Source: WND.com
October 28, 2015
Abortion businesses have been failing across the United States for years: In 2014 alone 73 facilities closed, leaving a total of about 739, a dramatic drop from the 2,176 listed in 1991.
In 2015, no matter the total, one closure will have special significance for pro-lifers in Chicago.
Protests, prayer vigils and other events took place for 27 years before the closure of the Albany Medical-Surgical Center Family Planning Associates.
At least four women died after abortion procedures there, according to the Pro-Life Action League, and a number of lawsuits have named its operators.
“This is a victory for all who value human life,” Eric Scheidler, executive director of the league, said in a statement. “This abortion provider operated for years without any safety inspections, and multiple women have died following abortions performed ther. Now that its doors have closed, this neighborhood is safer for women and their unborn children.”
The doors to the facility closed Oct. 17, the league reported, following safety inspections by the Illinois Department of Public Health.
The league said the shutdown “follows 27 years of community objection to the center, led by the Pro-Life Action League, and the group’s pressure on state officials to hold the clinic accountable for safety violations.”
Among the casualties was 13-year-old Deanna Bell, who died during an abortion in 1992. Also dead following clinic treatment were 22-year-old Maria Rodriguez in 2000, Maria Leho in 1999 and Nakia Jorden, 16, in 1998.
The league’s report on problems at the business explained that after Rodriguez died, her mother sued, charging E. Steve Lichtenberg with perforating Maria’s uterus during her abortion, which caused her to bleed to death.
After Jorden’s death, her father sued Lichtenberg, “charging that he failed to monitor Nakia after the abortion and that she died of a heart attack because of carelessly and unskillfully administered anesthesia.”
After Leho died, a lawsuit charged that she “died of massive heart and lung failure caused by anesthesia-related complications.”
Following Bell’s death, a lawsuit alleged the abortion business and its employees failed “to provide proper care … monitor her recovery, resuscitate her or transport her to a hospital for emergency treatment.”
Lawsuit details also reveal that another victim, Karen B., allegedly was deprived of oxygen for 45 minutes and suffered anoxia, leaving her “in an irreversible coma.”
The league noted other malpractice lawsuits against the company and its staff. The Illinois Department of Public Health’s review in 2014 found that there had been a dozen ambulance transfers, although none had been reported as required by law.
The league said it appeared that the terminal downward spiral at the abortion business began in 2013 when the state, at the prompting of the Pro-Life Action League, inspected the location and found a number of violations.
Ultimately, its license to operate was revoked.
“While we celebrate the closing of an abortion clinic,” said Ann Scheidler, PLAL vice present, “we are concerned that [another] downtown abortion facility falls in a category of medical facilities that are unlicensed and unregulated. The health and safety of women who seek services from Family Planning Associates are at risk. This should be of great concern to the Illinois Department of Public Health.”
The league reported numerous rules violations at the clinic, including that on one occasion an abortionist “left Albany in the ambulance to accompany the woman he had injured, thereby leaving unattended three (3) other women who had just had abortions in the recovery room with no physician present.”
Tens of thousands of dollars in fines had been imposed.
It was a report from Operation Rescue, which documents abortion business failings, that said 73 facilities shut down in 2014.
Operation Rescue calls it an “implosion.”
Spokeswoman Cheryl Sullenger, who joined with OR President Troy Newman to release “Abortion Free: Your Manual for Building a Pro-Life America One Community at a Time,” said that as abortionists age and quit, they are not always being replaced, despite the work of a Warren Buffet foundation to train them.
