Pro-life leaders cite recent botched second-trimester abortion and new evidence of misconduct in the death of Lakisha Wilson in new Preterm complaint.
WIlson Ambulance (resized)
Cleveland, OH — A coalition of national and state pro-life leaders have lodged a complaint with the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) demanding a new investigation into patient care practices and facility safety at Preterm, an abortion center in Cleveland, Ohio.
Since 2010, Preterm has been the site of eleven patient injuries, including the death of Lakisha Wilson in 2014.
The complaint asks ODH Director Richard Hodges to conduct a thorough investigation into substandard facilities and practices at Preterm after a patient suffering from complications to a late-term abortion was transported by ambulance to a hospital emergency room last month.
The groups are also calling on Ohio Gov. John Kasich to direct the ODH to look into this public safety matter. Gov. Kasich recently signed legislation defunding Planned Parenthood.
“Defunding Planned Parenthood was good, but the reality is that it does nothing to protect women from the grave risks they face at Preterm where Lakisha Wilson died,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “We urge Gov. Kasich to take substantive action to protect women from harm at Preterm and other abortion facilities in his state.”
The complaint also cites evidence contained in the Department of Health’s own records, which were leaked to Operation Rescue, that show the Department ignored or overlooked important patient safety issues documented by their own investigators when conducting their initial investigation in to Wilson’s death.
Preterm is affiliated with the University Hospital Case Medical Center and the Buffett-funded Ryan Residency Abortion Training Program.
“The information uncovered through public records requests and through the ODH’s own investigative files paints a grim picture of physician incompetence at Preterm’s unsafe facility that is continuing to pose a grave danger to life and limb. This represents a regulatory failure to protect the public similar to what we saw in Pennsylvania that allowed convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell to run amok over the lives and welfare of women.”
-Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Vice President, Operation Rescue
“Gov. Kasich must support this investigation as well and meaningful legislation that will protect the lives of mothers and their pre-born babies from injury, death and exploitation.”
-Mark Harrington, Executive Director, Created Equal
“Our organization finds it increasingly difficult to believe that Governor Kasich takes seriously the barbaric treatment of women and children in Ohio abortuaries, when his department of Health continues to turn a blind eye to the obvious atrocities that are occurring at Preterm.”
-Molly Smith, President of Cleveland Right to Life
“Lakisha Wilson died and others are being harmed because Ohio’s strong laws protecting women are not being enforced. It’s bad enough that one innocent human being dies during every abortion; the mother should not expect to be harmed, too.”
-Denise Leipold, Executive Director, Right to Life of Northeast Ohio
“Over the span of six years, there has been 11 medical emergencies, one resulting in death, at Preterm. How many more woman have to be injured and or possibly killed before Preterm gets investigated?”
-Jacqui Fetsko, Executive Director, Lake County Right to Life
“In 1939 Margaret Sanger founder of Planned Parenthood infamously stated, ‘We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.’ The Preterm abortion mill in Cleveland where a disproportionate number of Black women are routinely maimed or even killed as their preborn babies are dismembered, operate with immunity as state and local officials turn a blind eye to ongoing health violations and Sanger’s genocidal extermination goal continues to be met at a rate of nearly 5000 annually.”
-Denver Sallee, President, Lake County Right to Life
“One has to wonder about the safety of any medical facilities in the state when one sees these regular medical emergencies at Preterm without an obvious action from the Ohio Department of Health?”
-Diane Stover, President of North East Ohio Value Voters
Other signers on the complaint include:
Mary Lequyea, President of Cleveland Prays for Life; Pastor Walter S. Moss, National Black Pro-Life Coalition; Pastor Ernie Sanders, Executive Director, Geauga County Right to Life; Thomas Raddell, Director, Life Link; Pastor Roscoe J. Heath, New Praise Ministries; Ed Sitter, Executive Director, Toledo Right to Life.
Read the Complaint
Read the Department of Health File on the Wilson Investigation
[Note: Link to investigative file has been edited]