COLUMBUS, OH, September 25, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – The last two remaining abortion facilities in southwestern Ohio may be going out of business.
The facilities – one of them a Planned Parenthood – have been unable to comply with a state policy requiring abortion offices to have transfer agreements with a local hospital.
The bill, which was signed by Gov. John Kasich, also prevented any public hospital from granting such a transfer agreement.
Planned Parenthood in Cincinnati and Women's Med Center of Dayton asked for the Ohio Department of Health to grant them a variance.
On Friday, the department denied their request.
“After a summer mired in scandal, Planned Parenthood is now facing closure here in Ohio because of their failure to comply with some of our state's most basic safety requirements,” said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life. “Americans are turning a critical eye on America's abortion industry for a reason: Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry are consistently proving themselves to exist on the fringe of the traditional medical community, unwilling to follow either ethical guidelines set by their profession or unable to meet basic health standards enforced by the Department of Health.”
“Ohio Right to Life is grateful to Governor Kasich and his administration for continuing to prioritize the health and safety of Ohio's women and children in the face of the abortion industry's reckless abandon,” he added.
The region has had its share of abortion extremism. The Health Department turned down a request for a variance this summer to the Lebanon Road Surgery Center in Sharonville.
That abortion facility is operated by Martin Haskell, the abortionist who publicly described, and defended, the use of the partial birth abortion procedure.
“Planned Parenthood… is allegedly selling aborted baby body parts, and [Haskell] is the self-proclaimed poster child of the now banned partial-birth abortion technique” Gonidakis said. “Not only are they the perpetrators of grave crimes against human dignity, they can't even keep up with the traditional medical community and meet the simplest health standards.”
“Ohio Right to Life thanks the Kasich administration for refusing to let these fringe elements skirt our state's public health policy,” he said.
John Kasich is mounting a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, focusing his efforts on New Hampshire, where polls show him leaping ahead of Jeb Bush.
