Posted on 03/23/2007 7:23:00 PM PDT by Coleus
Activists on Friday protested the reopening of an abortion clinic here shut down in February after state health officials found "immediate and serious" health code violations. As part of their protest, the activists deployed a motor home equipped with ultrasound equipment across the street from Metropolitan Medical Associates and offered pregnant women who approached the clinic free images of their fetuses.
The activists believe the images will persuade women to reconsider having an abortion. On Friday, 16-year-old Michelle Younger of Jersey City was one of them. The teen, who arrived with her mother, said she had an appointment at the clinic to get an abortion but decided against it after having an ultrasound in the motor vehicle parked outside. Younger said she decided to keep the baby after she was told by an ultrasound technician that she was 24-weeks pregnant and told by activists that other women had been injured at that particular clinic.
"I didn't think I was that far along," she said. "That changed my whole opinion." The Englewood abortion clinic, which has operated since the mid-1970s, is among few in the state that perform abortions up to the 24th week of pregnancy. Many others are restricted to performing first-trimester abortions. A Newark woman who said she spent a month in a coma after undergoing an abortion at the clinic is suing the facility and several doctors.
The clinic closed last month after state inspectors found dirt, debris and opened packs of sterilized items at the clinic. Reports obtained by The Record of Bergen County show inspectors uncovered forceps encrusted in "brownish blood-like residues," rusty crochet hooks and a quarter-inch of dark red "dirt and debris" under an exam table. A lawyer for the clinic, Frank G. Capece, confirmed that it had reopened after a thorough inspection.
"It's now clear that this clinic has gone through the most extensive state review of any like facility that we are aware of," Capece said. "As a result of this very extensive review, any patient considering the facility can do so with a high degree of comfort, knowing that the state team has completed its review." The clinic performed about 10,000 abortions last year, he said.
On Friday, about 20 protesters spent an hour holding signs in front of the two-story brick clinic. One organizer, Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, said she was outraged that the clinic was allowed to reopen. Tasy also criticized the state Health Department for failing to inspect the facility every other year, as required. Health Department spokesman Tom Slater said that prior to the complaint that led to the shutdown this year, the clinic was last inspected in 2002.
The 32-foot-long motor home parked outside the clinic Friday was provided by anti-abortion activist Chris Slattery, who operates 15 crisis-pregnancy centers in the New York metropolitan area. Slattery said he plans to park it in front of the clinic each Thursday, offering free ultrasounds and consultations with a malpractice lawyer for any women who believes they were injured by an abortion. Using ultrasounds to dissuade expectant mothers from having abortions is a strategy also being considered in other parts of the country. A law requiring women to look at their ultrasound images before having an abortion advanced in the South Carolina Legislature on Wednesday and has the support of the state's governor.
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Michelle Younger, left,enters a motor home staffed by anti-abortion activists, in which free ultrasounds are given to women who were planning to go to the nearby Metropolitan Medical Associates abortion clinic in Englewood, N.J., Friday, March 23, 2007. Younger, 16, who was accompanied by her mother, said she had an appointment at the clinic to get an abortion but decided against it after having an ultrasound in the motor vehicle parked outside. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)
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Let me guess how fast the local hospital would open for those kind of violations. Or the local tatoo parlor, or ear piercing kiosk.
This guy Slattery is a hero. He'd better watch out - the Left is going to go absolutely bugf**k trying to find some dirt on him to get his operation shut down.
Nothing must be allowed to interfere with the slaughter of precious little babies!
His life has been an open book since the 1980s, when he started EMC. Over the decades, he's faced down two corrupt state attorneys-general and kicked their butts—Robert Abrams and Eliot Spitzer (who is now NYS governor).
But you're right, they could always try to make something up.
Slat-man rules!
englewood reopens..
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