The Northern Illinois Women's Center in Rockford had it's license suspended by the Illinois Department of Public Health last week! This is great news! It was an emergency suspension and they were fined $15,000 due to four major safety violations. These included the lack qualified staff and lack of surgical privileges at a local hospital. I thought these people claimed to care about women's health and safety… Maybe not…
While the abortion center is not necessarily closed for good, this is still great news for two reasons. First and most importantly, this abortion clinic will not be taking the lives of innocent pre-born children anymore! (At least not for a while – Remember to pray that they stay closed) Secondly, it means that someone in the Illinois Department of Public Health is actually doing their job!
Abortion is Above the Law
For a long time, abortionists have been allowed to operate with very little oversight. There are countless stories of horrific conditions in abortion centers that would never pass health code muster for any other clinic. Abortionists, however, consistently seem to get a pass. A good (yet scary) example of this is the case of Kermit Gosnell. According to an article in Slate…
The Pennsylvania Department of Health inspected Gosnell's clinic when it opened in 1979. The department was supposed to check back within a year, but there's no clear record of another inspection until a decade later. Nor is there any evidence that the evaluators, when they returned, examined Gosnell's patient files, his sanitation, his emergency equipment, his use of anesthesia, his compliance with rules of post-operative care, or the qualifications of employees who did his lab work. From 1993 on, Gosnell went completely uninspected. The grand jury says the health department "decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. … With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be 'putting a barrier up to women' seeking abortions." Casey was pro-life; Ridge was pro-choice.
Back to Rockford…
I'm not sure if this actually signals a change in how the IL Dept of Health will work with abortionists, but I hope it does! I'm confident that more IL abortion centers will close if there were real scrutiny by the Dept of Health. And that would be a very good thing!
Contact: John-Paul Deddens
Source: Students for Life of Illinois
