Thanksgiving came a day late in Minnesota, but better late than never for women and unborn children looking for positive solutions. Regions Hospital announced today that it would stop doing abortions.
In a news release this afternoon, Regions Hospital announced that GYN Special Services Clinic would be closing next month and, with it, the hospital will no longer do abortions. The hospital has recently been reducing overall costs by moving certain medical “services” to non-hospital settings.
“Community-based providers are available for women seeking confidential abortion care services,” said Chris Boese, vice president of patient care at Regions, in the news release. “We’re confident that patients will find the care they need from providers in our community, who provide comprehensive care, including reproductive health and family planning.”
Scott Fischbach, the director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, the statewide pro-life organization, told LifeNews the decision is wonderful, but said the good news is tempered by the fact that the Planned Parenthood abortion business is taking its place.
“In an announcement earlier today, Regions Hospital stated that they would no longer be involved in the abortion business,” he said. “This is wonderful news.”
“Unfortunately, a new, larger Planned Parenthood abortion center is almost finished being built less than five miles from Regions,” he said. “Planned Parenthood also just expanded it’s abortion business by doing web-cam RU 486 abortions in Rochester, Minnesota.”
The practice started with the Planned Parenthood of the Heartland affiliate using it in Iowa, a rural state where the abortion business has a difficult time getting an abortion practitioner to each of its clinics. As a result, it set up a process by which the abortion practitioner only visits with the woman considering using the mifepristone abortion pill via a videoconference, as opposed to an in-person visit the FDA suggests.
With the drug having killed dozens of women worldwide and injured more than 2,200 alone in the United States, according to April 2011 FDA figures, pro-life groups have been concerned about Planned Parenthood putting women’s health at risk.
RU 486 and its companion drug are administered between the fifth and ninth weeks of pregnancy, after pregnancy has been confirmed and the process typically involves three trips to a doctor. About half of the women abort while at the doctor’s office, with another 26 percent having an abortion within the next 20 hours at any location at home or in public. The remainder either have an abortion in the coming weeks or none at all of the drug fails to work — making it so a surgical abortion is required.
Through April, the FDA reports 2,207 adverse events related to the use of RU 486, including 14 deaths, 612 hospitalizations, 58 ectopic pregnancies, 339 blood transfusions, and 256 cases of infections in the United States alone. A European drug manufacturer has publicly stated that 28 women have died worldwide after using RU 486/mifepristone.
New statistics from the state health department in Minnesota show the number of abortions there have dropped once again to the lowest point since 1975, thanks in part to a program that provides help for pregnant women.
Abortion numbers fell for the fourth straight year in Minnesota, according to the latest report issued today from the Minnesota Department of Health. The decrease follows a trend of fewer abortions statewide since the Positive Alternatives program began in July 2006, funding efforts to help pregnant women in need.
The annual Abortion Report shows a total of 11,505 abortions were done in Minnesota in 2010, more than seven percent fewer than the 12,388 done in 2009.The 2010 total is the lowest number on record since two years after the Roe v. Wade decision released by the U.S. Supreme Court struck down pro-life laws protecting women and unborn children across the country.
