An Ohio abortion facility denied any wrong-doing this week after pro-life advocates said they found a second-trimester aborted baby, hazardous medical waste and patients’ personal information in the trash outside the building.
Sherri Lynn Grossman, administrator of the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center in Cuyahoga Falls, told the Akron Beacon Journal that they follow “strict” disposal procedures, and they did not violate the law.
“Absolutely not — absolutely not,” she said of the allegations. “We have very strict policies and procedures in place.”
Grossman told the newspaper that they are conducting their own investigation into the matter, but she refused to comment further.
On Wednesday, state pro-life leaders asked authorities to investigate after they said pro-life volunteers found a second-trimester aborted baby’s body in the trash in June outside the Cuyahoga Falls abortion facility.
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During a press conference, Denise Leipold, executive director of Right to Life of Northeast Ohio, said the baby’s body was wrapped in a blood-stained sheet, and its left leg, left foot and right hand were fully intact. Other parts of the baby’s body were badly mangled and crushed, the results of a brutal dismemberment abortion, she said.
Pro-life advocates estimated the baby was between 16 weeks and 17 weeks gestation, and a photo displayed at the press conference showed that the baby’s foot was about 1 inch long. Northeast Ohio Women’s Center advertises abortions up to 15.6 weeks on its website.
Leipold said the baby’s body is in the custody of a funeral director, and they hope to provide the baby with a dignified burial at some point in the future.
Pro-lifers said they also found in the trash used urine cups, soiled suction cannulas, bloody blue surgical papers and other items that appear to be infectious waste, likely violations of state environmental hazard and disposal regulations. They said items with patients’ names and contact information also were discovered in the trash – potential HIPAA violations.
“Everything was thrown into an unsecured waste can,” Leipold said.
Ohio Right to Life and other pro-life organizations urged authorities to investigate. They said they filed complaints with the Ohio Department of Health, Ohio Medical Board, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies.
They also are working with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to determine if the abortion facility violated the Ohio Unborn Child Dignity Act, a new law that requires abortion facilities to provide a humane burial or cremation for aborted babies.
“This heartbreaking situation puts the reality of abortion on full display,” said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life. “Abortion is not empowering. It is the violent and bloody ending of a baby’s life. Our hearts are broken by what this helpless child suffered.”
Gonidakis said pro-life advocates are working together to ensure that, while abortion remains legal, every child will at least receive “the dignity in death that he or she was not afforded in life.”
Monica Migliorino Miller, director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, expressed disgust that children are violently killed and then treated like trash at abortion facilities.
“This baby found in the NEOWC trash has suffered the greatest injustice that can be inflicted upon any human being,” Miller said. “The child is a rejected human person, rejected by his or her own mother, sliced apart in an unspeakable act of violence, and then literally treated as trash! We must expose this atrocity. It is so painfully obvious that such killing should be a crime and made illegal.”
