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Washington Terrace • The medical plaza north of Ogden Regional Medical Center, occupied by dentists and specialty care offices, is mostly deserted after business hours on weekdays, except for the occasional skateboarder or dog walker. But on Wednesday evening, dozens of people — many donning pink — overflowed out of a corner unit waiting room, celebrating the opening of a new Planned Parenthood clinic.
Their voices echoed the words, “This body is mine,” and “I have rights,” as local spoken word artist Wynter Storm asked them to repeat after her.
The new clinic doesn’t add to the number of Planned Parenthood locations in Utah, but instead marks the organization moving to a larger space with more capacity.
In Ogden, Planned Parenthood currently offers an array of reproductive health care, like sexually transmitted diseases testing and birth control, but not abortions — instead referring patients to other clinics that offer those services. But soon, its clinic may expand its services to provide abortion care, said Planned Parenthood Association of Utah CEO Kathryn Boyd.
“I think we all are proud to have a happy moment here at Planned Parenthood Association of Utah,” Boyd said. Over the past few years, state lawmakers have passed law after law of restrictive abortion policies. A 2020 trigger law that took effect last year, as well as an abortion clinic ban, are both blocked and currently tied up in court.
The organization moved from its last location just outside McKay-Dee Hospital and within walking distance of Weber State University a couple of weeks ago, and began serving patients at its new spot within 48 hours, the organization said.
Boyd told the crowd that Planned Parenthood cared for 3,100 patients last year, and provided 4,500 services to those patients. In an interview with reporters, Boyd said she anticipates the clinic — which will employ two full-time clinicians instead of one — will now have the capacity to double those numbers.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sarah McClellan, right, a former board member and long time advocate for Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, with a long legacy in public service, speaks during a celebration for the opening of the new clinic in Ogden, recently moved to a bigger space, on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. The waiting room was named in her honor as Kathryn Boyd, new CEO of the Utah chapter, left, and Annabel Sheinberg join the packed room.
“I know a lot of my friends, including Sarah, went to Planned Parenthood back in the day — because I didn’t have any insurance, I was in college, I couldn’t afford it,” said Sarah McClellan, a longtime Ogden resident, of herself.
Planned Parenthood named the waiting room for McClellan, who has become a well-known advocate for marginalized communities and progressive causes — including Planned Parenthood. “I will always, as long as I have breath in my body, support Planned Parenthood,” McClellan said to cheers.
During its ongoing legal challenge against the state’s trigger law — in which the Utah Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next month — operations have not entirely gone smoothly for Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.
In March, within days of Gov. Spencer Cox signing a now-enjoined clinic ban, its northernmost clinic in Logan closed temporarily due to staffing shortages. The clinic is one of four in the state that offer abortion care, and the only one outside of Salt Lake County. Boyd said the organization is planning to reopen that clinic at the end of this month.
If Ogden were to begin providing abortion services, it would be the fifth clinic in the state to do so, and only the second outside of the Salt Lake Valley. Boyd said like the Logan clinic, Ogden would only offer medicated abortion — not the abortion procedures available in Salt Lake City.
Boyd said there isn’t a timeline for when abortion might become available in Weber County, but adding the second clinician opens up that possibility.
“(This expansion) signifies that you’re not going to back us in a corner, that we’re going to continue to grow and provide the necessary services throughout the communities in this state to make sure that people have access to the care that they want and they need, regardless of whether or not a piece of that care is abortion care,” Boyd said.
