(Oregon Right to Life) — Planned Parenthood’s Bleecker Street abortion facility in Manhattan will permanently close its doors following financial difficulties and a recent name change intended to avoid controversial associations with eugenics. Pro-life advocates are calling the imminent closure an answer to prayer.
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) announced in a Wednesday press release that it would be closing its “Manhattan Health Center” abortion facility located at 26 Bleecker Street in New York City.
Prior to the news of the closing, the facility previously stopped offering abortions after 20 weeks late last year, a move attributed to financial difficulties and intended to be temporary. Today, Abortion Finder states that the Manhattan facility does not provide surgical abortions, but will prescribe abortion pills through eleven weeks.
In a statement, PPGNY President and CEO Wendy Stark said plans to close the facility are due to the need to “make difficult but necessary decisions” because of ongoing financial constraints. She called the shuttering of the Manhattan location “an emotional decision for us” and described the facility as “a special place.”
The building was previously called the “Margaret Sanger Center” in honor of Planned Parenthood’s founder, but the name was changed due to concerns about Sanger’s connections to the racist eugenics movement. Planned Parenthood has made efforts in recent years to distance itself from Sanger’s controversial views. The organization states on its website that “Sanger believed in eugenics — an inherently racist and ableist ideology that labeled certain people unfit to have children… Planned Parenthood denounces Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics.”
RELATED: Report: Planned Parenthood CEOs’ Annual Salaries Over $350,000 – Three Times the National Average
Pro-life advocates have celebrated the upcoming closure of the former “Margaret Sanger Center” facility, calling it a “miracle” and an answer to prayer.
“We are thrilled and elated that the Planned Parenthood on Bleecker Street is closing,” Bernadette Patel, a pro-life activist, told Live Action. “The monthly Witness for Life has been praying at that location for the last 20 years and our prayers have been answered.”
Photojournalist Jeffrey Bruno said that, while “[t]his closure might seem like just another business decision, another casualty of financial strain to the outside world… to those who’ve knelt on those sidewalks, who’ve poured out their hearts in prayer, it feels like something far more profound: a miracle—a moment when Heaven touched Earth, and the countless prayers of the faithful were answered.”
News of the Manhattan facility’s shuttering comes as Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide are facing financial roadblocks, and pro-life advocates are increasingly working to persuade the Trump administration to cut federal funding to the abortion chain, which receives roughly 40% of its annual funding from the federal government
In February, The New York Times reported that many Planned Parenthood facilities are currently “in dire financial straits with a critical lack of resources, which has compromised care, with patients reporting failed abortions, misplaced IUDs and inadequately trained staff.” But the American Life League (ALL) reported this month that Planned Parenthood CEOs are making an average of over $350,000 per year – roughly triple the average annual income of other nonprofit leaders, with one CEO making nearly $900,000.
“As CEO salaries reach almost $1 million, the financial troubles claimed by Planned Parenthood seem hollow at best,” the ALL argued in its report. “Planned Parenthood continues to grow tremendously wealthy, and taxpayers should be outraged at the nearly $700,000,000 given by our government to Planned Parenthood during this last fiscal year.”
Pro-life advocates are actively calling on the newly-inaugurated Trump administration to “Defund Planned Parenthood,” encouraged by comments made by close allies to President Trump – including Vice President J.D. Vance, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk, and Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson – who have signaled a willingness to cut financial ties to the abortion giant.
READ: Pro-Life Advocates Urge President Trump to Defund Planned Parenthood
Meanwhile, the Bleecker Street Planned Parenthood isn’t the only abortion facility to permanently close its doors in recent years.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reported that the number of brick-and-mortar abortion facilities has dropped by 5% between 2020 and March 2024, “a net loss of 42 clinics.” That decline has been partially caused by state pro-life laws passed after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
It remains to be seen whether new facilities will crop up to replace those that have been closed, in Manhattan or elsewhere.
In her statement, Stark suggested that PPGNY is looking forward to a future with greater financial capacity in which it “can build a new state-of-the-art health center in Manhattan, similar to our health centers in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx.” However, she did not say that plans are currently in the works to do so.
Oregon Right to Life believes in the sanctity of all human life from the moment of conception to natural death. Abortion ends the life of a genetically distinct, growing human being. We oppose abortion at any point of gestation. In rare cases, a mother may have a life threatening condition in which medical procedures intended to treat the condition of the mother may result in the unintended death of her preborn baby. At the same time, ORTL recognizes that modern medical practice has and will continue to increase the ability to save both the life of the mother and the baby. Read this and all our position statements here.
