The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) could order the Lebanon Road Surgery Center, a Cincinnati-area abortion clinic, to shut down after a hearing examiner
upheld ODH’s decision
to revoke the clinic’s license because the clinic failed to establish a transfer agreement with a nearby hospital.Abortion rights advocates touted the closure as another example of how new regulations in the recently passed state budget will limit access to legal abortions across the state. But ODH handed down its original decision for the Cincinnati-area abortion clinic in November 2012, more than half a year before Gov. John Kasich in June signed the state budget and its anti-abortion restrictions into law.
NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio decried “the closure of an abortion provider in the Cincinnati area despite an exemplary record of medical safety.”
“Just as we feared when Gov. Kasich enacted medically unnecessary regulations on abortion providers, officials at the Ohio Department of Health have launched a regulatory witch hunt against Ohio’s abortion providers and have recommended the closure of an abortion clinic in Cincinnati,” said Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, in a statement.
Ohio Right to Life, which opposes abortion rights, celebrated the decision.
“We are gratified to see yet another late-term abortionist shutting down,” said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, in a statement. “As a result of this Health Department order, Martin Haskell, a strong proponent and former practitioner of the controversial and deadly partial-birth abortion procedure, will no longer be able to abort children and jeopardize women’s health in Hamilton County.”
Ohio law classifies abortion clinics as ambulatory surgical facilities and requires they establish transfer agreements with nearby hospitals, where clinics can send patients for more comprehensive care in case of an emergency. The 2014-2015 state budget also barred abortion clinics from establishing transfer agreements with public hospitals, which abortion-rights advocates say greatly hinders the clinics because private hospitals are generally religious and oppose abortion rights.
The Cincinnati-area clinic is just one of five Ohio clinics in the past year to either close down or face the threat of closing down, according to
The Columbus Dispatch
. Without the five, Ohio would be reduced to just nine abortion clinics.On Oct. 9, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio
announced a lawsuit
against Ohio’s newest anti-abortion restrictions. The ACLU claims the regulations went beyond the budget’s purpose of appropriating funds and therefore violated the Ohio Constitution’s “single subject” rule, which requires each individual law keep to a single subject to avoid complexity and hidden language.The hearing examiner’s decision:
