After years of prayer vigils and outreach, prolife advocates are celebrating the announcement by Planned Parenthood that it has closed its abortion center in Juneau, for good. This follows the 2022 closure of the abortion giant’s clinic in Soldotna.

That leaves just two remaining Planned Parenthood clinics in Alaska – one in Fairbanks and another in Anchorage.

While there are a number of other abortionists in Alaska, Planned Parenthood is the largest single abortion company in a state where more than 1,200 unborn babies are killed through surgical or chemically induced deaths each year.

The closure of Juneau’s abortion mill is cause for celebration among Alaska pro-life advocates, but the battle to protect unborn babies is far from over.

In recent years, chemically induced deaths have become the preferred method to kill pre-born babies.

Last year, chemical abortions, using the drug Mifepristone, which kills the baby by cutting it off from her mother’s nourishing placenta, became the most common abortion method in Alaska. For the first time since the state began tracking abortions, mifepristone accounted for more than half (56%) of all Alaska abortions.

Nationally, Planned Parenthood is also undergoing a shift in how it carries out abortions. This includes increased use of telehealth, more chemical and less surgical abortions, and working with other entities to end the lives of unborn children outside of the clinical setting.

In September of this year, Planned Parenthood celebrated an Alaska Supreme Court ruling that permanently blocked a state law preventing non-doctors such as physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and certified nurse midwives — from providing chemical and surgical abortions.

Rebecca Gibron, who oversees Planned Parenthood operations in Alaska and five other states, lauded the court ruling at the time.

“Advanced practice clinicians are critical to ensuring that Alaskans, especially people with low incomes and those in rural areas, are able to access the time-sensitive care they need,” she said. “This ruling means that providers at Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky can continue serving Alaskans, no matter where in the state they live.”

Another challenge for pro-life advocates is the fact that Alaska continues to use public funds to underwrite hundreds of abortions. In 2023, the state paid for 514 abortions (about 42% of all abortions), using state-generated Medicaid dollars.

Efforts to end this practice have failed over the years.

Earlier this year four Alaska Republicans in the State Senate – including Senate President Gary Stevens and Majority Leader Cathy Giessel – joined all Democrats in voting to kill an amendment to the state operating budget bill that would have prohibited the state from using public money to pay for abortions.

Sen. Shelley Hughes (R-Palmer) introduced the amendment, which sought to accomplished two things: allot $0.00 dollars for abortion related expenses in the State Medicaid Services budget, and bar the Department of Health and Social Services from transferring funds into that budget to then use for abortions.

The amendment was intended to provide enforceability to language lawmakers annually insert into the operating budget, which states that “no money appropriated in this appropriation may be expended for an abortion,” except in cases that endanger the life of the woman, or that result from rape or incest.

The problem is that since 2001, the state has been under an Alaska Supreme Court order directing the Department of Health and Social Services to pay every abortion invoice submitted on behalf of a Medicaid recipient, regardless of any restrictions the Legislature places on abortion funding in the operating budget.

The annual pro-life “intent” language that lawmakers insert into the operating budget is simply ignored by the executive branch, because the courts have ordered abortion funding. The sitting governor faces a constitutional question. Should he follow the stated intent of the legislature – which controls the purse strings to government spending – and not pay for abortions, or acquiesce to the courts who demand that the state underwrite abortions in any and all situations?

Hughes’ amendment would have taken this quandary off the table, making it impossible for the state to pay for abortions, for there would be zero money allotted to do so, and no way to transfer funds from one budget into another for abortion funding.

Many pro-life advocates, however, have urged Gov. Mike Dunleavy to simply disregard the Supreme Court’s opinion, refuse to transfer funds for abortion, and stick with the Legislature’s annual intent language. Such a move would force the Legislature to either support the governor, or remove its symbolic intent language which has been ignored for decades.

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