Under Ohio law, abortion clinics must obtain transfer agreements with nearby hospitals for emergencies. Because the Women's Med Center of Dayton failed to do so, the state pulled its license Wednesday. The clinic has 15 days to appeal, which it says it will do.
Ohio is one of the majority of states that have tried, with considerable success, to reduce the number of clinics providing abortions with unnecessary regulations. Several states now have a single abortion clinic as a result. Since his first year in office in 2011, Republican Gov. John Kasich has signed 17 different bills to restrict abortions.
Four of the eight abortion clinics that have been shuttered during that time had to do so because of transfer agreements. One of those that sued lost its case.
The idea that transfer agreements are necessary for women’s health is belied by the fact that Ohio prohibits public hospitals to participate in these agreements.
Jennifer Branch, the clinic's attorney, said the state Health Department allowed Women's Med to operate with two backup doctors for emergencies for many years. In 2015, the department requested three doctors and the clinic complied. Weeks later, she said, they said four would be required.
The anti-abortion group Created Equal had launched a campaign aimed at calling out doctors involved in abortions, which included posters, mailers and vehicles circulating through the doctors' neighborhoods publicizing their names.
Having apparently given up assassination because of the PR fallout, forced birthers now rely on intimidation of doctors and laws that restrict clinics and abortion providers for no good reason and penalize women who seek to exercise their constitutional rights under Roe v. Wade. As Erik Eckholm wrote in The New York Times three years ago:
"Ohio has become a laboratory for what anti-abortion leaders call the incremental strategy — passing a web of rules designed to push the hazy boundaries of Supreme Court guidelines without flagrantly violating them."