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CHARLOTTE, NC, May 14, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – A Charlotte, North Carolina abortion clinic has been shut down following an investigation that revealed abortionists were incorrectly administering abortion drugs to their clients.

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Workers at the “A Preferred Women’s Health Center” were found to have given injectable methotrexate orally to abortion-seeking women, in violation of FDA and manufacturer guidelines. 

Methotrexate is a powerfully toxic anti-cancer drug that is sometimes used off-label to begin the chemical abortion process because it causes the placenta to detach from the uterine wall in pregnant patients.  The drug comes in injectable and tablet form. 

The abortion center used the injectable form, but according to state documents obtained by LifeSiteNews, instead of using the medication as directed, nurses at the clinic used syringes to squirt the medication into cups for oral administration, causing the dosages to be unpredictable and dangerous.  The wrong dose of methotrexate can cause severe complications, such as incomplete abortion, heavy bleeding, liver damage and even death.  At least one woman at the clinic was forced to undergo surgery after a botched methotrexate abortion, according to the state report.

State investigators also found that the abortion center had shoddy follow-up practices, repeatedly failing to examine women to ensure that no fetal body parts or other pregnancy-related tissue were left inside their wombs after abortions.  Failure to ensure removal of all fetal remains can result in infection, sepsis and death for post-abortive women. 

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services hand-delivered a letter to the abortion center on May 10 ordering them to shut down the facility by 5 pm the same day. 

The letter explained that the health agency had determined that the abortion facility presented “an imminent danger to the health, safety and welfare of the clients and that emergency action is required to protect the clients.” 

This is the second time in six months that “A Preferred Women’s Health Center” has been the subject of a state investigation.  In December, the clinic was cited by the department of health for safety violations including unsafe storage of hazardous materials, emergency medications being expired, and failure to properly sterilize instruments including vaginal speculums, which investigators said were stored in a plastic bin that “contained debris” while “the drawer liner was soiled.”

The abortion center was also the source of racial controversy last year when abortionist Ashutosh “Ron” Virmani confronted pro-life activists in front of the clinic and told them that anyone who opposes abortion should “adopt one of those ugly black babies” and get them “off the taxpayers’ money.”  Video of the confrontation was posted to the Internet by Operation Save America and went viral, embarrassing the clinic.

Rev. Flip Benham of Operation Save America, who has been organizing prayer vigils and literature drops at Charlotte-area abortion centers for years, held a press conference in front of the now-closed clinic today in which he thanked local churches for their faithful prayers and pro-life activism, which he believes led to the clinic’s closure. 

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In a phone interview with LifeSiteNews, Benham said that he sees a sea change coming in the way Americans view abortion.  In the wake of the capital murder trial of Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist who severed the necks of babies who survived sloppy abortion procedures, and in the aftermath of a number of high-profile clinic closures, Benham believes more Americans are starting to realize that gruesome stories of unsafe, unsanitary clinics are more the rule than the exception in the U.S. abortion industry.

“Abortionists [today] are the back-alley abortionists of yesteryear,” said Benham. “They’ve just crawled out from underneath that rock because [abortion is] legal now.  If the health department would inspect every clinic and hold them to the same standard as even a veterinary clinic, they’d all be shut down.”  Benham argues that the 1973 Roe v Wade decision gave a fundamentally criminal industry legitimacy in the eyes of the law, and says safety violations, drug violations, and disregard for the law are endemic to the industry.

Added Benham, “This is a filthy, disgusting business.  It’s not that Gosnell is an anomaly or an aberration.  It’s endemic to the industry itself.”

Benham called on people of faith to be strong in prayer and protest against the abortion industry, and credited local churches’ prayer and activism for the closure of the Charlotte clinic.  He said that abortion will last for as long as people of faith allow it to continue in their own communities.

“The problem … isn’t up in the Beltway or up in Washington, D.C.  It isn’t there that the battles are going to be won.  They’ll be won in the streets and they’ll be won as gentle Christian warriors – moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, little boys and little girls – bring the Gospel right to the gates of Hell.”