After announcing that a new Maryland late-term abortion facility would open in September, Partners in Abortion Care remains unopened.
The College Park office space has been leased and the sign is up out front, but according to local pro-lifers, the place is not yet open for appointments.
40 Days for Life local coordinator Katherine Hunter and a dedicated group of participants chose the site for their prayer campaign, expecting the center to have opened weeks ago. They have been praying in front of the new center, and say the office is not open yet.
The abortion facility, located right by the University of Maryland, announced plans to offer late-term abortions to women traveling from states with abortion restrictions in the wake of the Dobbs case overturning Roe v. Wade, according to NPR.
The abortion center will perform abortions on babies up to eight-and-a-half months, past the point of when they can live outside the womb.
Over the summer, Maryland began allowing non-physicians to perform abortions, after allocating $3.5 million per year for “abortion care” training there.
Meanwhile, Montgomery County, where Partners in Care is located, announced $1 million in grants to organizations that directly support access to abortion.
The website for the new center states:
“We believe abortion care should be built on justice and anti-oppression principles. Our clinic welcomes people of all races, genders, ages, sizes, and abilities. We are committed to the process of continual improvement in order to best serve the people we care for and the community in which we live and work.”
Partners in Abortion Care is co-owned by two women, both mothers
Diane Horvath, 43, a physician, and Morgan Nuzzo,43 a certified nurse-midwife, talked about opening an abortion center for years and decided to do so last November, knowing that Maryland would allow late term abortionists to operate in the state.
They raised money on GoFundMe to hire staff and renovate office space for the center, and purchase used equipment from a closed Georgia abortion center.
“We are excited and ready to open the only women-owned and operated, all-trimester abortion clinic in the United States,” the GoFundMe page says.
The two women are part of a “nationwide reshuffling of providers, equipment and even buildings, a Washington Post report said. “The National Abortion Federation created an online members-only marketplace for buyers and sellers to connect.”
“I couldn’t keep saying this care should be provided and not do it, knowing I had the skill set to do it,” Horvath said.
Partners in Abortion Care intends to prioritize women seeking abortions after viability, according to The Diamondback, an independent student newspaper at UMD.
Nuzzo said that late-term abortion has been in the shadows, and stated, “I’m not a monster for doing this, I’m a person who’s going to take care of you or someone you love.”
Horvath said overturning Roe had been “all part of the plan for ever and ever. From the lowest appellate courts all the way up to the Supreme Court.”
And Nuzzo said, “We’ve been living in the grief for almost a year.”
The two abortionists have said they plan to perform five to 10 late-term abortions and a few abortions earlier in pregnancy per week. Most of their clients will have received money from an abortion fund or a support network and will be traveling from outside the D.C. metro area.
The NPR report said Nuzzo and Horvath had planned to open after Labor Day, but faced delays with getting an updated application from the state of Maryland for their health care facility license.
40 Days for Life vigil participants will continue to pray at the as-of-yet unopened abortion site in hopes that it will somehow remain unopened.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Pregnancy Help News and is reposted with permission.
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
