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CINCINNATI, Ohio, February 2, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Ohio hospitals have illegally failed to report abortions.

Media conglomerate Gannett Ohio has found that hospitals throughout the state have failed to report abortions performed to officials, as required by law.

Administrators at Christ Hospital in the Cincinnati area decided two months ago to stop allowing doctors to abort babies who had been diagnosed with fatal anomalies. The new policy, which began November 20, says abortions are only for “situations deemed to be a threat to the life of the mother.”

Not surprisingly, Planned Parenthood protested the policy change, insisting that hospitals provide abortions. Danielle Craig of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio complained, “For many patients, an overnight stay in a hospital is better than an outpatient procedure, and women should have that option.”

Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, defended Christ Hospital's policy change. “Christ Hospital has a constitutional right to change its policies in line with its beliefs,” he said. “We have to respect the freedom of conscience.”

With the change in policy, Christ Hospital revealed to state officials that over the past five years, its staff have committed 59 abortions on babies with fatal diagnoses. This was a revelation, as Ohio Department of Health (ODH) officials told Gannett Ohio in December that the state had no record of Christ Hospital reporting any pregnancy terminations in any year.

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Ohio law says hospitals must report abortions committed after 12 weeks' gestation to the state Department of Health. Until the Gannett Ohio inquiry, officials didn't realize they had not received required records from Christ Hospital – or several other Ohio hospitals.

Many hospitals across the state have consistently failed to report abortions, according to ODH spokesman Russ Kennedy. As a result of the Gannett Ohio inquiry, the ODH is requesting “delinquent data” from Ohio hospitals.

Paula Westwood, executive director of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati, told LifeSiteNews, “Not only have disabled babies died from abortion at this hospital, but until now, these little ones have not been remembered in death, even as a statistic.”

Though the law says hospitals must file, there is no prescribed penalty for late reporting to state officials of abortions, nor is there even a penalty for failing to file abortion reports altogether.

Gannett Ohio reporters Jessie Balmert and Chrissie Thompson found a Cincinnati-area surgeon who says he aborted more than a dozen babies at Christ Hospital just last year –all around four months along. The abortionist said he aborts “only if the baby is going to die.”

Critics of abortion note that not all diagnoses prove correct, so no one knows for sure if a baby in the womb is going to die at birth. Furthermore, Westwood says, giving birth and seeing and holding the baby – even if for only a few moments – is healing to a mother.

“Christ Hospital's new policy to protect babies with poor prenatal diagnosis means that Cincinnati parents may now have the closure that other parents of at-risk children testify to, in being able to give birth, bond, and say goodbye to a beloved child,” the pro-life leader explained.

Westwood believes that abortion is not the answer, even when a baby is diagnosed with a fatal abnormality. “Whether minutes, hours, or years, our lives are but a breath, and each human life has value, no matter what its ability, disability, age or stage.”