Abortion Clinic in Columbus Ohio Now Closed

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 4, 2012   |   12:29PM   |   Columbus, OH

An abortion clinic in Columbus Ohio, Capital Care Women’s Center, has closed, according to information Operation Rescue provided to LifeNews over the weekend.

“This closure is one of several in the past few weeks that has brought the number of surgical abortion clinics to a new low of 659. We thank God for these closures, because we know when abortion clinics close, innocent lives are spared,” said Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Policy Advisor for Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “We congratulate the faithful pro-life activists in Columbus, and look forward to the day when Columbus and all American cities are abortion-free.”

Sullenger said Capital Care has been plagued with decreased business and financial problems and recently cut back clinic hours due to difficulty keeping an abortion practitioner employed. An increasingly strong pro-life presence in Central Ohio is credited with contributing to the decision to close, she added.

She indicated that two abortion practitioners known to work at Capital Care are Harley Blank and Thomas Michaelis. Blank, who also works at the Founder’s Women’s Health Center abortion clinic in Columbus, was honored by Planned Parenthood earlier this year for his 30-year career as an abortionist in Columbus.

Michaelis, who now works at the Capital Care Network abortion clinic in Toledo, has a history of a different sort. In 1991, he was convicted of two counts of Attempted Gross Sexual Imposition, one count of Voyeurism, and one count of Public Indecency. The convictions involved incidents where Michaelis engaged in sexual predation on minor girls.

“Sex crimes are relatively common amongst abortionists. It is the abortion industry’s dirty little secret they want no one to know. It is a tragic reality that any woman that walks into an abortion clinic today is placing herself at risk that sex crimes will be committed against her. We certainly won’t rest until every one of these predators are out of the medical profession for good,” said Sullenger.

Another Columbus clinic is one pro-life groups hope to close — in part because medical transcripts leaked to Operation Rescue by a confidential informant through a third party revealed a pattern of botched abortions and violations of health and safety regulations at Complete Health Care for Women, another abortion clinic in Columbus, Ohio. The group said they “paint a grisly portrait of an unsafe abortion business that routinely injures women and violates the law.”

CHCW is operated by abortion practitioner Mervyn J. Samuel and the medical transcripts were smuggled out of a Columbus hospital and redacted by the informant before they were given to Operation Rescue. The records show that on March 16, 2012, a 23-year old woman reported to a hospital emergency room with heavy bleeding and fever after an abortion by “Dr. Samuel” with a possible incomplete abortion. The patient suffered significant bleeding and drove herself to the ER while suffering lightheadedness and dizziness.

OR indicates a pro-life sidewalk counselor at the abortion center noticed another failed abortion. In July 2010, the counselor observed a young woman leaving the abortion clinic after an abortion. The young woman swooned, dropped to her knees, and began to vomit. She was bleeding heavily through her clothing. The sidewalk counselor ran to assist the 19-year old abortion patient and drove her to the local hospital where she was treated.

The newly-obtained medical transcripts indicated that the patient was 13 weeks pregnant at the time of her abortion. She had been “nauseated and lightheaded” while at the abortion clinic, but was discharged while still suffering these symptoms after having been at the clinic for a total of only two hours. At the emergency room, she was treated for heavy bleeding, and given medication for her dizziness and nausea. She was discharged after having spent six hours at the hospital.

In a third incident in the records Operation Rescue uncovered, a 19-year old abortion patient was recently admitted to a Columbus hospital after suffering excessive bleeding and pelvic pain after her abortion at CHCW in her tenth week of pregnancy. According to transcripts, she suffered from a hematoma, (internal bleeding inside the tissues), and excessive clotting. Efforts by hospital staff to contact the clinic were unsuccessful.

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Operation Rescue also has documentation of a dozen OSHA violations at Complete Health Care for Women – four of which were classified as “serious” – that netted the abortion business fines totaling $5,061. The most serious infractions had to deal with “blood-borne pathogens”, meaning the clinic failed to protect workers and patients from contamination caused by exposure to blood.

“Here is an abortion clinic that is endangering the lives and health of women every day. Women do not know when they walk into that office if they are going to wind up in the hospital or worse,” said Sullenger.

She added, “Rest assured that the appropriate complaints are being filed against Mervyn Samuel so that he can be legally prevented from inflicting his brand of abortion quackery on others.”