In mid-February, The New York Times reported on a national crisis at Planned Parenthood that has resulted in the closing of one-third of its clinics in the past 30-plus years, the aftershocks of which have been felt locally.
Planned Parenthood’s Durango clinic, which closed in August 2024 “temporarily but indefinitely” (Herald, July 15), is one of the casualties in the decline of Planned Parenthood clinics nationally, from a high of 900 in the 1990s when clinics cared for 5 million patients to the 2.1 million patients its 600 clinics support today.
Though widely identified with abortions, through its in-person (Cortez and Farmington are now the closest clinics to Durango) and virtual tele-health services – Planned Parenthood also provides trauma-informed and culturally congruent reproductive, wellness and preventive health care, and sexual health care education. Before it closed, Durango’s clinic provided care to 1,200 patients annually, almost 20% from out of state. Some of these services are available through other Durango-based health care providers, though Planned Parenthood was the only local abortion provider.
Despite Planned Parenthood’s recent announcement (Herald, Jan. 31) that it hopes to reopen after a seven-month closure, which is far from certain, procedural in-person abortions would not be provided.
The Times said the clinics and the challenges endemic to their operation – understaffing, low salaries, high cost of living and turnover, insufficient training and aging facilities – all issues with which Durango has grappled – the national Planned Parenthood Federation of America has never adequately addressed with its affiliates. Since its raison d’être and name nationally has been synonymous with abortion access, its focus largely has been on the costly legal and political battle to preserve abortion rights perhaps at the exclusion of the funding and other needs of its affiliates who run their clinics.
In late January and mid-February, the Herald’s editorial board met with Adrienne Mansanares, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains CEO, and a local group of concerned citizens loosely calling themselves the Margaret Mead group invoking her famous quote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Mansanares reiterated the ongoing challenge of finding a local provider and affordable housing. The “Mead” group suggested there were local providers that already live here that would work several days a month, but PPRM’s union limits the flexibility such a proposal would allow, as does its centralized patient scheduling.
Mansanares shared that the percentage of medicated and procedural abortions, respectively 30% and 70% in 2017, had flipped to 80% and 20% in 2025. This only means that fewer in-person procedural abortions are taking place partly because of the availability of medicated abortions, the closing of clinics, and because of (and despite) the limited and total abortion bans 19 states have instituted.
In fact, according to The Guttmacher Institute, in 2023, the first full year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, more than 1 million abortions were performed in the U.S., 63% of which were medication abortions, a 10% jump from 2020 and the greatest increase in over a decade.
In Colorado, clinicians provided 27,610 medication and procedural abortions. Since 2020, there has been a 105.8% increase in total abortions in Colorado, in part due to women in states with limits on abortion seeking care here. The six states bordering Colorado accounted for 49% of that increase. A sanctuary state, in November 2024, 62% of Colorado residents voted to enshrine abortion access into its constitution.
One thing is clear. Women are seeking abortions in large numbers, both medication and procedural. Controlling if and when one becomes pregnant, to control decisions about one's own body, is a most personal and fundamental human right. The absence of access to abortions can and does have serious social, emotional, physical and economic consequences.
Rather than a four-hour drive to Albuquerque and the associated time and expense, procedural abortion access is needed in Durango. We need a community-driven and -based approach to reproductive health care for all genders.
PPRM has been a part of our community for 50 years, but as we said in “Holding hope for Planned Parenthood or new clinic with local control” (Herald, July 28), perhaps its financial challenges and inflexible business model no longer fits Durango? Perhaps PPRM could collaborate with the local Margaret Mead group, community and philanthropic partners, to return to a staffed building.
And as we said in July, “Just as long as all people – no matter who they are – continue to receive reproductive health care provided with the compassion we’ve experienced at Planned Parenthood in Durango,” we’d support it.
