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Ohio Pulls License One Of State's Last Few Abortion Clinics

The Women's Med Center in Dayton's south suburbs is routinely picketed by abortion opponents.
Samuel Worley
/
WYSO

State health officials have revoked the operating license of one of Ohio’s last remaining abortion providers. The state issued the order on the grounds the clinic failed to obtain a written hospital-transfer agreement. 

The Ohio Department of Health says the clinic needs another backup doctor available to admit patients in a medical emergency. Since 2013, the state’s required all abortion clinics to have such backup agreements. 

Women’s Med Center currently has three backup doctors in place. ODH last year ordered the center to identify an additional backup, which the clinic was unable to do. 
 
Attorney Jennifer Branch says Women’s Med Center has been operating without a written transfer agreement since 2002. She’s hopeful a judge will allow the clinic to remain open. 
 
“If Dayton doesn’t have an abortion facility anymore then the women who utilize the services will have to go all over the state now because there is no other provider in the area in the area to accommodate them,” Branch says. 
 
Nine abortion providers are in operation across the state. Southwest Ohio’s two clinics are both involved in legal battles with the state department of health.
 
Women’s Med Center of Dayton has 15 days to appeal the state’s revocation order, and says it will.

Jess Mador comes to WYSO from Knoxville NPR-station WUOT, where she created an interactive multimedia health storytelling project called TruckBeat, one of 15 projects around the country participating in AIR's Localore: #Finding America initiative. Before TruckBeat, Jess was an independent public radio journalist based in Minneapolis. She’s also worked as a staff reporter and producer at Minnesota Public Radio in the Twin Cities, and produced audio, video and web stories for a variety of other news outlets, including NPR News, APM, and PBS television stations. She has a Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She loves making documentaries and telling stories at the intersection of journalism, digital and social media.
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