Planned Parenthood, the women’s healthcare and abortion provider that operates the clinic, filed a petition with Missouri’s Administrative Hearing Commission on Tuesday after the group challenged the health department’s denial in state court and a judge referred the matter to the commission.
The clinic will have to stop providing abortion services on Friday if the commission does not grant its request for an injunction to stay open until its initial Aug 1 hearing date.
Missouri health officials declined to renew the St. Louis clinic’s license last week on the grounds it failed to meet their standards. If Missouri officials succeed in closing the clinic, it would become the only US state without a legal abortion facility.
Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in the United States. Missouri is one of 12 states to pass laws restricting abortion access this year, some aimed at provoking a US Supreme Court review of the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision that recognised a woman’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.
“The terrifying reality is that access is hanging on by a thread with a narrowing timeline,” Dr Colleen McNicholas, a physician at the clinic, said in a statement.
Judge Michael Stelzer issued a temporary injunction on Monday letting the clinic stay open until Friday at 5pm, pending the decision of the commission, which serves as an independent arbiter in disputes between state agencies and individuals or groups.
On Friday, a group of civil rights groups, doctors and clinics sued Georgia seeking to overturn a law passed in March that bans abortions if an embryonic or foetal heartbeat can be detected.
And the US Supreme Court sidestepped a major new challenge to abortion rights by declining to hear Alabama’s bid to revive a Republican-backed state law that would have effectively banned the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Missouri state officials have said one of their conditions for renewing the clinic’s license was to be allowed to interview several physicians who were involved in what they said were multiple life-threatening abortions at the clinic.
Planned Parenthood officials have said they do not directly employ all the clinic’s staff and cannot force certain health workers to give interviews.