HUNTSVILLE, AL, September 17, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – The Alabama pro-life community has issued an ultimatum to Huntsville’s Crestwood Medical Center: Either the hospital cuts its ties with local abortionists, or face ongoing protests.
Rev. James Henderson, who is organizing both the PR campaign and the protests, submitted a letter to Crestwood CEO Pam Hudson and the hospital’s board of directors Monday demanding the hospital revoke the admitting privileges of two local abortionists at the city’s lone abortion center.
Henderson accused Crestwood of singlehandedly keeping the abortion industry going in Huntsville by granting admitting privileges to the pair, who would not be permitted under state law to operate their facility if they did not have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
“We believe Crestwood Medical Center wrongly supports the abortion industry in Huntsville by providing admitting privileges to local abortionists who could not legally perform abortions at a local abortion facility without your support,” wrote Henderson. He pointed out that the other major hospital in the city, Huntsville Hospital, has refused to grant access to local abortionists, making Crestwood the sole “lifeline” enabling the abortion business to stay open.
Henderson told Crestwood officials the pro-life community was “disappointed“ in the hospital’s choice to grant admitting privileges to one abortionist in particular, whom he alleges had her admitting privileges “revoked for cause” at another hospital in eastern Alabama. “In our mind this raises questions about the standards of medical care the community can expect if admitting privileges are routinely issued in this matter,” the pastor said.
The letter also reminded Hudson and her colleagues that the abortion facility itself has a spotty track record when it comes to patient safety, with numerous health and safety code violations documented over the years in both local and national press.
“[The abortion facility] is certainly not viewed as an asset to the Huntsville area as a legitimate medical activity by a large percentage of our citizens,” Henderson wrote. He added that he and other pro-life citizens consider the facility “a blight” on the city and its surroundings.
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Henderson’s group has given Crestwood until October 19 to cut all ties with area abortionists. After that, they will begin holding protests at the hospital in addition to their ongoing protests at the abortion center.
It seems likely it will come to that. Henderson told local station WHNT that when he had a face-to-face meeting with Hudson last year about this issue, “nothing came of it.”
In a statement, the hospital said that while no abortions are performed on hospital property, Crestwood “does not control what independent physicians, licensed by the State of Alabama, do or do not do in their private practice.”
The hospital said that it had not ruled out taking legal action against Henderson’s group in order to “protect the good name and reputation of the facility.”
At a rally on the Crestwood campus Monday, Henderson told local media, “The bottom line is, we believe that every abortion is wrong and should be stopped.”
The pastor added, “We believe that by God's moral law, we have a responsibility always to promote life. We believe by our values, clearly accepted, Biblical values, even ingrained in our own natures, we know the protection of an unborn baby is inherently the right thing to do.”
“Return on investment, profit, is never the right reason to do and support abortions,” said Henderson. “We're not here about technicalities today. We're simply here to do the right thing and ask Crestwood Medical Center to do the right thing and end its support for abortions in Huntsville.”