Update (9:34pm EST): An Ohio Department of Health spokeswoman told LifeSiteNews.com Monday evening that the Sharonville clinic has in fact received an ambulatory surgical center license, correcting the Department’s earlier assertion.
SHARONVILLE, Ohio, November 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – After a notorious late-term abortionist moved in next-door, a group of Ohio pediatricians are giving vent to their outrage, calling the move “a slap in the face” to a group that has nurtured children in the area for decades.
Late-term abortionist Martin Haskell has closed his Cincinnati, Ohio, abortion clinic and reopened in the suburb of Sharonville – mere steps away from Liberty Sharonville Pediatrics. There, parents would have to enter a common driveway and pass by Haskell’s surgical abortion facility, Women’s Med Cincinnati, in order to get the pediatric office. The abortion mill even shares a sign with the pediatricians’ office next door.
Dr. Steve Brinn, M.D., was so upset that he wrote a letter to the editor that appeared in the Cincinnati Inquirer on Saturday, November 27, expressing his opposition to the abortion business.
“Imagine our shock and disbelief, when we learned that an abortion clinic was opening in the building 50-feet from our front door. Why would a clinic performing abortions be so insensitive to a group practice treating children for 31 years?” wrote Dr. Brinn.
He continued, “To have a group of OB/GYN doctors terminating fetuses just outside our door, to force our mothers and their babies drive through a common driveway, driving by the front of an abortion clinic, in order to park in our lot to have their babies cared for is an atrocity.
“We are here to prevent infant diseases, and they are here to end infant lives. We may not have the legal right to get them to move but we will do anything in our power to vocalize our personal disgust with their mission.”
Haskell is perhaps best known for his claim – believed to be false – that he invented the gruesome and now illegal partial-birth abortion procedure. Today, a modified version of that procedure, which exploits a loophole in the law, is in wide use by Haskell and other late-term abortionists.
Dr. Brinn told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that one longtime patient has already vowed to leave the practice because of its new next-door neighbors.
The pediatrician of 31 years called the decision to locate the abortion mill nearby “a slap in the face to any physician who treasures saving lives and helping kids … to have to know what’s going on right over there.” He said his calls to Sharonville mayor Virgil Lovitt have yet to be answered.
Operation Rescue president Troy Newman lauded Dr. Brinn’s “brave stand in defense of children” and encouraged him to pursue all available legal means to chase Haskell out of town. “With prayer and public support, we know these efforts can be successful.” he said.
The newest location is not listed as a licensed ambulatory surgical center on the Ohio Department of Health website. A Department spokeswoman confirmed to LSN that there was no pending license for an ambulatory surgical center at the clinic’s location, which she indicated would require the license to operate legally as a surgical abortion clinic.
Operation Rescue notes that a receptionist for Haskell told one of their undercover investigators that the Sharonville clinic is a surgical center. When LSN asked for similar information, Haskell’s receptionist refused to state whether a Sharonville clinic existed and conveyed a message to the clinic’s PR department, which did not return LSN’s call.
The Women’s Med Cincinnati center website lists the Sharonville address as its location and gives driving directions to the same site.
Operation Rescue reports that another mill of Haskell’s, located in Dayton, ran afoul of the law by refusing to comply with state law that required abortion clinics to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers and have a transfer agreement with a local hospital. After years of legal wrangling, the state capitulated and granted Haskell a “variance” that allows him to operate without meeting the legal requirements that bind other clinics.