Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois most recently sent three women to hospitals to be treated for the injuries they sustained during their abortion procedures at the clinic. And as Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue reports, there is another wrinkle in the story that stems from news from St. Louis – which is just a short drive from Granite City.
"A local Catholic hospital chain was actually referring women to the Hope Clinic in Granite City for abortions, especially if the women had any kind of what you would consider ... high risk or any unusual circumstances," Sullenger relays.
So even though abortion violates the Catholic faith, the Catholic hospital chain would refer a woman whose preborn child had been diagnosed with Down syndrome, for example, to Hope Clinic for an abortion.
Operation Rescue has also noticed that even though the abortion clinic is just across the street from the Gateway Regional Medical Center's hospital, the facility sends the women who are injured in its abortion procedures to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.
"That hospital is known as an abortion training hospital," Sullenger details. "They contract with Planned Parenthood, so Planned Parenthood usually trains the abortionists for the abortion program at Barnes Jewish Hospital."
Sullenger is encouraging people to ask the SSM Health Network, the Catholic hospital chain, to stop referring patients for abortions.
