JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A federal judge last week denied Planned Parenthood’s request for a mid-Missouri clinic to be temporarily exempted from certain abortion regulations, ensuring that the Columbia clinic will not be able to resume abortions.

U.S. Western District Court Judge Brian Wimes wrote in his ruling that even if he did lift the requirement that doctors at the clinic have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals before they perform abortions, the Columbia center still would not be able to provide abortions.

Missouri is down to one clinic performing abortions, and that one is located in St. Louis.

That’s because the clinic’s license expired Tuesday. Abortions scheduled for Wednesday were canceled.

Attorneys for Planned Parenthood had requested that Wimes temporarily exempt Columbia from the hospital privileges requirement as Planned Parenthood’s broader challenge to abortion regulations plays out in court.

The admitting privileges requirement is important because the Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic has been unable to secure physician privileges or find a doctor with those privileges after a panel of medical staff at the University of Missouri Health Care voted to stop offering those privileges altogether in 2015 amid a Republican-led legislative investigation on abortion in the state.

Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson in a Thursday statement called Wimes’ ruling a “victory for protecting the sanctity of life.”

However, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains President and CEO Brandon Hill in a Wednesday statement said the ruling is a “disappointing setback in our effort to protect access to safe, legal abortion in Missouri.”

Wimes wrote in his ruling that Planned Parenthood can ask again to be exempted from the rule if the state later grants them an abortion license.

It’s unclear when, or if, that will happen.

The attorney general is defending the state abortion regulations.

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