Lone Abortion Business in Santa Fe, New Mexico Closing Down

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 18, 2011   |   1:50PM   |   Santa Fe, NM

The only abortion business in Santa Fe, the state capital of New Mexico, will be closing down next month, according to a new report today from the pro-life organization Operation Rescue.

OR indicates abortion practitioner Lucia Ceis will retire from doing abortions on December 23, according to an advertisement placed in The New Mexican newspaper telling patients he will no longer be in practice and explaining to them where to obtain their medical records. The last day abortions will be done is December 16, 2011.

“Ceis admits to having done thousands of abortions over her 35 years of business,” the pro-life group indicates. “That closure will leave Santa Fe abortion-free and will reduce the number of abortion clinics in New Mexico to five. Cies’ abortion business offered abortions to 18 weeks at a cost of $500-$1,200. She also conducted abortions at St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe.”

“Abortion clinics continue to close as Americans become more and more pro-life,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “The number of surgical abortion clinics has dropped from 2,200 in 1991 to only about 675 today. That is quantifiable evidence that we are winning the hearts and minds of the American people. Abortion is a human rights abuse that will soon be rejected and relegated to the ash heap of history.”

The good news comes as women are being victimized by botched abortions in Albuquerque, a much larger city with multiple abortion facilities.

Tara Shaver of Project Defending Life obtained the latest 911 call audio from officials and released the tape to Operation Rescue. The call has information about a 31-year old woman who is suffering uncontrolled bleeding after an abortion and the abortion facility worker who placed the emergency call requested that the patient be transported to the hospital.

“Uh, we have a 31 year old female, gravida 5, para 4*, who underwent an abortion today. She’s continuing to bleed. We need to transport her to the hospital, please,” the call from the abortion center says.

The woman was awake and breathing normally at the time but, asked if the bleeding is serious, the staffer pauses. “She is not on blood thinners. She does not have a bleeding disorder, but the bleeding is persistent. It will not stop,” the staffer eventually says.

Nothing further is known about the identify of the woman or her current medical condition.

This is the eleventh botched abortion 911 call Operation Rescue has released concerning the Southwestern Women’s Options in New Mexico over the last two years and the fourteenth such call concerning two Albuquerque-based abortion centers over the same time period.

Both Project Defending Life and Operation Rescue filed complaints about the recent flood of botched abortions with the New Mexico Medical Board but have received mixed signals from authorities concerning whether the calls will be investigated. Since then, the Attorney General’s office has contacted NMMB’s Executive Director Lynn Hart, regarding the incidents, requesting her “assistance in handling this matter, according to information Operation Rescue provided today.

Meanwhile, members of Project Defending Life met with Gov. Susana Martinez, who is pro-life, to discuss the dangerous conditions that have spawned so many life-threatening abortion complications.

“Our concern is for the safety of women in New Mexico. We were encouraged to hear that Governor Martinez shares these same concerns,” Fr. Stephen Imbarrato of Project Defending Life said after the meeting, according to OR. “In fact, we were thoroughly impressed that the Governor’s office not only knew about the 911 calls, but had already contacted the Executive Director of the Medical Board to insure the investigation was progressing. We now have confidence that the New Mexico Medical Board is conducting a proper investigation.”