A late-term abortion facility in Ohio may close soon after the Ohio Supreme Court denied another request for an appeal Tuesday in its licensing battle with the state.
Back in 2016, the Ohio Department of Health revoked the license of the Women’s Med Center in Kettering, near Dayton, for failing to have a written transfer agreement with a hospital for patients experiencing emergency complications. However, the abortion facility challenged the action in court and has been allowed to operate without a license since then.
WKSU reports the Tuesday decision, which denied a motion for reconsideration, means Ohio health officials soon may be able to shut down the abortion facility.
State pro-life advocates celebrated the news.
“Abortionist Martin Haskell is running out of options. This decision by the Supreme Court of Ohio is one of many recent nails in the coffin of his killing facility,” said Mark Harrington, president of the pro-life organization Created Equal. “We eagerly anticipate the day when the doors to his abortion center close.”
Bob Wurzelbacher, director of Respect Life Ministries for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, told the Catholic News Agency that the decision is good news for women’s health.
“We are grateful for this decision to close a facility whose operation was not health care but, in reality, a threat to the health of women,” he said. “We need to continue to be committed to truly helping women in crisis pregnancies, who can be served at several pregnancy care centers available to all women in the Dayton area.”
The Women’s Med Center has lost time after time in court, but NARAL Ohio spokesperson Gabriel Mann said they are not giving up the fight. Mann said they plan to take the case to federal court and challenge the Ohio law requiring a transfer agreement with a local hospital as an “unconstitutional, undue burden,” according to the local news.
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Earlier this year, state courts rejected two similar appeals from the abortion facility. In August, the Ohio Supreme Court also refused to hear an appeal from abortionist Martin Haskell, who runs the abortion facility.
The abortion facility advertises abortions up to 22 weeks, though the watchdog group Operation Rescue suspects it “still conducts abortions throughout all nine months of pregnancy for ‘fetal indications.’” It aborts approximately 3,000 unborn babies every year.
According to the Dispatch, separate litigation involving the abortion facility is on-going in federal court, so the abortion business likely will remain open for now.
In 2016, the state revoked the abortion facility’s license after it failed to comply with a state law requiring that all ambulatory surgical facilities have written transfer agreements with local hospitals for patient emergencies.
The Second District Court of Appeals in Ohio upheld the department’s decision, and the state Supreme Court refused to hear Haskell’s appeal of that ruling in August.
This is the second such legal battle involving Haskell and the state Department of Health. In 2014, the state shut down his Sharonville, Ohio, abortion facility for similar health and safety violations.
Earlier this year, Operation Rescue documented an emergency complication at the facility. According to 911 records received by the pro-life group, the abortion facility called an ambulance for a woman who was unconscious and having seizures after aborting her unborn baby.
