By Cheryl Sullenger
Beverly Hills, CA – A late-term abortion facility in Beverly Hills, California, which was known as the “Abortion Clinic to the Stars,” has closed and its office has been vacated.
According to a business record obtained by Operation Rescue, the Sinai Women’s Center, which also went by the name Pro-Choice Medical Center, had its last day of business on December 31, 2020. The office was vacated over the weekend of January 30-31, 2021, according to a City official.
The abortion business, which was owned and operated by abortionist Josepha Seletz, was one of eight abortion facilities to openly conduct risky, multi-day abortions into the third trimester of pregnancy.
Ambulances were a frequent sight outside the Beverly Hills office on La Cienega Boulevard. Operation Rescue documented ten medical emergencies there that required ambulance transport to a local hospital during the last three years of the facility’s operation, nine of which occurred in 2018-2019.
Last year, due to COVID-19, the Pro-Choice Medical Center scaled back its abortion business, conducting only first trimester surgical abortions for several months, before resuming later abortions on a limited basis through the sixth month of pregnancy at the end of the year.
The Beverly Hills facility catered to the upper class of society, charging the exorbitant sum of $1,200.00 for a routine first trimester abortion – almost twice national average cost in 2020 of $612.00. Later abortions at the once-exclusive facility could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
For an additional charge, Seletz also offered private abortion appointments to those such as Hollywood celebrities and socialites, who did not want to be seen in an abortion facility waiting room.
Ironically, despite the fact that Seletz conducted the riskiest of all abortion procedures late into pregnancy, she declined to offer abortion-inducing drugs and posted the following notice on her website sometime in 2013, warning of the dangers of the abortion drug Mifepristone, also known as RU489.
Dr. Seletz no longer offers routine medical abortions with RU486 following reports of serious complications associated with this method (Fischer et al; N Engl J Med 2005: 353:2352-60).
“Although there was rarely a pro-life presence at this dangerous late-term abortion facility, we continued to monitor it to document the fact that women were being injured and hospitalized with serious abortion-related complications,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “I thank God this notorious abortion business is closed. No more babies will die, and no more women will suffer traumatic injuries there. That is a victory worth celebrating!”
