By Dave Andrusko
On Wednesday, Laura Hancock, of Cleveland.com, reported that “The Toledo abortion clinic formerly known as Capital Care Network [now known as Capital Care of Toledo], voluntarily surrendered its ambulatory surgical facility license last week, according to the Ohio Department of Health, since a new owner apparently has taken over.”
While giving up its ambulatory surgical facility [ASF] license, the lone abortion clinic in Toledo will still perform chemical [“medication”] abortions which do not require a surgical license. At this point, according to Hancock, “It’s unclear how much time has passed since the clinic stopped offering surgical abortions, and whether it wants to offer them in the future.”
Ohio Right to Life welcomed the news. “After years of legal trouble with proper licensure and inadequate safeguards, this is a victory for not only the pro-life movement, but for the women of Ohio,” said Stephanie Ranade Krider, vice president of Ohio Right to Life.
This clinic has acted in a reckless and above the law manner, putting women’s health and safety at risk for years. Two years ago, this same facility perforated a woman’s bowel before shuttling her in an employee’s vehicle to a nearby hospital.
While this facility will undoubtedly continue to profit off of women seeking chemical abortions, with over 1,300 abortions in Lucas County in 2017, the loss of their surgical license will save many lives.
In the last 9 years we have see 22 pro-life initiatives pass, half of Ohio’s abortion facilities shuttered, and the number of abortions fall by over twenty-five percent. Today we are one step closer to an abortion free Ohio.
“This is a real victory to be sure,” added Ed Sitter, executive director of Greater Toledo Right to Life. He said the vast majority of abortions at the clinic were surgical.
“No more babies will be torn apart within their mother’s womb here in Toledo,” Sitter told Hancock.
NRL News Today has written many, many stories about Capital Care Network. In 2013, the legislature passed a law requiring abortion clinics to enter into transfer agreements with private hospitals so that aborted women could go there in case of an emergency.
In 2013, after the University of Toledo Medical Center did not renew its transfer agreement with the abortion clinic, Capital Care Network went five months without an agreement before finally negotiating one with a University of Michigan Health System hospital which is 52 miles away in Ann Arbor.
In 2014, the clinic’s license was revoked by the Ohio Department of Health “because transporting a patient to Ann Arbor would take longer than the department’s 30-minute standard.
Last year the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the decision by the state Health Department.
“Surgical abortions were able to resume two months later [in May 2018] after Promedica hospital in Toledo provided Capital Care Network a transfer agreement,” Hancock reported.
Following the news about Capital Care Network/Capital Care of Toledo, NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio Executive Director Kellie Copeland issued a statement saying there are six other clinics in the state that provide surgical abortions. “A total of nine clinics, including the aforementioned six, offer medication abortion, she said,” according to Hancock.