by Josh Brahm | Birmingham, AL | LifeNews.com | 6/25/14 

The Christian Post reports today that the Alabama Women’s Center, the sole abortion facility in North Alabama is scheduled to close its doors on Friday.

This is due to them failing to meet all of the requirements of the Women’s Health and Safety Act, which stipulates that doctors working at Alabama abortion facilities must have hospital admitting privileges in the same city where they do abortions, and they must meet the same building safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers. According to an al.com report, these safety standards require a number of things, including making hallways at abortion clinics wide enough to accommodate patient gurneys.

According to a WAFF report, while the Alabama Women’s Center was able to meet some requirements of the new state law, they were unable to meet the building safety standards in time, so they chose to voluntarily surrender their license. They are working to open a new abortion facility in the area as soon as possible. There are also three abortion facilities in Alabama that will remain open, Planned Parenthood in Mobile, West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa and Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery.

From the Christian Post report:

James Henderson, executive director of Christian Coalition of Alabama, which has been protesting the clinic for the last 10 years along with other pro-life activists, told al.com that they will have a memorial for all the babies killed at the clinic.

“We’re going to have a memorial service and remember the lives that should have been,” he said. “By reasonable estimates, there have been over 30,000 unborn babies killed at the various abortion clinics in Huntsville.

“It’s wiped out a city larger than Athens and almost as big as Madison.”

Pro-choice supporters told WAFF, however, that the closure of the abortion clinic was just another way for the state to restrict women’s reproductive rights and called it a “wasted effort.”

“We have women coming here from Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, middle and South Alabama that don’t care about access to local emergency rooms because they don’t stay in town for it,” said clinic advocate Kathy Zentner. “If the legislators really cared about women and health, they would make facilities available.

Of course, women don’t stay care about access to a hospital until she’s tragically hurt in a botched abortion. It’s like saying, “I don’t care about living near a hospital, because I don’t ever go to the hospital.” Sure, until you get hit by a car, when you really want to be able to get to a hospital.

There’s a reason why the Alabama legislature voted for this bill, and that was to protect women’s safety, regardless of whether they know how many other women have been hurt by botched abortions.