Ohio state regulators have uncovered more than a dozen health code violations, including a serious situation that endangered the life of a patient, and an East Side Cleveland clinic that performed second-trimester abortions is closing down.
The Ohio Department of Health concluded, in an in-depth report on the Center for Women's Health, that the business failed to have agreements with area hospitals for patients to be admitted in case of serious complications, according to the Plain Dealer.
The state report said the clinic had difficulty finding a hospital willing to admit a patient with such complications during a second-trimester abortion, in what appeared to be the most serious infraction.
The Plain Dealer said the closure, just the latest in a long list of abortion business closures over run-ins with rules in recent weeks, actually will happen soon, because officials have cited the problems in rejecting the business's request for a new license.
A wide range of other routine care requirements also were not met, the state agency concluded.
For half a dozen patients, there was "no record that their temperature or blood pressure had been taken before the procedure," Roy Croy, of the Ohio division that regulates ambulatory and surgical care facilities, told the Plain Dealer.
"These are things that should be done before you start surgery," he said.
Cheryl Sullenger, a spokeswoman for Operation Rescue, told WND that these situations are developing more and more, where those running abortion clinics run afoul of regulations and rules.
"The more they're inspected, the more stuff we'll find," she said.
Sullenger said for many years such businesses have fallen under no oversight, and as states impose rules on such facilities, the abortionists are unable to deal with it.
"Oh no, I shouldn't have to follow the law," is the clinic operators' perspective, Sullenger said.
The Center had been licensed as an ambulatory surgical care facility since 2000, when it obtained the license under an order from the state, but later let it lapse. Croy told the Plain Dealer that Dr. Martin Ruddock, who runs the business, believes it is a private medical practice and it should not be regulated by the state.
"The fact of the matter is, the way the statute is written, if you hold yourself out as an ambulatory facility, you are an ambulatory facility," Crow said.
Nearly a dozen other abortion businesses in Ohio, California, Alabama and Florida also have been closed recently over similar issues, such as workers without medical licenses performing medical procedures, the misuse of drugs and others.
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said the implementation of standards for medical facilities is effective at stopping the abortion industry.
"Standards are useful tools that are putting abortionist clinics out of business in droves," Newman said. "As a result, our land is not only a safer place for women, but also for the child in the womb."
The closure will leave a gap in facilities that perform the late-term abortions, what pro-life activists describe as "partial-birth abortions," in which a baby is almost delivered, then killed before delivery is complete.
In a report by Carrie Gordon Earll, the senior policy analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family, Ruddock had confirmed that many of the late-term abortions he performed were on unborn children and mothers who were healthy.
Operation Rescue officials say of the dozen clinics shut down, several have reopened following compliance with rules.
- A clinic in Omaha, Neb., where the land was purchased from underneath the business and the owners couldn't find another facility to rent was shut down.
- The clinic that formerly operated in the building that now houses the Operation Rescue headquarters in Wichita, Kan., was shut down.
- A facility in Birmingham, Ala., was closed because of a suspended license.
- One business in Montgomery, Ala., was closed when authorities found the abortionist didn't have hospital privileges.
- A business in Hialeah, Fla., where an investigation continues into allegations a baby was born alive, then killed and placed on the roof of the building to avoid detection by police, was shut down.
- Five clinics owned by a Florida abortionist when his license was suspended all were closed, although several of those reopened later.
- And another case involved a business in Daytona Beach, Fla., where the abortionist said he didn't want to meet the required rules.
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