For more than four decades, Planned Parenthood served as a cornerstone of reproductive health care in Louisiana, quietly providing thousands of residents with essential services ranging from cancer screenings and STI testing to contraception and wellness care. But on October 1, 2025, the organization closed the doors of its last remaining clinics in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, marking a dramatic end to its presence in the state. The closures, according to Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President and CEO Melaney Linton, were anything but voluntary. She told several news outlets that mounting political pressure from state lawmakers and top officials forced the organization’s hand.
In a statement to the community, Planned Parenthood underscored the bittersweet nature of the moment: “Our patients, supporters, volunteers, and dedicated staff have kept this work alive. That legacy endures in the strength of our communities, the lives changed and saved, and the futures people continue to build for themselves and their families.” The organization’s message was clear—the fight for reproductive freedom, in their view, is far from over.
Yet, for some Louisiana officials, these closures were cause for celebration. Governor Jeff Landry, a longtime critic of Planned Parenthood, called the development “a major win for the pro-life movement here in Louisiana.” Landry, who previously served as the state’s Attorney General, posted on social media, “I have fought hard as Attorney General and now as Governor to rid our state of this failed organization. Abortion should never be considered healthcare.” Attorney General Liz Murrill echoed these sentiments, describing Planned Parenthood as a business “built around promoting death.” In her words, “Louisiana proudly stands for life. We will always protect women and babies here in our State.”
But while these statements focused on abortion, the clinics in question never performed abortions. According to Planned Parenthood, their Louisiana facilities were never licensed to provide the procedure. Instead, their work centered on preventive care: STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, contraception, and family planning. The New Orleans Health Department highlighted the scale of this impact, noting that more than 16,000 patients visited the clinics in the past year alone—most seeking STI testing and treatment. Nearly 9,000 family planning appointments were provided, with the clinic also playing a vital role in HIV prevention, cancer screening, and general wellness care.
Ryann Martinek, a sexual and reproductive health specialist with the New Orleans Health Department, stressed the urgency of finding alternatives for those left behind. “As these clinics close, it is essential that we highlight existing resources available throughout the city, provide residents with guidance, and remain committed to protecting access to essential sexual and reproductive health care,” Martinek said.
The closures in Louisiana are not isolated. They’re part of a broader national trend, with Planned Parenthood affiliates in Wisconsin and Arizona recently announcing cuts to abortion and Medicaid-related services, and clinics in California, Iowa, and Minnesota shutting down earlier this year. With the Louisiana closure, Planned Parenthood no longer operates in four states—Louisiana, Wyoming, Mississippi, and North Dakota—raising concerns among advocates about shrinking access to reproductive health care in large swathes of the country.
Behind the scenes, financial and legal pressures have played a decisive role. The 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act, nicknamed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” introduced a provision that prohibited Medicaid reimbursements to health care providers performing abortions and receiving over $800,000 annually in Medicaid funding. While Louisiana’s clinics did not provide abortions, many Planned Parenthood facilities across the country did—and the funding restrictions hit the organization hard. Planned Parenthood challenged the rule in court, arguing it would limit access for patients and threaten the viability of clinics. But on September 11, 2025, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the restrictions, blocking more than 1.1 million patients from using Medicaid insurance at Planned Parenthood health centers and deepening the financial strain. According to Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Alexis McGill Johnson, the decision created “uncertainty for both patients and providers, limiting access to reproductive care and placing health centers in jeopardy.”
As Planned Parenthood clinics shutter, the battle over reproductive rights in Louisiana has taken a new, and in many ways more personal, turn. On September 19, 2025, court documents revealed that the state had issued an arrest warrant for Dr. Remy Coeytaux, a California physician accused of mailing mifepristone—one of two medications commonly used in medical abortions—to a Louisiana resident. The case is fraught with legal and ethical complexities. The patient, Rosalie Markezich, alleges that her boyfriend, using her name and email without her consent, obtained the medication from Dr. Coeytaux and forced her to take it. “Had the FDA required in-person dispensing, Rosalie’s boyfriend would not have been able to access the drugs and compel Rosalie to take them,” the civil filing alleges.
Markezich’s account, as detailed in court documents obtained by PEOPLE, is harrowing. “Rosalie told her boyfriend that she wanted to keep her baby ... When Rosalie refused the drugs, her boyfriend became angry and shouted at her. Rosalie had suffered domestic abuse before, and she knew the signs of a dangerous man.” She ultimately took the medication but, according to the suit, “intended to throw them up,” and now faces “prolonged emotional trauma and mourns the loss of her child.”
Attorney General Murrill was quick to condemn the distribution of abortion pills without a doctor-patient relationship. “It’s dangerous, irresponsible, unethical, and illegal to distribute these pills to strangers in violation of the criminal laws of our State, without any relationship whatsoever to the individual who may ultimately be consuming them. I’ll continue to pursue anyone and use any legal means available to us to hold them accountable,” she said in a statement posted to X.
Louisiana’s abortion laws are among the strictest in the nation. Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade, abortion has been banned outright in the state, with the sole exception of preventing the death of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. The state’s aggressive legal stance extends beyond its borders: this is the second time Louisiana has filed charges against an out-of-state doctor for providing abortion medication, with a similar case against a New York physician still pending.
The battle over telehealth and abortion pills is shaping up as the next front in America’s reproductive rights debate. The Guardian reports that abortion pills shipped across state lines now account for 25% of all abortions, prompting states like Louisiana to challenge the reach of “shield laws” in places like California and New York, which are designed to protect physicians from prosecution for providing abortion care to residents of states where it is banned. Attorney General Murrill has vowed to “enforce and defend the laws of our State, including suing the governors whose shield laws purport to protect these individuals from criminal conduct in Louisiana.”
As the legal and political battles rage on, the people most affected—patients seeking reproductive health care—are left navigating an increasingly complex and polarized landscape. For many in Louisiana, the closure of Planned Parenthood’s clinics and the crackdown on telehealth abortion services represent not just the end of an era, but the beginning of new and profound challenges in accessing care.
In a state where the debate over reproductive rights is as fierce as anywhere in the nation, the story of Louisiana’s last Planned Parenthood clinics and the legal pursuit of out-of-state abortion providers offers a vivid snapshot of a country still deeply divided on one of its most personal issues.
