Planned Parenthood, after the owner of 1407 Union refused to renew their lease with them and instead rented the space to UT Medical Group, started to look for a new home “close to their patients.”
They chose 1750 Madison, a six story building directly across the street from Memphis Catholic High School, St. Peter’s Villa (the Catholic retirement home of Memphis), and Villa Vianney (the Catholic priests’ retirement home of Memphis). This is basically a Catholic complex. We at 40 Days for Life were as shocked at the choice of move as faithful Catholics of Memphis appeared to be outraged. It was rather interesting that they should choose such a location. The Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency even called the situation, “putting fire and gunpowder next to one another.”
After gaining their Certificate of Need for the building all seemed to be going smoothly for them, until right before Christmas we at 40 Days received a private memo from an anonymous source that revealed that Robert N. Moore Company, the owners of 1750 Madison, were refusing to now lease to Planned Parenthood because of what they said was other tenants concern about “possible protests.”
In early January the Commercial Appeal reported that Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region would not be moving to 1750 Madison but instead would be buying 2430 Poplar. Planned Parenthood would not mention the true reasons behind why they were not moving to 1750 Madison (the property owner and the tenants did not want the “protesters” in front of their building and rather nixed deals with Planned Parenthood), but instead they said they were “taking advantage of a better opportunity by purchasing space at 2430 Poplar” which had, according to them, “not [been] on the market at the time.”
We at 40 Days for Life moved over to the 2430 Poplar building on March 1st to begin our vigil there. We then find out that the building is still under inspection and has not even been purchased.e building is under inspection and has not been closed on yet.
We, after spending three days in prayer at the possible new location, have returned back to 1407 Union to pray that Planned Parenthood’s stay will come to an end in Memphis and thus abortion and the pain and it inflicts on the unborn and their mothers will start to come to an end.