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Pro-life group celebrates Planned Parenthood’s closing of remaining Louisiana facilities: ‘Huge success’
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EXCLUSIVE: Planned Parenthood is set to shutter its last two Louisiana facilities next month, a move pro-life advocates say represents «success» amid efforts to shut down the organization.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, 40 Days for Life CEO and founder Shawn Carney said the closure of the clinics is a «huge victory» for the entire pro-life movement and his organization, which has prayed and held vigils outside Planned Parenthood facilities for roughly 20 years.
«The only remaining Planned Parenthoods in the state of Louisiana, in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, are closing because they can’t do abortions there,» Carney said. «Planned Parenthood survives financially on abortions, and they survive financially on the American taxpayer. This is a huge success for the pro-life movement.»
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast — which runs six clinics in the Houston, Texas, area and two in Louisiana — announced it will close its Baton Rouge and New Orleans clinics on Sept. 30.
PRO-LIFE GROUP ‘ELATED’ AFTER PLANNED PARENTHOOD SHUTTERS HOUSTON FACILITIES: ‘TREMENDOUS VICTORY’
Shawn Carney, CEO and founder of 40 Days for Life, stated the closure of more Planned Parenthood facilities is a «huge victory» for the pro-life movement. (Fox News Digital/Landon Mion)
Planned Parenthood previously announced the closure of the Prevention Park and Southwest centers in the Houston area, one of which was the largest abortion facility in the Western Hemisphere. The remaining Houston facilities will be acquired by the organization’s largest Texas affiliate.
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President Melaney Linton said in a statement that the closures in Louisiana are a «direct result of relentless political assaults.»
«This is not a decision we wanted to make; it is one we were forced into by political warfare,» she wrote. «Anti-reproductive health lawmakers obsessed with power and control have spent decades fighting the concept that people deserve to control their own bodies.»
Linton said «extremist» Republican lawmakers have done everything in their power to defund Planned Parenthood, adding: «Every health center closure, every patient who goes without care, every undetected cancer and untreated infection is on those lawmakers’ hands.»
Facilities in GOP-led states with abortion restrictions, including Louisiana and Texas, have also been forced to cease the procedures following the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe V. Wade and returned the power to make laws regarding abortion back to the states.
GOP officials in recent years have made repeated attempts to shut down Planned Parenthood, even after nearly all abortions were banned under state law in Louisiana and Texas, as well as other Republican-controlled states.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) celebrated the pending closures of the remaining Planned Parenthood facilities in the state in a post on X, writing that abortion «should NEVER be considered healthcare.» (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry wrote on X that the Planned Parenthood closures in his state mark a «major win for the pro-life movement» in his state, adding that he has fought to «rid our state of this failed organization» and that abortion «should NEVER be considered healthcare.»
The state’s Attorney General Liz Murrill, also a Republican, wrote that the Planned Parenthood clinic closures are «welcome news.»
«Planned Parenthood built its business around promoting death. Louisiana chooses life. We will always protect women and babies,» she wrote.
While Planned Parenthood is not allowed to provide abortion procedures in Louisiana, it has helped women access out-of-state abortions.
EX-PLANNED PARENTHOOD DIRECTOR CELEBRATES CLOSURE OF HOUSTON FACILITIES: ‘NOT SHOCKING’
Planned Parenthood facilities have been shuttering in various states across the country, including California and New York, where the organization is selling its only Manhattan health center building for $39 million.
«This will be the 40th Planned Parenthood to close in 2025,» Carney said. I suspect before September 30, which is the end of their fiscal year, that we will see about 25 to 30 more Planned Parenthoods close, maybe more.»
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast announced it will close its Baton Rouge and New Orleans clinics on Sept. 30. (Getty Images)
The Trump administration has sought to impose funding cuts to Planned Parenthood that could lead to the closure of additional facilities. A provision in a GOP-backed spending bill would end Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers that received more than $800,000 from the program in 2023, although that provision is facing legal challenges and has been blocked, at least for now, by a federal judge.
«Planned Parenthood is in the worst shape in their entire history, and they were before the fall of Roe V. Wade and before their defunding,» Carney said.
Carney predicted that Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country will continue to merge, just as Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast is set to do. Former Planned Parenthood clinic director turned pro-life activist Abby Johnson recently made a similar prediction in an interview with Fox News Digital.
«The suffering ones, like Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, will end up merging with some of these other affiliates that they used to just compete against for abortion numbers,» Carney said. «I think you’ll see these closures lead to them not rebuilding, but just going away in some parts of the country and merging with other affiliates throughout the rest of America.»
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President Melaney Linton said the closures in Louisiana are a «direct result of relentless political assaults.» (Getty Images)
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«If they’re a nonprofit, they can go out and do what all nonprofits do, what we do and churches do, and that’s go out and raise money,» he continued. «And if people want to support your mission, they will. You shouldn’t be dependent on the federal government, and this just highlighted how dependent they were.»
Carney also noted that Planned Parenthood lost 78,000 individual donors last year, emphasizing that the organization is not only at risk of potentially losing public funding.
Addressing Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortions make up only 3% of its services, Carney said that is «complete garbage» and pointed to the shuttering of facilities in Republican-controlled states with abortion bans.
«It’s like McDonald’s saying that only 3% of their business is selling french fries,» he said. «If that were true, they wouldn’t be closing all these facilities in pro-life states where you can’t do abortions. So that’s hardly believable anymore in 2025.»
exclusive,abortion,politics,louisiana,us,donald trump,supreme court
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Office of Management and Budget (OMB) chief Russell Vought and President Donald Trump are in the midst of mapping out cuts to the federal government after lawmakers on Capitol Hill failed to reach a funding bill agreement early Wednesday morning.
Trump set the stage in the lead-up to the shutdown that the federal government is likely to see staffing and program cuts during the shutdown, adding in a message Thursday to Truth Social that many federal agencies are a «political SCAM.»
«I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,» Trump posted.
HERE’S WHAT TRUMP WANTS TO DO TO RESHAPE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DURING THE SHUTDOWN
«I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!»
Office of Management and Budget chief Russell Vought and President Donald Trump are in the midst of mapping out cuts to the federal government after lawmakers on Capitol Hill failed to reach a funding bill agreement. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press )
Fox News Digital spoke with Richard Stern, the Heritage Foundation’s director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, Thursday morning to discuss which agencies the OMB chief would likely target for staffing cuts and if such cuts would be permanent.
How a shutdown enables cuts
Stern explained to Fox Digital that there are a pair of overlapping issues that lead to the government’s staffing size. Agencies are required by various laws to provide certain services to citizens. And, separately, appropriation bills set funding floors on how much money an agency has available to spend on staff payroll.
During a shutdown, however, there is a lapse in funding, meaning agencies do not have «payroll floors from the funding bill,» leaving the executive branch with discretion on how to continue providing required services to citizens, he explained.
«Because the funding bills set effective floors per salary spending, that tends to dictate how many people work for the agencies. In the event of a shutdown, the only requirement on the administration is to ensure that the agencies provide the services and whatnot that are required by law. But those laws don’t say you need, you know, 100 staffers to write a grant or only one staffer,» Stern told Fox Digital in a phone interview.
WHITE HOUSE PREPARES FOR ‘IMMINENT’ FEDERAL LAYOFFS AFTER DEMOCRATS FORCE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
«They simply say, you know, ‘There’s a grant program that has to go out the door under XYZ parameters.’ So, in the event of a lapse in funding, it means that the administration … can lay out a plan saying, ‘Hey, look, you know, we think the Department of Education, for example, could do everything it is legally required to do, but do it with 10% of the workforce,’» he continued.
If the administration determines that an agency can fulfill its legally required services to citizens with fewer people, it will subsequently send reduction in force notices, known as RIFs, to staffers. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
If the administration determines that an agency can fulfill its legally required services to citizens with fewer people, it will subsequently send reduction in force notices, known as RIFs, to staffers.
«If the funding was there, and if the funding law required those staff levels, then you wouldn’t be able to RIF,» he said. «But in the lapse of funding, it gives the White House that opportunity.»
Permanent changes to the government are in a gray zone, however, because RIFs would not be able to take effect until after 60 days.
«Once the RIF notices go out, you … legally need to wait 60 days before the RIF notices can be enacted,» Stern continued. «Really the shutdown would have to last 60 days, beyond that, to actually act on the RIFs.»
The Heritage Foundation expert, who also serves as the conservative think tank’s acting director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, stressed that any staffing cuts are not an example of government «downsizing.»
TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE DEMANDS AGENCIES MAP OUT MASS LAYOFFS AHEAD OF POTENTIAL SHUTDOWN
«It’s not downsizing the activities of agencies,» he said. «It’s not reducing what they make available, what services they provide. It’s simply reducing the workforce that’s providing the same level and the same amount of services.»
Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Getty)
What agencies could be targeted for cuts?
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a gaggle of reporters Thursday that «thousands» of federal employees could be laid off during the shutdown.
«Look, it’s likely going to be in the thousands. It’s a very good question. And that’s something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today,» Leavitt said.
Stern pointed to a handful of agencies that will likely be targeted for layoffs, citing agencies that have «mission creeped» their original purview into regulatory issues, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as other agencies, like the National Science Foundation, that handle grant writing for programs.
«Probably the Department of Ed is, is kind of the poster child on this one,» he said. «They’ve been talking about, they quite literally only need 10% or so on the staff.»
He also noted the EPA, Department of the Interior and the Department of Labor could face cuts due to the various agencies’ «mission creep into a lot of regulations that are quite harmful to the economy, that are quite harmful to just American families.»
WHITE HOUSE TELLS FEDERAL AGENCIES TO PREPARE LAYOFF PLANS AS GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN LOOMS
«EPA over … a decade or so, has mission creeped its jurisdiction into more and more regulatory affairs, that just simply the EPA doesn’t have under a statutory capacity,» he said. «They’re regulating outside of the confines, the charge they were given by law, by Congress. So, EPA is another one of those where that makes a lot of sense to cut a lot of the workforce there. Then, at HUD and Department of Labor you have similar things.»
Stern said the administration likely is also eyeing agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities and certain aspects of the Department of Housing and Urban Development that are charged with «running programs that write grants where there’s an enormous amount of legal discretion on who gets the grant money.»
President Donald Trump said the shutdown presented the opportunity for the administration to carry out layoffs as part of a continued mission to slim down the federal government. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press )
«These grants are not serving some critical, or frankly, constitutional role,» he said, adding the grants often land in the hands of universities and promote «left-wing» ideology on topics, such as transgenderism and climate change.
What has Trump said on federal cuts?
Trump said during various public remarks Tuesday, as the deadline clock began to run dry, the shutdown presented him with the opportunity for the administration to carry out layoffs as part of a continued mission to slim down the federal government and snuff out overspending and fraud. Trump, however, repeatedly has stressed he does not support the shutdown, pinning blame on Democrats.
WHITE HOUSE PREPARES FOR ‘IMMINENT’ FEDERAL LAYOFFS AFTER DEMOCRATS FORCE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
«We don’t want it to shut down because we have the greatest period of time ever,» Trump said from the Oval Office Tuesday. «I tell you, we have $17 trillion being invested. So, the last person that wants it shut down is us.
«Now, with that being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,» he continued.
Republicans have pinned the shutdown blame on Democrats, arguing they refused to fund the budget as an attempt to reinstate taxpayer-funded medical benefits for illegal immigrants. Democrats have countered that claim as a «lie» and cast blame for the shutdown on Republicans.
«A lot of good can come down from shutdowns,» Trump added Tuesday. «We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things. But they want open borders. They want men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everybody. They never stop. They don’t learn. We won an election in a landslide.»
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Trump’s second administration has spotlighted the size of the federal government as bloated since Inauguration Day, including the president launching the Department of Government Efficiency to weed out potential fraud, overspending and corruption and offering federal employees voluntary buyouts in January to leave their posts before rolling out other RIF initiatives across various agencies.
Fox News Digital reached out to OMB’s office for comment on the anticipated cuts but did not immediately receive a reply.
Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
donald trump,budgets,white house,government shutdown
Un equipo de paleontólogos de los Estados Unidos y Europa encontraron un fósil en la isla de Skye, en Escocia, que puede redefinir lo que se sabe sobre el origen de serpientes y lagartos modernos.
El hallazgo fue publicado en la revista Nature y consiste en los restos fósiles de una especie que llamaron Breugnathair elgolensis, un reptil que vivió hace unos 167 millones de años. Para sorpresa de los científicos, presenta características mixtas de serpiente y lagarto.
El equipo de investigación estuvo formado por especialistas del Museo Estadounidense de Historia Natural, el Museo Nacional de Escocia y el Colegio Universitario de Londres, quienes extrajeron los restos fósiles de una formación rocosa costera.
Para analizarlos, usaron microscopía, tomografías computarizadas y rayos X de alta potencia en el Sincrotrón Europeo de Radiación.
Esos métodos permitieron examinar en profundidad la morfología interna del animal sin dañar los delicados huesos. Se revelaron detalles inéditos sobre su estructura.
Breugnathair elgolensis no es exactamente una serpiente ni un lagarto moderno. Se trata de un reptil extinto que tenía características de ambos grupos. Poseía dientes curvos y mandíbulas similares a las de las serpientes, pero conservaba un cuerpo corto y patas desarrolladas, como los lagartos.
Los científicos lo ubican en una familia extinta llamada parviraptoridos, un grupo de reptiles primitivos.
El fósil muestra que los rasgos de serpiente y lagarto podían coexistir en un mismo animal, lo que sugiere que las fronteras evolutivas entre ambos grupos fueron más difusas en el pasado de lo que se pensaba.
Los ejemplares de la especie Breugnathair elgolensis vivieron hace aproximadamente 167 millones de años. Su nombre significa “falsa serpiente de Elgol”, y está relacionado con la combinación inusual de rasgos que presenta.
El ejemplar tiene mandíbulas y dientes curvados similares a los de las serpientes actuales, pero mantiene un cuerpo corto y patas completamente desarrolladas, propios de un lagarto.
Los expertos explican que este conjunto de características lo hace único entre los reptiles del pasado. Fue hallado en 2016 por Roger Benson del Museo Americano de Historia Natural y Stig Walsh del Museo Nacional de Escocia, durante una campaña de exploración. El estudio detalla que la preparación y el análisis del espécimen tardaron casi una década, debido a la fragilidad de los huesos y la dificultad para extraerlos de la roca.
El estudio en el Sincrotrón Europeo de Radiación “permitió observar detalles internos del cráneo y la dentadura sin dañar el material”, afirmó Benson.
El análisis evidenció que Breugnathair perteneció a la familia extinta de los parviraptoridos. Hasta ahora, este grupo solo se conocía por fragmentos fósiles dispersos.
El hallazgo mostró que huesos con dientes similares a serpientes y otros con rasgos de gecko, antes atribuidos a especies diferentes, en realidad coexistían en un solo animal.
“El mosaico de rasgos primitivos y especializados que observamos en los parviraptóridos es una muestra de la complejidad de la evolución”, explicó Susan Evans, coautora del trabajo.
La descripción de Breugnathair elgolensis permite describir formalmente a los parviraptóridos como una nueva familia. Antes la clasificación era solo informal.
Durante la época del Jurásico, Skye era un ambiente cálido y húmedo, integrado por archipiélagos, lagos y una amplia vegetación.
En esa zona se han encontrado fósiles de reptiles diversos, peces, dinosaurios y mamíferos primitivos.
El fósil también aporta datos sobre la evolución de los hábitos depredadores en los reptiles. Benson planteó que el origen de las serpientes podría no ser como se suponía, o bien que ciertos hábitos depredadores evolucionaron de manera independiente.
El hallazgo de Breugnathair elgolensis aporta nuevas perspectivas sobre la evolución de los reptiles escamosos y plantea más preguntas sobre el origen de las serpientes.
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