LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, March 21, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A judge with a legislative record as an advocate for abortion-on-demand has ruled that closing an abortion facility that state inspectors described as “filthy” is “against the public interest.”
On February 17, inspectors from the state Cabinet for Health and Family Service (CHFS) conducted the first inspection at EMW Women's Clinic in Lexington since the last Republican governor held office 10 years earlier.
They said an office employee told them they offer no other medical services besides abortion. Yet the owner, Dr. Ernest Marshall, said his business does not need to be licensed as an abortion facility because it is an all-purpose women's health facility.
Aside from allegations the facility skirted state laws, inspectors found that one of the facility's tables could spread infection between women, that some of its medication had expired in October 1997, and inspecting its “cleaning instruments revealed similarly filthy conditions,” according to Gov. Bevin's lawsuit.
“The inspector found the facility in an unsanitary condition,” said CHFS Secretary Vickie Yates Glisson.
But last Friday, Fayette Circuit Judge Ernesto Scorsone ruled against the governor, saying evidence indicated “that EMW is operating legally” and that “closing the clinic is against the public interest.”
“EMW is the only physician’s office that routinely provides abortion services in the Eastern half of the state, and both parties agree that a right to an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy is constitutionally protected,” the judge wrote. “Closing EMW would have a severe, adverse impact on the women in the Eastern part of the state.”
The legal setback for Gov. Matt Bevin will allow EMW, which performed 411 of the state's 3,187 abortions last year, to reopen.
Judge Scorsone wrote that since the administration of Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, did not cite the organization in its 2006 inspection, EMW has “a strong argument that it is exempt from licensing.”
But Judge Scorsone has not always been so deferential to Fletcher. In 1998, then-State Senator Scorsone was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives against Fletcher. One observer at the time described Scorsone as a “liberal on health care, education, Social Security, collective bargaining, abortion, gay rights, and the environment.” Fletcher went on to win the House seat before becoming governor.
Meanwhile, Scorsone ran up a record as a stalwart supporter of abortion-on-demand. In 2007, he became one of just three Democratic state senators who voted against an informed consent law that received strong bipartisan support.
A year later, he was one of four Democrats to vote against S.B. 40 which, among other things, instituted a statewide ban on partial birth abortion.
Just a few months later, in August 2008, Scorsone was appointed to the 22nd Judicial Court by Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat and Matt Bevin's predecessor.
The judge, who is openly gay, also serves as president of the board of JustFundKY, an LGBT activist group in the Bluegrass State.
Bevin, a pro-life Tea Party Republican, famously stood by Kim Davis' side when she was released from jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Aside from suing EMW, last month Bevin sued a Planned Parenthood facility for performing 23 illegal abortions, seeking $700,000 in damages.
That leaves only one abortion facility open statewide, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Some abortion activists will unrelentingly defend abortion facilities even amid strong evidence that they imperil women's health and safety.
In late 2012, Michigan state officials described Dr. Robert Alexander’s Women’s Medical Center in Muskegon as “filthy” and “dangerous to human life or the public welfare.” Yet pro-abortion writer Robin Marty called the unsanitary facility's closure “a huge problem for women in Western Michigan seeking access to abortion services.”
It was precisely a willingness to turned a blind eye to the shady practices of the abortion industry that allowed Dr. Kermit Gosnell to perpetrate infanticide inside a filth-strewn “house of horrors,” according to his grand jury report.
In Kentucky, the abortion industry is happy to be back in business.
“The clinic looks forward to opening,” EMW attorney Scott White said, “and our hope is the cabinet will accept this decree and not waste any more effort and money on an argument that clearly has no weight.”
Gov. Bevin's spokeswoman, Jessica Ditto, told the Lexington Herald-Leader that the governor plans to file for an emergency ruling with the Kentucky Court of Appeals in the state capital of Frankfort.
