May 24, 2023

Granite City Abortion Clinic Hospitalizes 13-Year Old During Abortion

photo taken by a pro-life advocate
outside Hope Clinic on April 28
A newly released 911 recording reveals that on April 28, Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois hospitalized a 13-year-old girl who just had an abortion.

Operation Rescue reported earlier this month that the clinic hospitalized patients at least four times between March and April of 2023. This April 28 emergency was the fourth of those incidents. Operation Rescue did not expect to receive any 911 records at the time because RuralMed EMS, a private ambulance service based over an hour away from Hope Clinic, provided transportation. It turns out that RuralMed EMS secured a contract with Effingham County to be dispatched through the public 911 service. This was one such instance.

During the 911 call, a staffer told the dispatcher that the girl just had a D&C abortion and was suffering from an "anterior perforation." No further information about the girl's condition is available. Granite City refused to provide redacted dispatch reports to Operation Rescue, and the 911 dispatcher didn't ask any further questions about the patient's condition before sending an ambulance.

D&C abortions are usually done during the first trimester. They involve the use of suction (often through a vacuum aspirator) to pull the preborn child from a mother's womb. This suction often violently tears the child's body apart. Potential complications include uterine perforations and infection, which can lead to infertility.


The Hope Clinic employee requested that the girl be transferred to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. That hospital is 20 minutes away, but there is a hospital directly across the street from Hope Clinic. Barnes is a level 1 trauma center capable of handling more serious injuries, and Hope makes this request frequently. This indicates that the average severity of injuries caused by Hope Clinic is high.

“We hope and pray that this poor girl lived through this deadly ordeal,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “If so, we pray for her as she begins a long journey of physical and emotional healing from the repeated forms of victimization that no child should ever have to endure.”