By Dave Andrusko
Chase Robertson, 7, hands out flowers during a Right to Life vigil near the closed Women’s Pavillion in South Bend on Wednesday. South Bend Tribune photo/Michael Caterina
Editor’s note. My family and I will be on vacation through September 6. I will occasionally add new items but for the most part we will repost “the best of the best” — the stories our readers have told us they especially liked over the last five months. This first ran August 11.
Three months ago abortionist Ulrich Klopfer, notorious even by the abortion industry’s standards, closed his Women’s Pavilion abortion clinic in Indiana, but not before aborting over 35,000 unborn babies.
Yesterday, Right to Life St. Joseph County held a prayer vigil near the Women’s Pavilion to commemorate the babies lost at the South Bend abortion clinic and celebrate the abortion clinic’s closure. The competing emotions were on display in the speeches delivered to 200 people from Jeanette Burdell and the Most Rev. Kevin Rhoades, bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne/South Bend/
“I think that it’s a mixture of emotions,” Burdell, executive director of Right to Life St. Joseph County, told Howard Dukes of the South Bend Tribune. “There is heavy heartedness and sadness over the lives that no longer exist in our community.” She added
“They would be gifts to our community.
“They would be students and workers and contributing their talents, but they’re missing.”
But there was cause for celebration as well. “I am grateful that for at least nine months, we have not had an abortion facility for the first time in years in our community,” Burdell said.
‘Years of shoddy abortion practices have finally caught up with Dr. Klopfer,” said Cathie Humbarger, Indiana Right to Life’s Vice President of Policy Enforcement, when the South Bend clinic was about to close. “Klopfer compromised the health and safety of women who sought abortions from him in Gary, Fort Wayne and South Bend, and we’re relieved he is finally being shut down. Hoosier women deserve better. We extend our appreciation to the [Gov. Mike] Pence administration and the ISDH [Indiana State Department of Health] for refusing to sweep Klopfer’s shady practices under the rug. It’s a good day for the health and safety of Hoosier women.”
NRL News Today has reported on Klopfer for years.
For decades Klopfer, an Illinois resident, operated abortion facilities in Gary, Fort Wayne, and South Bend. Klopfer lost his Fort Wayne back-up physician with admitting privileges, required by an Allen County ordinance and state code, in December 2013. This rendered him unable to do abortions in Fort Wayne in 2014 and 2015. He surrendered his Gary facility license in June 2015.
Last November Klopfer dropped his appeal of the ISDH’s June decision to not renew his South Bend facility operating license. That decision came on the heels of two complaints by the ISDH to revoke his South Bend facility operating license. Klopfer had been scheduled to appear before an administrative law judge starting today, in a hearing that could have taken up to three days.
The ISDH filed the first complaint to revoke Klopfer’s South Bend operating license in January. According to the complaint, the facility was charged with violating Indiana Code 16-21 and multiple health and safety rules. In June, the ISDH filed a second complaint to revoke Klopfer’s South Bend operating license, following a license complaint investigation of the facility by the ISDH.
The June investigation revealed multiple additional deficiencies, including Klopfer’s failure to abide by Indiana’s 18-hour notification law that requires a woman to give her voluntary and informed consent and view the fetal ultrasound and hear the fetal heartbeat, at least 18 hours before an abortion. Indiana law had allowed Klopfer to continue doing abortions while he appealed the ISDH’s decision to not renew his operating license.