Mississippi’s Last Abortion Business Waiting on State Certification 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 26, 2005
Jackson, MS (LifeNews.com) — The last abortion business in Mississippi is waiting on state officials to approve its certification as a licensed ambulatory surgical center. Lawmakers there approved a measure seeking to protect women from botched abortions by strengthening safety requirements.
If the abortion facility doesn’t obtain the certification, it would be prevented from doing abortions after the first trimester.
More than 3,000 women visit the Women’s Health Organization annually but the abortion business plans to do everything it can to get a license.
"We have no intention of leaving and we intend to continue to provide the services that we’re providing," Susan Hill, president of the North Carolina-based parent company told AP. "It won’t be easy, but we’re staying."
If the abortion center fails to get a license from the state it could find itself again in front of a federal judge.
After suing to overturn the law, which prohibits second-trimester abortions at places without ambulatory surgical center standards, U.S. District Judge Tom Lee declared it unconstitutional.
Lawmakers revised the law in 2005 and made it easier for the abortion business to get the licensing.
Terri Herring, president of Pro-Life Mississippi, says the law is helpful in making abortion facilities safer for women, but they’re still not safe for unborn children.
"We believe that if they comply and the clinic is safer for women," she told the Associated Press. "[A]t the very least, Mississippi has made the back-alley abortion clinic — or the front-alley abortion clinic as we call them — safer for women but not for unborn children."
Hill told AP it has worked out most of the requirements in the law but still needs to make sure enough medical personnel are on hand to address medical emergencies.
There is a January deadline to meet the requirements and WHO obtained a six-month extension already from the state health department back in July.
In March, the Mississippi state medial board suspended Malachy Dehenre, an abortion practitioner whose patients suffered damaging and even deadly complications.
Dehenre had performed abortions at the New Woman Medical Center in Jackson and the facility closed following his suspension.
In one case, a woman died 18 hours after having an abortion. The women involved in the other three cases had to have hysterectomies to stop massive hemorrhaging from uterine perforations.
In the case involving a death, Dehenre admitted he should have met the patient at the hospital or relayed medical information to the doctor who treated her.
Related web sites:
Pro-Life Mississippi – https://www.prolifemississippi.org
