DALLAS, TX, May 20, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Texas law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a local hospital has closed yet another abortion facility, this one an office affiliated with a notorious abortionist accused of practicing serial infanticide.
Northpark Medical Group in Dallas is the 20th state abortion center to close its doors due to H.B. 2, according to Kyleen Wright, president of Texans for Life Coalition. She said its remaining abortion provider or providers were unable to secure admitting privileges.
“I think that we've all been thoroughly shocked by how many [abortionists] can't get hospital privileges,” she said.
The requirement, which is fiercely opposed by the abortion industry, is “an extra credentialing process that other doctors routinely have to go through – surgeons in particular – and ensures continuity of care for women who have undergone an abortion,” Wright told OneNewsNow.com.
In 2011, the state had 44 abortion facilities. By September, when new state requirements that abortion facilities meet the same health standards as other ambulatory surgical centers, that number could plummet to just six. “Not only are their doctors substandard, but many of their facilities are, as well,” Wright said.
NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue called earlier closure announcements “a tragedy for women in Texas.”
Northpark Medical Group is affiliated with Dr. Douglas Karpen, and is still one of three locations listed on his website as affiliated with Karpen. Karpen has been dubbed the “Texas Gosnell,” because he stands accused of performing late-term “abortions” on newborn babies outside the womb.
News of the Northpark closure comes almost exactly one year after three former employees at accused Karpen of twisting the heads off living babies. “Most of the time the fetus [sic] would come all the way out before he either cut the spinal cord or introduced one of the instruments into the soft-spot of the fetus in order to kill the fetus,” Deborah Edge, one of the three, said in a videotaped interview with the Texas-based Life Dynamics Inc. “Either that or twisting the head off the neck with his own bare hands.” Despite the allegations, a Houston grand jury declined to indict Karpen last December.
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But former patient Melanie Mendoza sued Karpen for botching an abortion at Aaron's Medical Center of Houston last February 7, when she was 22 weeks pregnant. The OB/GYN who treated her said the life-threatening injury he inflicted constituted “one of the worst injuries” to a uterus the doctor “had ever seen or read about,” according to court documents.
Alabama is currently arguing in court that the state has an interest in assuring abortionists have admitting privileges at local hospitals, to protect women's health and discourage patient abandonment.