Ohio Supreme Court Revokes Abortion Center’s License For Failing Safety Standards

By Grace Carr
The Daily Caller

The Ohio Supreme Court revoked the license of an abortion clinic in Toledo, Ohio, Tuesday after years of inspection violations and a failure to meet the state’s abortion clinic standards.

The state’s Supreme Court upheld the Ohio Department of Health’s order revoking the license of Toledo’s Capital Care abortion clinic because it repeatedly failed to produce a written transfer agreement with a hospital for emergency cases where women undergoing abortions need immediate transportation to a nearby hospital. 

The clinic did have an agreement with the Ann Arbor University of Michigan Health System, but the Ann Arbor hospital is more than 50 miles away and is therefore not considered local under the Health Department’s requirement.

State inspectors also found 24 violations at the abortion clinic in the past 10 years, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

“Americans United for Life is encouraged by the Ohio Supreme Court’s determination that the Ohio Department of Health’s decision to revoke the license of an abortion center that failed to meet state standards for patient care was supported by ‘reliable, probative, and substantial evidence and is in accordance with law,'” Americans United For Life President Catherine Glenn Foster said in a written statement. (RELATED: Ohio Judge Refuses To Step Down From Abortion Case)

The abortion industry has long argued it should be exempt from standards and inspections that are routinely applied to other facilities that perform invasive surgical procedures, Foster added and noted the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision to hold abortion clinics to the same standards as all other ambulatory surgical centers in the state is a big win for the pro-life movement.

The Daily Caller article continues here

States Passed More Than 50 Pro-Life Laws in 2017 to Save Babies From Abortion

By Catherine Glenn Foster
Life News

With just one year under his belt, it took an hour and twenty minutes for the president to reflect last week on our nation’s latest milestones in his State of the Union address — the third-longest address in the last 50 years.

And while he did not directly address the critical issue of abortion, a thorough reflection on the state of the pro-life movement is equally warranted. America has lost about 60 million human beings to abortion in the 45 years since Roe v. Wade. 

That Supreme Court decision has prompted generations of advocates to work tirelessly over the years in statehouses and on the sidewalks of our communities to defend and advance the cause of life. And for 45 years, whether at the March for Life, on social media, or in conversations with colleagues and friends, everyday people with a deep and abiding sense of justice have shared scientific facts and defended fundamental rights with their fellow Americans.

As a result, some of the latest data indicates that more than 3-in-4 Americans, including 6-in-10 self-identifying pro-choice Americans, support major rollbacks on legal abortion, with restrictions in place at least as of the end of the first trimester. 

Sixty percent of the American public opposes taxpayer funding of abortions, and 83 percent oppose supporting abortion in other countries. And millennials are trending towards support for life, with more than half believing abortion should be illegal in most circumstances. This increasingly life-affirming mentality has helped bring America’s abortion rate to historic lows — the lowest rate since Roe v. Wade.

We are likewise at a time of unprecedented momentum in the passage of life-affirming laws. As the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute noted in July 2017, over 30 percent of all such laws have been enacted in the last six years, more than 50 each year since 2011. 

Americans United for Life has dedicated much of our time and energy to building on this momentum by providing state legislatures the resources they need with our “pro-life playbook,” “Defending Life.”

The pro-life trend continues as more than 50 life-affirming state bills became law in 2017, including an Alabama law that allows health care providers to follow their consciences in refusing to perform abortions. We now have Arkansas laws both banning abortions that selectively target baby girls and requiring standard medical care for babies born alive during an abortion. 

Life News article continues here

Texas Abortion Clinics Marred with Health, Safety Issues, Inspection Reveals

By Charles Fain Lehman
Washington Free Beacon

New detailed inspection reports reveal dozens of violations of health and safety standards by Whole Woman's Health (WWH), a chain of abortion clinics that saysit is "committed to changing the culture around abortion stigma."

The new documents, inspection reports between 2011 and 2017 from the Texas Department of State Health Services, were obtained by And Then There Were None (ATTWN), a nonprofit group that "exists to help abortion clinic workers leave the abortion industry."

The documents show a widespread problem of health violations at WWH clinics. Staff failed to properly disinfect and sterilize equipment used on multiple women, and were not properly trained in the sterilization of surgical instruments. In 2011, the Beaumont, Texas, clinic did not have a registered nurse on staff, in contravention of legal requirements.

The inspector's reports also expressed concerns about maintenance of medical equipment. 

"There was [sic] numerous rusty spots on the suction machine used on the patient for evacuation of the products of conception," the Beaumont report notes. In multiple cases, supplies and medication were found to be clearly expired.

Facilities themselves were also in disrepair, with floors that were "stained and discolored which gives the appearance of being dirty." A 2016 report on the McAllen, Texas, facility notes a counter so warped it "was no longer a wipeable surface, which could harbor bacteria and infectious matter." The reports also show cracks, rips, and tears on exam tables' covers, and a hole in cabinet flooring that had "the likelihood to allow rodents to enter the facility."

In the most recent report, investigating the Austin facility, investigators found missing stock of fentanyl, the schedule narcotic linked to thousands of overdose deaths.

These reports are part of broader concerns about the safety standards of abortion clinics. According to a report from the pro-life advocacy group Americans United for Life, between 2008 and 2016, 227 abortion clinics, including six Whole Woman's Health clinics, were cited for over 1,400 health and safety deficiencies. These included failures to ensure a "safe and sanitary environment" and failures to properly handle patients' private information.

Washington Free Beacon report continues

Charlie Gard’s Parents Bring Terri Schiavo’s Brother to London to Help Them Fight for Their Son

By Steven Ertelt
Life News

If anyone understands the plight of Charlie Gard’s parents to provide him appropriate medical care and treatment, it’s the brother of Terri Schiavo. Bobby Schindler fought relentlessly for his sister to receive medical treatment– and even food and water — that Terry’s estranged husband was denying her before she starved to death.

Charlie is the British boy suffering from a rare disease who a UK hospital is denying treatment or transfer to another hospital.

Now Charlie’s parents have brought Schindler to London to help them fight for care for their son. Schindler has arrived in Britain to help them just as they are preparing to meet with executives from the hospital that is denying Charlie treatment that has won a legal battle to remove his life support over their objections.

Schindler spoke with LifeNews exclusively about their invitation. He, pro-life attorney Catherine Glenn Foster, President & CEO of Americans United for Life; and Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, arrived in London on Friday morning at the invitation of Charlie’s parents, Connie and Chris.

Schindler told LifeNews: “We are here by invitation from the family to come alongside them as they struggle to save their son, Charlie. The critical issue here is not a political one, but the simple notion that families know what is best for their loved ones.”

“Charlie’s situation is very reminiscent of my family’s battle to save my sister, Terri. Hopefully being here can help his parents, Connie and Charlie, deal with the day-to-day emotional roller coaster, as they fight for their son’s right to live,” Schindler added.

Schindler told LifeNews he is calling for officials in Great Britain to honor the wishes of Charlie’s parents and allow him to travel and receive the medical help he needs. He said he will be working with and alongside the family to facilitate their desire to obtain medical care for Charlie and oversee a campaign to ensure the family is not removed from the critical decisions being made concerning Charlie’s future and well-being.

Meanwhile, a New York City hospital has offered to help Charlie.

Charlie is suffering from a rare disease, and his parents want to take him to the United States for an experimental treatment. His case gained international attention as his parents fought a series of court battles for their son, but ultimately lost. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against his parents’ appeal to take him to the U.S. A British court also ruled that his life support can be removed against his parents’ wishes.

In a statement Thursday night, New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center said it had agreed to admit Gard.

Life News continues 

Americans United for Life Exposes Lie of the Year

By Denise Burke

Americans United for Life

When Texas adopted health and safety standards designed to protect women from dangerous and substandard conditions and practices in the state’s abortion clinics, the abortion industry immediately challenged the law and took its case all the way to the Supreme Court, deceitfully arguing that abortion is safe and that the profit-driven abortion industry could be trusted to self-regulate. AUL has repeatedly exposed this argument as the "lie of the year."

In its June 2016 decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas law, but indicated that such health and safety mandates would be acceptable if there is evidence of the need for such standards. Thanks to your continued support, Americans United for Life was able to respond quickly to the Court’s challenge for more evidence of abortion industry abuses.

In December 2016, we released Unsafe: How The Public Health Crisis in America’s Abortion Clinics Endangers Women, following an examination of confirmed reports of dangerous abortion clinic conditions across the nation. AUL’s latest investigative report details that at least 227 abortion providers in 32 states were cited for more than 1,400 health and safety deficiencies between 2008 and 2016 and documents hundreds of significant violations of state laws regulating abortion.

You can see the impact of AUL’s strategic report this month in both Louisiana and Kentucky!

OUT OF BUSINESS: Unsafe exposed the Bossier City Medical Suite, one of four abortion clinics in Louisiana, for multiple violations of state health and safety requirements, and now it has been closed!

IN COURT: In Kentucky, only a judge’s order has allowed the state’s last abortion clinic to temporarily remain open while a legal challenge to the closure order brought by the EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville proceeds. State officials have alleged that the clinic has not complied with a requirement that it have a transfer agreement with a local hospital to ensure that women who suffer post-abortive complications or are in need to emergency care following an abortion receive proper medical care.

You did that!

Through your support, AUL’s Unsafe report is being distributed to legislators, state officials, and allies in all 50 states. You can learn more about dangerous abortion clinic conditions in your state by going to http://unsafereport.org.

Thank you for helping pro-life leaders in Louisiana, Kentucky, and elsewhere highlight and respond to the reality of unsafe abortions in America.
Regards,

Denise Burke,
Vice President of Legal Affairs
Americans United for Life
  

AUL relies exclusively on charitable donations to support our operations. Please consider a gift today so that we can continue our work.

For the First Time in Decades

from Denise Burke, Vice President of Legal Affairs
Americans United for Life


For the first time in 28 years, Wyoming has enacted new pro-life laws defending our most vulnerable. Americans United for Life partnered with pro-life leaders in Wyoming to pass two new laws ensuring the protection of life.

The first law states that doctors who perform abortions must let a mother know that she may see an ultrasound if she wishes. Women should always have the choice to look at ultrasound images. Withholding those images denies women important information that impacts their abortion decisions and an experience they can never recapture.

The second law prohibits the exploitation of and experimentation on tissue from aborted unborn infants. It has been well-documented that the bodies of unborn infants have been sold as “parts” for scientific research. A humane society does not dispose of unborn infants as trash or spare parts. Wyoming has realized another victory against this unthinkable practice.

AUL is proud to have played a role in the passage of these laws and thanks Governor Matt Mead and the pro-life legislators in Wyoming who ushered in the first pro-life victories for their state in decades.

  

Americans United for Life is the legal architect of the pro-life movement. We are accumulating victories, building momentum, and advancing a culture of life in America.
Legal and policy issues on which we work nationally and internationally include:

• Abortion–preventing the passage and implementation of laws permitting or expanding abortion, and pursuing regulations that are protective of the unborn.
• Legal recognition and protection for the unborn (in contexts outside of abortion) such as unborn victims of violence protections and wrongful death causes of action.
• Bioethics and biotechnologies including human cloning, destructive embryo research, and medically-appropriate regulation of assisted reproductive technologies.
• End-of-life issues such as euthanasia, assisted suicide, pain management, and palliative care.
• Health care freedom of conscience

Our work takes us from state legislatures to Capitol Hill and from American courtrooms to international tribunals. We are using life-affirming laws and policies as a vehicle to restore a culture of life in America and throughout the world.  For more information about Americans United for Life, please use this link.  

Think Progress: The Highly Sophisticated Group That’s Quietly Making It Much Harder To Get An Abortion

Americans United for Life

It’s not every day that adversaries of a culture of life profile Americans United for Life’s successes. But recently Think Progress did just that, writing a piece that commented with chagrin and surprise on pro-life gains.

AUL works quietly with an “exceptionally far reach... AUL’s role in shifting the abortion debate to a ‘death by 1000 cuts’ strategy has proven effective. AUL employs a strategic brand of messaging that differentiates it from the openly religious fire-and-brimstone anti-abortion groups of the past. The organization packages its agenda with intentionally soft language about protecting women’s health, which some say has helped the group maintain a relatively low profile in spite of the scope of its influence.

“‘The semantics display a retreat from extremism,’ says Carol Joffe, a professor at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. ‘One could argue they won by defanging the war on women.’”

“The success of AUL’s framing can be traced back to its dynamic President and CEO, Charmaine Yoest,” Think Progress also observed, calling her a “soft-spoken mother of five with a polished brown bob, Yoest distances AUL from the anti-abortion community’s militant ideologues: She has been profiled across the media for her warm, subtle approach, dubbed ‘charismatic,’ 'especially good at sounding reasonable rather than extreme,' and the movement’s kinder, gentler face.’ But it is much more calculated than that.

“In a 2011 interview with The National Catholic Register, Yoest equated the organization’s approach to a ‘military strategy. We don’t make frontal attacks. Never attack where the enemy is strongest. We don’t want to re-create Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. We pick our battles. What we do is very much under the radar screen and not very sexy.’” Thanks Think Progress for noticing.

Read more at http://thinkprogress.org

Don't Let Big Abortion Get Away With It...‏

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Americans United for Life
 
How does Big Abortion keep getting away with pretending that abortion is good for women?

The facts grow more compelling every year:

• Abortion not only ends innocent lives, it exposes mothers to a wide range of documented physical and emotional harm 
• Readily-available abortions have been used by sexual predators to cover their crimes 
• Records show that since 2009, more than one in every ten abortion clinics in the nation have faced investigations, criminal charges, administrative complaints, civil lawsuits, or been cited for violating state laws governing the operation of abortion clinics

It’s obvious that there is no such thing as a “safe” abortion. Yet Big Abortion has been successfully suppressing these facts from the American people to preserve their business model.

Enough is enough.  Join me in supporting the new Woman's Protection Project  from Americans United for Life. Together we can educate the public, change the law, and hasten the day when Roe v. Wade is overturned!

 Use this link to send a gift to Americans United for Life and help protect women and preborn children

 

AUL Launches the "New Frontier" in Protecting Women from Abortion Industry Abuses

Lawmakers developing plans for up-coming state legislative sessions will have "a unique package of legal tools available for protecting women and girls from the profit-driven abortion industry that consistently ignores the deadly consequences of abortion," announced Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest. "But, new this year is an enforcement module that provides the legal means to hold abortion providers who harm women and girls accountable."

"This legislative package represents the new frontier in pro-life protections, combining what we know about the deadly health risks of abortion with constitutionally sound legal language," said Dr. Yoest. AUL released the Women's Protection Project in advance of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to begin distribution to legislators gearing up for the 2014 legislative session.

use this link to learn more at http://www.aul.org

Critical Update on Abortion House of Horrors‏

From Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Americans United for Life

Have you been following the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell? Until recently, mainstream media completely ignored the deaths wrought by the hands of this man. While hard to read, the grand jury trial transcripts show how horrific Gosnell’s practices truly were.

Gosnell staffers report it was "literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body … It would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place."

WE MUST STOP BIG ABORTION TODAY from repeating these horrific practices. We are actively working to establish commonsense clinic regulations within states across this nation to stop Gosnell “house of horror” techniques from continuing. AUL staff has consistently and passionately worked to educate legislatures and boards of health regarding the pressing need for abortion clinic regulations. Our voice is being heard!

In April alone, Virginia’s Board of Health approved final comprehensive regulations for the state’s abortion clinics, and Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed into law legislation, inspired by AUL model language, protecting women from substandard care and conditions at abortion clinics. In fact, NBC 12 reported that, in anticipation of the imminent enforcement of Virginia’s new regulations, a Norfolk, Virginia abortion clinic is CLOSING. We must continue to work toward a culture that values both the life of the mother and the unborn child.

Our legislation is taking hold across the country and we don’t plan to stop! With each victory, we are advancing a culture of life that leads to thousands of lives saved.

Even the pro-abortion research group the Guttmacher Institute cited the success of 2011 and 2012 as a “tidal wave” of pro-life legislation that presented a “troubling” pro-life trend. If pro-abortion lobbyists deem this as troublesome …well….then...let’s continue to trouble them!

Kermit Gosnell and Big Abortion are counting on the media’s minimal coverage of abortion-related deaths. They hope the mainstream media won’t report the truth about Gosnell’s “beheading” of babies and other atrocities taking place at the hands of abortionists around the country.

Use this link to help AUL continue their work fighting Big Abortion 

 

Americans United for Life (AUL) is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization whose vision is a nation in which everyone is welcomed in life and protected in law. The first national pro-life organization in America, AUL has been committed to defending human life through vigorous judicial, legislative, and educational efforts at both the federal and state levels since 1971.