After 5 Years Without Inspection, Abortion Clinic Closed
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
October 01, 2007
Part I. (CNSNews.com) - New Jersey health officials are not inspecting abortion clinics in that state regularly, apparently because they don't have the resources or the manpower. [Remember this is New Jersey the Court ordered "Civil Unions" State and the State seeking to force the Ocean City Campground Association to allow Gay Unions to take place in their facilities.] In one case, an abortion facility was not inspected for five years, and when inspectors finally visited, they found numerous, often morbid, violations, which led to the clinic losing its license and shutting down.
"The lack of health inspections at these clinics speaks volumes about the sentiment to reduce abortion at all costs to the detriment of women," Marie Tasey, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, told Cybercast News Service. "The current elected officials in power all cater to [the abortionists'] agenda."
The facility that shut down -- Alternatives, in Atlantic City, N.J. -- was cited for multiple health violations in a 116-page report released through the state's Department of Health and Senior Services this past summer. Some of the key violations spelled out in the report include the presence of blood under operating tables, expired drugs and rusty IV poles.
State rules call for abortion clinics and other ambulatory facilities to be examined every two years. But the Department of Health and Senior Services lacks the resources and standards to maintain that pace, Tom Slater, a department spokesman, told Cybercast News Service.
"There are more ambulatory facilities in New Jersey than there are in New York and Pennsylvania combined," said Slater.
Nonetheless, the department answers every complaint and conducts on-site investigations whenever a complaint involves matters that could jeopardize patient care, he said.
The number of "ambulatory care" facilities -- which includes abortion clinics -- in New Jersey has grown from 590 to more than 1,000 in the past few years. Yet the health department's staffing has increased from 125 to 150 in the same period, said Slater.
The inspection report with regard to Alternatives was the first one issued in six years, according to a story published in The Press of Atlantic City.
"For whatever reason, they [Alternatives] never submitted a corrective action plan, and since the facility was closed there was no other action we could take," Slater said.
Metropolitan Associates in Englewood, N.J., another abortion clinic, was also closed earlier this year but has since re-opened, The Press of Atlantic City reported.
"I think any time an abortion clinic shuts down, it's a victory for the pro-life movement," said Tasey.
"Clearly, there is a double standard in New Jersey when it comes to abortion," she said, adding that the same elected officials who express concern over the health and well-being of women willfully overlook the unsavory practices that take place in abortion clinics.
New Jersey residents on both sides of the abortion issue could find common ground regarding certain practices that have been uncovered in the clinics, Tasey suggested.
"Regardless of your position on abortion, you should be outraged," she said. "These people claim to care about women and claim to be such wonderful advocates for women, and yet they're turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to these abuses occurring in abortion clinics in New Jersey."
(Part II of this story will be published in mid-October.)