are rural. We’ve added them when we know about them, but the full list that used to be on the web has been taken down.
Many counties offer health services by the county government, and those can also be investigated for suitability. Though not against the rules for them to offer abortions, they rarely do. We normally haven’t added those, unless local activists suggest we do for their area.
Teaching hospitals are often a good place for serving low-income people. Unlike CHCs and RHCs, however, they might be places that do abortions themselves. We list those that belong to the Association of American Medical Colleges, but that may not be a comprehensive list, and local activists are likely to be more familiar with these.
College & University Health Centers
Though limited in the number of people to whom these can be helpful, since they only serve students, these can be quite valuable. PP often makes a point of being near students as one of their major targets. See our page on campus centers for details on how these can be used.
Other Clinics
Are there other clinics or doctor’s offices that might be suitable? Or that might become suitable if they were talked into taking Medicaid payments?
There might be clinics that are just like CHCs in just about every way, but didn’t apply to become federally-qualified in the CHC bureaucracy and so aren’t listed.
One method to find them: go to www.yelp.com. Under “Find,” put in Planned Parenthood. Under “Near,” put in your city. You’ll get not only the PP center, but a list of similar facilities in the vicinity that provide similar services. This provides you with leads – after all, CHCs by definition serve low-income people and don’t do abortions, and anything on the Yelp list might not fit those needs. Then again, they could be run by pro-life sympathetic medical personnel and be perfect. They might funnel women to PP for abortion just as well as another PP center, or they might be delighted to be proactive about being an alternative. They may already be full on patients and not able to take more, or they may be eager to find ways to get more. But these should be good leads to research.
You can try for your vicinity: Find a Pro-Life OBGYN.
Mobile Clinics
Are there mobile clinics already serving the vicinity that might be possible PP alternatives? Or are there mobile clinics not yet there that could be persuaded to add helpful locations to their route?
See the website of the Mobile Clinic Association.
Save the Storks offers mobile medical units designed for pregnancy help centers that, with qualified medical personnel, are equipped to offer sonograms and pregnancy tests on the spot. This are primarily for use outside abortion centers, but they can also with the proper equipment be used for the pap smears, breast exams, STD screening, and other services otherwise offered by PP (most don’t now, but could be adapted). While these are expensive to obtain, Save the Storks has some grant money, and advice on fund-raising. They’ll also know if there might already be such a mobile unit in the vicinity that can be scheduled to come your specific PP center.
Another pro-life source of mobile medical units is ICU Mobile.
STD Testing and Treatment
Even where there are no good comprehensive centers, there might be a location that does STD testing, and STD testing is a major source of PP’s income. For STD testing alone, a web search shows that STD Check has over 4,500 centers nation-wide and offers a panel of 10 tests for $198, with a clear price list for individual tests. You can put a zip code in at Find a Lab to get your closest ones. Also check to see if you have local non-profits that might provide the service free or low-cost.
State Legislatures and Foundation Grants
Here’s a map showing which 29 states provide state funding for CHCs.
If research shows that the only way to have a good alternative to PP is to create one, then that’s a major project. Pro-life legislators and/or grant-makers may take an interest in funding such a project if they understand the importance of a good alternative to PP centers, and especially if legwork has been done to suggest good locations for a permanent clinic, possibilities for mobile medical clinics, and other practical matters. Legislators and grant-makers who aren’t pro-life may nevertheless be persuaded to support a project for the sake of greater health care availability.
US Representatives
We have a separate page listing the U.S. Representatives in the districts these PP centers are in, with contact information and sample letters.
Federal legislators often take an interest in seeing to it that there are CHCs in their districts, so a lobbying campaign there might be useful.