Lansing's last freestanding abortion clinic will close by October 1 – and become the property of the Catholic Church.
The Diocese of Lansing announced that the owners of the building leased in part by the abortion clinic WomanCare have agreed to lease the top floor of 1601 E. Grand River to Church of the Resurrection. The plan was made after Resurrection's pastor, Father Steve Mattson, spoke with area pro-life leaders to gauge interest in creating a pro-life center on the floor.
The rest of the building will belong to a pro-life group.
Mattson said that Resurrection “needs temporary space, because we are converting our rectory and current parish offices into a convent to make room for the incoming Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, who will be serving at Resurrection School and Lansing Catholic High School this fall.” He said the newly-leased floor “will allow us to both meet the needs of our parishioners and to affirm our comprehensive pro-life commitment to men and women in greatest need.”
“We desire for our parish, including our presence at this new site, to be a place of hope and healing for all who have been wounded by the effects of sin in our world,” Mattson said.
WomenCare clinic has long faced controversy because of the practices of its owner, abraham “Alberto” Hodari.
In 2004, LifeSiteNews was one of very few outlets to report that a 15-year old girl died at one of Hodari's clinics. The matter was complicated because the clinic had not followed Michigan law by informing her parents before conducting the abortion. Furthermore, a state reporting law related to sexual abuse was also broken, because the girl's boyfriend was 24 — which made the pregnancy a result of statutory rape — yet the clinic did not go to authorities.
He was fined $10,000 for the 2003 death of Regina Johnson.
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The 2003 and 2004 deaths were not included in the Michigan Department of Community Health's annual reports on abortion deaths, something Michigan Right to Life said happened because of facilities' failure to report deaths that occur due to abortion.
In 1988 two of Hodari's clinics were investigated by state officials for dumping the bodies of aborted babies outside of the clinics, and in 2008 six clinics were found to be “disposing of biohazard waste and patient records simply by dumping them in common trash receptacles.”