By Cheryl Sullenger
Dayton, Ohio – An Ohio appeals court yesterday issued a ruling that upheld the Department of Health’s order to close the Women’s Med Center, a full-term abortion facility located in the Dayton suburb of Kettering.
The Women’s Med Center failed to comply with licensing regulations by not maintaining a hospital transfer agreement approved by the Ohio Department of Health.
The Women’s Med Center is one of six abortion facilities in the country that openly conduct abortions throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Abortionist Martin Haskell is the sole owner and Medical Director of the facility. He claims to have invented the grisly – and now-illegal – partial birth abortion procedure.
Ohio law requires that abortionists maintain hospital privileges, but allows for abortion facilities to obtain variances that substitute an approved hospital transfer agreement in the place of hospital privileges. Those agreements must also include the names of physicians that do have hospital privileges who agree to treat women at local hospitals should they suffer abortion complications.
The attempt to close the Women’s Med Center began in 2015, when the clinic submitted a variance application that was not approved by the Department of Health. This began a series of legal steps and appeals that have thus far taken four years to navigate.
“The appeals process in Ohio takes far to long. It is ridiculous for an abortion facility that cannot comply with licensing standards to stay open for four, five, or six years until the appeals can be exhausted and the clinic finally closed,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “In the meantime, women are suffering abortion complications and are being transported away by ambulance. These all could have been avoided had the appeals process allowed for the closure of this dangerous abortion clinic within a reasonable time frame.”
The most recent medical emergency at the Women’s Med Center, which happened on March 7, 2019, involved a 26-year old woman who was hemorrhaging after a surgical abortion. Efforts by Women’s Med Center staff to halt the hemorrhaging were obviously unsuccessful.
Another incident took place on February 7, 2019. It involved a post-abortive unconscious woman suffering a seizure that clinic staff could not get under control.
Jennifer Branch, co-counsel for the Women’s Med Center told the Dayton Daily News that the clinic would appeal the ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court, and expected it to stay open pending the outcome of that final appeal.
“We are one step away from one ending the child-killing career of one of the most notorious full-term abortionists in America,” said Newman. “It’s just unfortunate that it will likely take another year of appeals before we can finally see Haskell’s late-term clinic closed.”
