Three abortion clinics shut down

by   Tom Strode                                                                                                                                          Vol. XIX, No. 6, August 2006

Three abortion clinics that were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of unborn children have closed in recent weeks in the United States. The clinics were: Women’s Services P.C. in Omaha, Neb.; Central Women’s Services in Wichita, Kan.; Summit Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala.

The closings continued a trend for abortion providers during the last two decades. The number of abortion providers in the United States has decreased by 37% since 1982, according to a 2003 report published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute. That same study showed 87% of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider.

The Women’s Services clinic in Omaha closed June 30 as a result of its building’s purchase by the Child Saving Institute, which operates a daycare and substance abuse program, according to LifeNews.com. The abortion clinic may be relocated in Omaha, but pro-lifers said the owner has had difficulty finding a property owner willing to lease space to his business, according to the report.

Women’s Services was Omaha’s only abortion clinic, LifeNews reported. Pro-life advocates estimated as many as 60,000 abortions were performed at the clinic during its 33 years of operation.

The pro-life activist organization Operation Rescue bought the Wichita clinic and announced its closing June 29. Operation Rescue plans to renovate the building for use as its headquarters, which will include a memorial to unborn abortion victims. O.R. President Troy Newman said the closing of the clinic is “an encouragement to the pro-life movement that, through God’s grace, we are winning the abortion battle one closed mill at a time.”

According to an O.R. estimate, more than 50,000 babies died at the Wichita clinic in its 23 years of business. The number of abortions performed at the Wichita clinic had declined in recent years, according to The Wichita Eagle. Another clinic, Women’s Health Care Services, where George Tiller is recognized as the country’s leading, late-term abortion doctor, has performed most of the abortions in Wichita for several years, the newspaper reported.

The Birmingham clinic surrendered its license June 14 rather than face a hearing six days later in which the state health department planned to press for a license revocation, according to The Birmingham News. Alabama’s State Board of Health suspended Summit’s license May 17 for numerous infractions, including giving RU 486 to a woman late in her pregnancy. Clinic personnel allegedly told a woman in February she was only six weeks pregnant and gave her the abortion-inducing drug, after which she delivered a stillborn child who weighed 6 pounds, 4 ounces, according to The News. RU 486, a two-step regimen, is recommended for use only in the first seven weeks of pregnancy. [BP]