A late-term abortion facility in Ohio will remain open despite repeatedly failing to comply with the law.
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 patient emergencies. Since then, the abortion facility and health officials have been battling in court over its license.
On Wednesday, however, Ohio Right to Life learned that the department granted a new license to the abortion facility.
“Women’s Med Center has struggled for years to meet the same requirements that all other ambulatory surgical facilities are required to meet. These laws were put in place to protect women,” said Stephanie Ranade Krider, vice president of Ohio Right to Life. “The fact that Martin Haskell continues to seek exceptions to basic health and safety rules shows where his true priorities lie: protecting his abortion business.”
Earlier this month, LifeNews reported the Ohio Supreme Court denied a request for appeal from Haskell in a court battle over its license. The news brought hope to pro-life advocates that the abortion facility would close soon.
Now it appears that will not happen.
“Martin Haskell has been operating this clinic without a license since 2013,” Krider said. “We are extremely disappointed by the decision today to grant this facility a license. This is a facility run by a doctor who was fined for performing an abortion on a woman who was too intoxicated to stand, let alone consent to the procedure. We will continue to educate Ohioans about the record of harm Women’s Med Center has caused to women.”
She said the abortion facility stopped performing surgical abortions recently while it sought a new license. It appears that the facility may be able to resume surgical abortions as well now that the state approved its license.
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The abortion facility advertised 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.
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.
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.
