Another new abortion facility plans to open this summer in Maryland to target unborn babies from West Virginia, which protects their right to life.
The new Women’s Health Center of Maryland will open in Cumberland, a town located just a few miles from the West Virginia border. Its owners used to run the only abortion facility in West Virginia before the state banned the life-destroying practice, The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports.
Katie Quinonez, director of the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia and the new Cumberland abortion facility, said they plan to open in June and offer abortions up to 16 weeks of pregnancy. She said they hope to do at least 900 abortions in the first year alone.
Quinonez claimed they decided to open in Maryland to meet a “need.”
“West Virginians have been left without abortion care, yes, so we’re here to provide abortion care to anyone who needs it,” she told the newspaper. “No one should have to be traveling out of their home state, away from their communities for hours and hours in order to access abortion care, but that’s the reality we live in.”
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But Maryland already has more than two dozen abortion facilities, including two that abort viable late-term unborn babies. More importantly, aborting unborn babies is not health care; it does not heal or provide medical care to pregnant mothers. The purpose of abortions is to kill unborn babies.
State Del. Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, described the abortion facility as a “curse” on the land of West Virginia when lawmakers passed the abortion ban, The Independent reports.
Tens of thousands of unborn babies likely were aborted there in the past four decades. The facility began aborting unborn babies 1976 and was the only abortion facility in the state until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, according to the Washington Post.
The West Virginia facility remains open, but it does not abort unborn babies anymore. However, it does run the Choice Fund that gives women money to travel to abort their unborn babies. According to the Gazette-Mail, the fund gave money to more than 800 people in 2022, most of the from West Virginia.
Pro-life advocates say these abortion funds are not really helping women. Instead, they are putting additional pressure on pregnant mothers to go through with aborting their unborn babies, even when they are unsure and may not be aware of resources to help them and their babies.
West Virginia is one of 14 states enforcing pro-life laws that prohibit or strictly limit the killing of unborn babies in abortions, and others are working to do the same. Pro-life leaders estimate tens of thousands of babies’ lives have been saved since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
Although some women are traveling to other states for abortions, others are choosing life for their unborn babies as a result. And while some abortion facilities are moving to other states, many others have closed permanently. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research group, at least 66 abortion facilities in 15 states have stopped doing abortions since the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling.
Meanwhile, pro-life advocates across the country are expanding support for pregnant and parenting families, both through legislative and community-based initiatives.
Many are working to expand Medicaid for new mothers, create tax credits for unborn babies and ensure workplace accommodations (paid parental leave, flexible hours) for parents. Others are opening and expanding pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes and other community-based charities that walk alongside struggling families locally, providing material support, information, counseling, encouragement and more.
