“We will hold Planned Parenthood accountable for knowingly endangering their patients by providing illegal abortions at a facility that was not properly licensed nor prepared to handle an emergency.”
Thanks to its stalwart pro-life leaders, Kentucky may very feasibly become the first abortion-free state in the country. After a lengthy process which succeeded in closing down a Lexington clinic due to illegal activity regarding an un-licensed medical staff, there now remains only one abortion mill left in the entire state to close. And some are determined to do just that. With ample sanction to do so regarding a "...failure to have adequate transfer agreements with an ambulance company and a hospital," Matthew G. Bevin, Kentucky's conservative governor and self-proclaimed “unapologetically pro-life" Christian, addressed the EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville two months ago by way of letter.
Accordingly, the single remaining abortion clinic warrants illegal status for failure to be "...adequately prepared for patient emergency situations."
The argument, predictably, is entirely refuted by the Center, which is conveniently backed by the state's ACLU. The association stepped in when a lawsuit was promptly filed against the state. Defying statistics and recorded facts stating otherwise, Center advocates deny the necessity of ambulances upon the insistence that abortions are quite "safe" for women, and situations hardly require them.
In their view, denying abortion is a much more dangerous, "drastic" measure than a lack of transportation. With the removal of professional abortion procedures, according to the mentality, women will revert to a historical period which feminism again and again evokes: the days before the 1973 Supreme Court decision which forced women to carry children "against their will." Some even died for it.
"Women will self-abort," the argument continues, "should the state succeed in closing the last abortion facility in the state." Furthermore, the Center's representatives argue that complications "...from abortion in general are rare, and those that require hospitalization and that occur while a patient is at the abortion facility are exceedingly so.”
Because, somehow, licenses make dangerous procedures safe---even when staff has been discovered without licenses.
Bevin's convictions are hardly tempered by this threat, however. Indeed, he goes so far as to call out the "brazen disregard" of Planned Parenthood in failing to prioritize the safety of women:
"This administration will have no tolerance for the type of brazen disregard that Planned Parenthood has shown for both the safety of women and the rule of law."
The governor is quite determined that, despite the reality of cost and time necessary to fight the case, he will not let the clinic off the hook:
“We will hold Planned Parenthood accountable for knowingly endangering their patients by providing illegal abortions at a facility that was not properly licensed nor prepared to handle an emergency.”
