A new abortion business in Chicago is brazenly advertising its willingness to abort preborn babies up to 34 weeks into pregnancy, making it the only late-term abortion facility in the Midwest and one of the few in the nation.
The ironically named Hope Clinic opened June 2, according to the Chicago Tribune. It will perform abortions up to 10 weeks beyond what the medical community has long held as the point of viability (around 24 weeks).
The clinic’s Instagram page featured a graphic with a soft purple background that read: “Introducing Hope Clinic Chicago: OPEN—Abortion Care for all trimesters,” with its phone number and website listed. A second Hope Clinic operates in southern Illinois, offering abortions up to 27 weeks, the paper reported.
According to the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, the newest science has allowed viability to move even earlier, to around 22 weeks. It is not uncommon for some babies delivered surgically at 24 weeks to survive with modern medicine. The earliest such survival was a baby delivered at 21 weeks, one day.
The abortion statute in Illinois, pro-life leaders argue, effectively allows elective abortion up to the point of birth. The law makes abortion legal through viability, but an exception beyond viability for life or health of the mother is liberally applied, making late-term abortions relatively easy to get, said Mary Kate Zander, president of Illinois Right to Life, in an article at LifeNews.com.
“The [Illinois] Reproductive Health Act (RHA) was written to be intentionally vague—leaving the door open for late-term abortions that can be justified by almost any circumstance, while eliminating the label ‘elective’ so as to stay off the public’s radar,” she said.
The clinic is reportedly seeing eight to 10 patients weekly, mostly for second- and third-trimester abortions.
Dr. Karen Deighan, formerly an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Loyola University Medical Center, told the Tribune in an interview after Roe v. Wade was overturned that modern technology has fortified her belief that life begins at conception.
“You can see very early the heart, all the organs, the head, the eyes, the movement. You can see the baby inside,” Deighan said. “I struggle sometimes, because some of my colleagues will work so hard to protect and save a 22-week peri-viable pregnancy. … And then don’t see a problem with someone choosing to end that pregnancy.”
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who signed the Illinois abortion law in 2019, and Democratic Attorney General Kwame Raoul, have publicly vowed to make Illinois a haven for abortion rights.
When Pritzker signed the 2019 abortion law, he stated: “Let the word go forth today from this place: If you believe in standing up for women’s fundamental rights, Illinois is a beacon of hope in the heart of this nation.”
Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League said support for the late-term clinic exposes the “increasing radicalization of abortion advocates.”
“We used to hear talk about abortion being safe, legal and rare. Being an anguished decision. The way our state has been going, it’s going to become the abortion capital of the United States. That’s what’s happening.”
