COLUMBUS, Ohio–Today, Ohio Right to Life obtained a notification from the Ohio Department of Health that Women’s Med Center of Dayton (WMC) has been denied a variance request and given 30 days to submit a new variance request. The facility, located in Kettering, is run by Martin Haskell, the abortionist who popularized the now-banned partial-birth abortion. The Department of Health attributed its variance denial to the facility’s “insufficient” number of back-up physicians. The State of Ohio requires ambulatory surgical facilities to have a written transfer agreement with a local hospital to provide continued care in the event of emergencies. If a facility cannot obtain an agreement, it may request a variance from the law, providing a sufficient number of back-up physicians.

“Ohio Right to Life has been working to see this notorious abortionist shut down for decades,” said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life. “It’s absolutely stunning to see the abortion industry bend the rules at the expense of women’s health and babies’ lives, all for the sake of the bottom dollar. We are hopeful that this could be the last step in finally shuttering one of Ohio’s last late-term abortionists.”

WMC’s variance has been pending with the Department of Health for over a year. Among Director Richard Hodges’s concerns with the facility’s request is the fact that WMC listed Wright State Physicians Women’s Health Care as back-up, but did not list specific physicians who will provide the continuity of care. Additionally, they listed Miami Valley Hospital as back-up, something that the hospital’s president and CEO objected to in a letter dated last September.

“It appears that Big Abortion will go to great lengths to falsely represent the traditional medical community’s support for him,” said Stephanie Ranade Krider, executive director of Ohio Right to Life. “Abortion clinics consistently show themselves as the only ambulatory surgical facilities who are either unwilling or unable to comply with some of the most basic health standards. Any attempt to show themselves as upholders and defenders of women’s safety has been completely thrown out the window.” 

To read the letter from the Ohio Department of Health denying the variance, click here.

Founded in 1967, Ohio Right to Life, with more than 45 chapters and local affiliates, is Ohio’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement in Ohio, ORTL works through legislation and education to promote and defend innocent human life from conception to natural death.