Baton Rouge clinic that can no longer perform abortions will refer women to New Orleans location

One of the two remaining abortion clinics serving women in southeast Louisiana will no longer terminate pregnancies, as its doctors cannot meet the restrictions of a 2014 law the state is now allowed to enforce.

That facility — the Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge on Colonial Drive — expects to stay open as abortion activists take the battle over the new law, which requires abortion doctors to have “active admitting privileges” at hospitals within 30 miles of their clinics, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Delta’s administrator said Thursday that the clinic is now providing abortion counseling only. Baton Rouge area women who want abortions are being referred to the Women’s Health Care Center on General Pershing Street in New Orleans, one of four clinics statewide.

“Our Baton Rouge office does not have hospital privileges, therefore they are not providing abortion services,” said Sylvia Cochran, who oversees both clinics.

The loss in service comes on the heels of the Causeway Medical Clinic of Metairie's unexplained closure last week. Though that clinic’s owners have thus far kept mum about the shut down, court records show that its doctors had been unable to secure the privileges that the law, if enforced, would require.

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 1:19 PM with the headline "Baton Rouge clinic that can no longer perform abortions will refer women to New Orleans location."