By Cheryl Sullenger
Montgomery, AL – The Reproductive Health Services abortion business in Montgomery, Alabama, has been cited by the Alabama Department of Public Health for failing to comply with mandatory child abuse reporting requirements, leading to concerns that a 13-year old girl may have been trafficked.
A recently released inspection report dated January 26, 2018, described the citations involved failing to report a pregnant girl who received two abortions at Reproductive Health Services within 15 months.
During that routine licensing inspection, two charts were requested for review for patients under the age of fourteen.
Alabama law requires that abortion facility staff report the names of all pregnant minors and their babies’ fathers, if the father is more than two years older than the minor child. However, if the pregnant minor is under the age of 14, her name must be reported to the Department of Human Services no matter the age of the baby’s father.
One of the charts revealed that in January 2016, a pregnant girl came to the abortion facility for informed consent information.
The girl indicated that she was in the 9th grade and said her date of birth was July 3, 2000. That would have made her 15 years old. There was no mention of the age of the baby’s father in the citation narrative.
A woman, described as the pregnant girl’s mother, accompanied her to the abortion facility, but did not speak English. The girl served as translator between clinic staff and her supposed mother.
However, on the date of the abortion, the girl returned with her birth certificate, which documented that her actual birth date was July 3, 2002, making her only 13 years old.
Despite this new information, the facility made no report of suspected child abuse as required by law.
The same girl returned to Reproductive Health Services for a second abortion in April 2017, at the age of fourteen. Again, there was no mention of the age of the baby’s father in the citation narrative, which would have been important information to determine compliance with mandatory reporting laws.
And once again, the abortion facility made no report of suspected child sexual abuse for the 2017 incident.
“Let’s call this what it is. A girl was raped at age 13 and no one lifted a finger to help her or save her from future rapes,” Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “It is clear that the abortion staff either didn’t care enough about that girl to report or they were actively covering up her abuse.”
Once the failure to report was discovered by the state health inspector, the facility’s “Director/Owner” hurriedly placed a phone call in the presence of the inspector to the Department of Human Services and reported information for possible sex abuse — two years after the fact.
The inspection report made no mention of any possible penalties that Reproductive Health Services might incur due to the serious violations.
“This failure of the abortion facility’s staff to report suspected child sex abuse in a timely manner subjected this 13-year old girl to additional sex abuse, as evidenced by a second abortion just 15 months after the first. A simple phone call could have prevented this suffering,” said Newman. “Given the sketchy information provided by the girl and her so-called mother, it leads me to wonder if this child was being trafficked. There should be serious penalties for the clinic, which must be held at least partially responsible for any crimes committed against this girl.”

Read the Inspection Report dated 1/26/2018.