(Reuters) – Missouri’s only abortion clinic won its case against the state’s health department to remain open on Friday, after a state arbiter found the state’s health department was unjustified in denying the clinic’s license renewal application.
Missouri health officials declined to renew the clinic’s license last year on the grounds that it failed to meet their safety standards, threatening to close the clinic and make Missouri the only U.S. state without legal access to abortion.
“We find that Planned Parenthood has demonstrated it meets the requirements for renewal of its abortion facility license,” Administrative Hearing Commissioner Sreenivasa Rao Dandamudi wrote in her decision Friday.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter, Editing by Franklin Paul)