Wisconsin’s Madison Surgery Center Approves New Late-Term Abortion Business
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 6, 2009
Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) — Two days after the Authority Board of the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics approved a plan to create a second trimester abortion facility a second vote gave the go ahead. This time, the board of the Madison Surgery Center decided 6-0 to move the proposed abortion facility forward.
Dr. Nancy Fredericks, an anesthesiologist at the surgery center, was one of the leading opponents of the idea and told the board that it would hurt the reputation of the center to do late-term abortions there.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Fredericks said three of the four anesthesiologists at the surgery center will not take part in the abortions. An MSC spokeswoman said that wouldn’t affect its ability to do abortions.
The vote means that second-trimester abortions will be done again in Wisconsin within a matter of weeks or a few months.
The facility, which will be located at 1 S. Park St in Madison, will do approximately 125 abortions annually on women whose unborn children are about 19 to 22 weeks along.
Doctors at UW decided to put the abortion business together after the retirement of Dennis Christensen, who had done the second trimester abortions at the Planned Parenthood center in Madison until he retired in December.
UW Hospital, the UW Medical Foundation and Meriter Hospital are behind the plan for the abortion center.
During the meeting on Wednesday, the UW board voted 11-3 to do abortions after taking three hours of testimony.
Wisconsin Right to Life and other pro-life groups have banded together to present tens of thousands of petitions from pro-life people opposed to the plan.
During the hearing, Board Chairman David Walsh said women have a right to the later-term abortions and that the center is needed because there is no other facility in Wisconsin that will do abortions after 19 weeks of pregnancy.
"Is there another place to do this? If there isn’t, what’s our responsibility as a great institution to provide full medical care? That’s where I turn on my decision," he said. "I feel we have to go ahead and approve this because we have that responsibility. We can’t be part of a conspiracy to deny a constitutional right."
Pablo Sanchez, former UW Extension Chancellor, Patrick Boyle and cardiologist Humberto Vidaillet were the only three members of the board to oppose the proposal.
Laurel Rice, chair of UW’s department of obstetrics and gynecology, testified during the hearing and said she expected the new center to do about 120-125 abortions annually. Most of them would be done in cases of rape or incest or on disabled babies.
Pro-life advocates accuse those behind the plan of wanting to profit from doing abortions.
Officials will not publicly name the physicians involved in the new abortion plan, but LifeNews.com learned that UW Health physician Caryn R. Dutton, of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department, will do the late-term abortions.
Dutton is also affiliated with Meriter Hospital and St. Marys Hospital.
About 8,200 Wisconsin women get abortions every year and 9 percent came in the sixteenth week of pregnancy or later.
ACTION: Express your disappointment to the Madison Surgery Center at https://www.madisonsurgcenter.org or [email protected].
Related web sites:
Wisconsin Right to Life – https://www.WisconsinRightToLife.org
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