Life Links 3/30/11

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has moved to close an abortion clinic in Lathrup Village which has allegedly been violating state law by performing abortions without a surgical license.

Dr. Alberto Hodari, operator of WomanCare of Southfield, is accused by the Michigan Department of Community Health of continuing to perform surgical abortions after deciding not to renew that license in July 2010. In 2009, MDCH inspectors found a fire-code violation involving emergency exits at the facility on Southfield Road, according to court documents.

In the documents, Hodari said he was trying to sell the building and the repairs would cut into examination space. He said he would not renew his surgical license when it expired in July 2010......

State law requires a surgical license if patient load for abortions exceeds 50% of total patient load. Hodari indicated he would reduce his surgery load to comply.

Despite statistics provided to MDCH by a clinic manager, the Attorney General's Office said it doesn't believe Hodari did so, and will appear in Oakland County Circuit Court on April 6 to ask that the clinic be closed for the durationhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif of the lawsuit.

I'd never heard of Ellen McCormack before today but her obituary in the New York Times describes her as an "Anti-Abortion Presidential Candidate.":

Mrs. McCormack initially ran for the presidency to help focus national attention on abortion after the 1973 Supreme Court decision recognizing women’s right to the procedure. Her television commercials, partly paid for with federal campaign money, attacked abortion as the equivalent of murder.....

In 1976, Mrs. McCormack, who ran as a Democrat and campaigned almost solely on the abortion issue, raised a total of $525,580 in contributions of $250 orhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif less from 20 states. That made her eligible for $247,220.37 in federal matching money for the primaries. The money went mainly for anti-abortion television commercials.

Mrs. McCormack won 238,000 votes in 18 Democratic primaries, and 22 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention.

A prolife billboard campaign which uses an image of President Obama is drawing the ire of pro-choicers in Chicago.

Abortion-rights campaigners clashed with Always Life, the Texas-based anti-abortion group that plans to install 30 billboards across the South Side to draw attention to the disparity in the number of black women seeking abortions....

Protesters Tuesday tried to drown out the campaign’s Chicago launch at an empty lot at 58th and State, heckling speakers and shouting that the campaign misappropriates an African-American icon and does nothing to offer desperate women alternatives or to help them raise their children.