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Updated at 12:43 p.m. to include remarks from Lila Rose.

NEW YORK CITY, April 7, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A fast food restaurant in New York state is far more likely to be inspected for health and safety standards than an abortion facility, according to documents unearthed from a Freedom of Information Act request.

Since abortionists are not required by law to list “abortion services” as part of their description, the New York State Health Department regulates only 25 abortion facilities, of the state's estimated 225 abortionists.

The pro-life Chiaroscuro Foundation received documents about the department's inspection of abortion offices from 2000-2012 that show a level of neglect rivaling neighboring Pennsylvania before the Kermit Gosnell case.

The health department has inspected only 17 of the 25 abortion offices it oversees since 2000. Only eight of those were inspected more than once in a dozen years, allowing multi-year gaps between assessments.

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However, every restaurant from Long Island to Buffalo is inspected annually to assure compliance with relevant health procedures.

In all, the state conducted 45 abortion facility inspections. During that time, there were 1,515,108 abortions reported statewide.

That means the state conducted one abortion facility inspection for every 33,669 abortions.

Greg Pfundstein, president of the Chiaroscuro Foundation, said he asked for the documents after being “horrified by the revelations in the trial of Kermit Gosnell.”

The Gosnell grand jury report stated, “With the change of administration from” pro-life Democratic Gov. Bob Casey to pro-abortion Republican Gov. Tom Ridge in 1995, “officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions.”

“We began to wonder whether any inspections were being done in New York,” Pfundstein said in a press release. “We are encouraged to know that some inspection is done in New York, but we can't say on the basis of what the State has done over the last 13 years that anyone should be confident there is not a Kermit Gosnell at work somewhere in New York.”

Health regulators have closed only one abortion facility in 14 years. The Choices Women’s Medical Center located in Queens hired Dr. Allan Zarkin, who earned the nickname “Doctor Zorro” for carving his initials into a woman's stomach at Beth Israel Medical Center in February 2000.

In Queens, Zarkin would sometimes perform an abortion every five minutes. Inspectors found his “surgery schedule does not allow time to assess patients prior to surgery, to monitor patients or to clean and prepare the room for the next patient.”

They also reported that one unnamed abortionist would perform abortions on two women in different operating rooms simultaneously.

The state levied a $60,000 fine against the facility, but allowed it to reopen. Zarkin was banned from medicine and ordered to receive psychological counseling in May 2000.

“These filthy killing centers maim mothers and destroy their babies for money, and the state does nothing,”  said Lila Rose, president of Live Action. “There is no excuse for this sort of negligence, especially in the wake of mass-murdering Kermit Gosnell in Pennsylvania and ‘Gosnell-like conditions’ at Planned Parenthood of Delaware. New York is being exposed once again as a partner in the full-throttle attack on the most basic of human rights.”

The state's willingness to turn a blind eye to the abortion industry puts women at risk, the Chiaroscuro Foundation said.

“Women's health is women's health,” spokeswoman Molly O'Connor said. “Women deserve to know whether a clinic they are about to visit has been inspected and is in compliance with health regulations.”

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“Whether you are an abortion supporter or an abortion opponent, we should all stand firmly on the side of safety,” O'Connor said.

She challenged “NARAL and other abortion groups to join together with us in demanding answers from New York State.”