Charlotte abortion clinic w/ history of safety issues set to re-open Wednesday

In light of the recent events surrounding the Kermit Gosnell trial, I found this interesting:

For the second time in six years, a southeast Charlotte abortion clinic has reopened a short time after the state forced it to shut down because of safety issues, most recently the improper administration of a drug that terminates pregnancies.

A Preferred Woman’s Health Center on Latrobe Drive will be allowed to open at 9 a.m. Wednesday after the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services lifted its order suspending clinic services, according to an official with the state agency who provided information on background.

The clinic’s reopening comes only four days after it was ordered to suspend operations. In April state investigators determined that clinic staffers were orally administering the drug Methotrexate, which is used to induce abortions. The drug is meant to be injected, according to the state report.

But Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services received “documentation that the inappropriate administration of medication would be discontinued,” according to the department official.

The clinic also submitted a quality improvement plan to the state, the official said.

The state department has temporarily shut down the Charlotte clinic – only to have it reopen shortly thereafter – in the past, according to the official and a state document. In February 2007, state investigators found as many as 16 safety and regulatory issues at the clinic, according to a letter DHHS sent the clinic.

Attempts to reach clinic owner Lois Turner were unsuccessful Tuesday.

A Preferred Woman’s Health Center is one of three clinics that provide abortions in Charlotte, according to the National Abortion Federation, a professional association representing abortion providers. Planned Parenthood, which refers women to local abortion providers, does not refer patients to A Preferred Woman’s Healther Center, spokeswoman Melissa Reed said.

“We are not affiliated with that clinic at all and did not make referrals to it at all,” said Reed, who works out of the group’s Raleigh office. “Planned Parenthood puts patient safety and women’s healthcare as our primary concern.”

Read the rest to find out what extremely disturbing instances caused them to be shut down this year and in 2007, and let me know if you think the state was smart in accepting the word of the “clinic” that it would make the necessary changes to avoid a third time being shut down.   It sounds to me like a pattern of medical malpractice that, if it continues, could lead to the death of an adult patient (we already know what happens to the unborn patients there).  Hopefully the state won’t wait the customary two years for their next inspection of this clinic.

As to Gosnell, he will get life without parole after making a deal with prosecutors in which he agreed to waive his right to appeal. That he will have to live out his remaining days thinking of what he did, and knowing his reputation in the medical community is all but destroyed, seems fitting. Probably the worst thing you can do to a doctor of his (former good) reputation is to have him lose the respect of his peers and stop him forever from getting to practice his “craft.”   Interestingly enough, nine of the twelve on the jury were reportedly pro-choice.  Even in tragedy something meaningful usually comes out of it, and in this case hopefully minds were changed on abortion issue – not just on the jury but for others in America who actually took the time to read and learn about the case.   The abortion lobby’s insistence on secrecy and “privacy” for abortion clinics unfortunately ensured no health inspections, and as a result the lives of the babies murdered at Gosnell’s abortion mill couldn’t be saved, but maybe through knowledge of Gosnell and his gruesome practices, which were not that different from a “safe” abortion provider except for the geographical location of the unborn baby, people will have a change of heart when it comes to our nation’s most vulnerable: the unborn – and from that maybe future abortions can be prevented.

Minds can be changed on abortion. I am proof of that.  Never give up hope that others can change their minds, too.