Citizens for a Pro-Life Society is reporting that Richard Remund, the owner of two Woman's Choice clinics in Lansing and Saginaw, officially dissolved the business on Friday after the state's attorney general prohibited him from operating medical clinics in the state of Michigan. Judge Calvin Osterhaven of Eaton County signed the consent order dissolving the clinics at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 21.
The shut-down of the Womans Choice clinics is the result of a motion brought against the clinics on Nov. 7, 2011 in which Michigan Attorney General Bill Schutte cited the facilities for illegal incorporation within the state of Michigan. His action is the direct result of discoveries made by pro-life activists who, after searching the clinics’ trash dumpsters in 2010 found aborted babies, medical waste and patient records. The illegal incorporation was discovered during the course of the ensuing investigation.
The trouble began on February 26, 2010 when Chris Veneklase of Right to Life of Michigan searched the dumpster used by Womans Choice in Lansing and made a grisly discovery of the remains of 17 aborted babies tossed in the trash. Each aborted baby was contained in a medical baggie. The names of the mothers were written on each bag as well as the date of their abortion. The aborted babies were buried nearly one year ago on November 20, 2010 by Bishop Earl Boyea in St. Joseph Cemetery, Lansing, MI.
Citizens for a Pro-life Society (CPLS) conducted several searches of the Womans Choice dumpster in Lansing as well as its sister clinic in Saginaw where Veneklase and CPLS discovered medical waste and numerous patient records. They contacted Ed Rivet of Right to Life of Michigan who notified State Senator Rick Jones in whose district the Lansing abortion clinic is located.
From April through July 2010 the Eaton County Sheriff’s Department conducted its own independent investigation of the Womans Choice, Lansing clinic. Detectives found numerous patient records, including whole, intact scheduling sheets from December 2009 through July 2010—sheets that contained personal information of hundreds of women who obtained an abortion at Womans Choice. The names on some of the sheets matched the names of the women written on the medical baggies containing their dead unborn children pulled from the trash. The discovery of over seven months of patient records in the clinic dumpster has also resulted in the Attorney General filing allegations against Womans Choice with the Michigan Bureau of Health Systems. An investigation into those allegations is still pending. The dumping of such records is in violation of Michigan state law and administrative regulations governing the practice of medical facilities as well as federal HIPAA laws.
CPLS took extensive video of its dumpster findings, photos of the fetal remains as well as catching on tape Womans Choice staff throwing clinic trash into the dumpster.
Womans Choice could not be charged with illegally dumping the bodies of the aborted babies since any bio-hazard was rendered inert by formalin solution, in conformity with Michigan law at that time. In other words, although scandalous to many Michigan residents, it was not illegal for the clinic to dump the remains of aborted babies into the trash.
However, since the discovery of the bodies, a new bill has been introduced into the Michigan state legislature by State Senator Rick Jones, Senate Bill 0024-0025 that will make it a criminal misdemeanor to throw human body parts into the trash and requires that the remains of aborted or miscarried babies be either humanely buried or cremated.
“The shut- down of the Womans Choice clinics is a huge victory and a direct result of pro-lifers getting active and doing something about illegal clinic practices," said Monica Migliorino Miller, director of CPLS.
"This process started 21 months ago when the bodies of babies killed at Womans Choice were found in the clinic trash dumpster. We spent hours searching the dumpsters, going through the trash, photographing everything, cataloging everything, going to the sheriff, the county prosecutor and finally the attorney general," she said.
"I have to be honest, there were times when we thought nothing was going to happen. But we just never gave up! We are so pleased that the Michigan Attorney General has done what he could to bring the Woman Choice abortion clinics to justice. These clinics tried to get around the law and violated the rights of women. As of today they no longer exist! One year ago, practically to the day, the 17 babies found in the trash were laid to rest. Now the clinic where they were killed has shut down. We look forward to the day when the rights of the unborn are respected in law and all these places of death are finally a thing of the past. But today we rejoice that at least Woman Choice clinics in Michigan no longer exist.”
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Photo is of the 17 bags full of fetal body parts pulled from the Woman's Choice Dumpster
