The ACLU has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Dr. Allison Cowett and Hope Clinic for Women Ltd. to stop Illinois’ parental notification law from taking effect on Nov. 3, 2009. This law requires that minor girls under the age of 18 notify their parents prior to an abortion and wait 48 hours. Note that this is merely a parentalnotification law– not a parental consent law. In addition, Illinois, like all 34 other states that have parental notification laws, has a judicial bypass option available to girls. In addition, girls can bypass parental notification in an emergency situation or if they are willing to declare in writing that they were raped.

According to a Chicago Tribune article, Dr. Allison Cowett and the Hope Clinic claim that “the notification law would harm minors by preventing them from obtaining safe abortions or force them to carry their pregnancies to term.” This is an ironic claim coming from a clinic that is being sued for a botched abortion that left a now 20-year-old woman sterile. According to LifeNews.com, “Antoinette Blanton, who is 20, filed a $50,000 against the abortion center saying the failed March 2006 abortion caused her to be sterile. According to the lawsuit, abortion practitioner Allen S. Palmer, of Bridgeton, failed to remove the entire unborn child during the abortion procedure.” 

Dr. Cowett, a committed pro-abortion advocate, and the Hope Clinic further claim that “Others (minor girls) will be beaten or thrown out of their homes when their parents learn of their pregnancy and planned abortion.” But the judicial bypass option is available to any girl who fears such a response. It hardly seems fair to deny all loving, compassionate parents a right to help their daughters make a decision regarding major surgery that carries both serious physical risks and potentially long-term emotional consequences because some girls may choose not to avail themselves of the judicial bypass option.

Dr. Cowett is an assistant professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago and director of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center of Reproductive Health. Her research “focuses on abortion in the 2nd trimester, factors affecting women’s contraceptive choices, and access to family planning services.” According to her biography, she is “active in community-wide efforts to forward a legislative agenda that champion’s women’s reproductive freedom.” Apparently, she wants to champion teenage girl’s right to kill even younger pre-born girls through both legislative and judicial means.

And she’s willing to forge an unholy alliance with a clinic that has long been criticized by pro-life warriors for myriad offenses against humanity and sound medical practice. Retired ob-gyn nurse Angela Michael and her husband Daniel have been struggling mightily for seventeen long years to expose the nefarious deeds of the grossly misnamed “Hope” Clinic. According to Mrs. Michael, approximately 80 percent of abortions come from across state lines which suggests that most of the abortions are performed on minor girls. Illinois has long been the Midwest’s abortion mecca for underage girls, since all of the surrounding states have parental notification laws. The Hope Clinic is just a hop, skip, and short car ride from Missouri where underage girls would need to notify their parents prior to procuring an abortion. To learn more about the Hope Clinic, peruse Angela and Daniel Michael’s website Small Victories Ministries.

At least as troubling is that Hope Clinic performs the utterly barbaric practice of late-term abortions. Dr. Yogendra Shah is the George Tiller of Hope Clinic. According to the Thomas More Society in Chicago “Shah is perhaps the Midwest’s most wicked abortionist. He’s the notorious serial killer who once clogged the municipal sewer system with the arms, legs, rib cages, and heads of aborted babies. Municipal officials were shocked. They traced the body parts to Shah’s ghastly abortion mill, the so-called “Hope Clinic for Women” in Granite City, Illinois . . . he kills about 10,000 babies a year. No wonder he can afford an expensive watch and a Mercedes and a Lexus.” This is the same man who “tried to run Daniel over. . .And then. . . glared at Angela. . . and shouted, ‘Die, Angela, Die!'”

One can’t help but wonder if the chief concern of doctors at Hope Clinic is really the health and safety of underage girls. Someone needs to look into how much money teen abortions generate for the Hope Clinic. 

And we all need to pray fervently for two things: first, that the ACLU, Dr. Allison Cowett, and Hope Clinic lose their lawsuit, and second, that the Hope abattoir closes its blood-stained doors forever.

Written by Lisa Sergent, Director, Communications & Assist. Editor –Illinois Baptist State Association

Nearly 1.4 million abortions have been performed every year since the United States Supreme Court made abortion legal 35 years ago. Today, there are five clinics in Illinois providing abortions, ending the lives of 46,467 infants in 2006 alone. At least 87 pregnancy care centers are located around the state with the mission of showing women abortion is not the answer. 

Granite City, Ill. is home to one of the abortion providers – Hope Clinic, the only clinic in a ten state radius where women can have an abortion up to their 24th week of pregnancy. Its website boasts of performing 6,000 abortions a year. Featured prominently on the website is the clinic’s slogan, “Where there is choice, there is Hope.”

Countering the work of Hope Clinic in Granite City and standing as a true beacon of hope is New Beginnings Pregnancy Care Center. New Beginnings opened 21 years ago and now has additional locations in Fairview Heights and Edwardsville. Last year New Beginnings saw 600 new patients and served 1,300 others. Patients received pregnancy testing; information about abortion (no one is ever referred for an abortion, regardless of the situation), adoption and parenting; ultrasound; physician referrals; and childbirth and parenting classes along with free baby supplies for those who complete the classes. The center is working to offer counseling programs for the men affected by pregnancy and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. 

Kathy Sparks, the clinic’s executive director and one of its founders, previously worked in an abortion clinic assisting in performing abortions. After a near divorce and failed suicide attempt, Sparks accepted Christ. Just days later her husband, Mike, accepted Him too. It was after that, while assisting a doctor performing an abortion at 23 weeks, God showed her the truth. Sparks left her job at the abortion clinic.

The idea for New Beginnings Pregnancy Care Center came soon after. “The Lord used Mike and me to begin this ministry,” she said. “There was nothing like it on this side of the river.” 

“God crossed our paths with five other believers. That’s been 23 years ago. I’ve been executive director for 21 years. I give God all the glory. I am just a small part of what He does here.”

“The average age of our clients is 18-22,” Sparks said. “Our youngest client was 12 and the oldest was 54.”

Counseling services at the center include a presentation of the Gospel. “The overwhelming majority of our clients will stay and hear the entire thing,” Sparks said. In 2007, 96 percent of their clients heard the Gospel and 11 accepted Christ as their Savior.

Clinic counselors must be Christians and belong to a local church. Counselors receive 21 hours of training plus time spent assisting other counselors until they are deemed ready to counsel on their own. Additional training in evangelism is provided to ensure each can give their own personal testimony.

“Probably half of the women who work in this ministry have had abortions,” noted Sparks. “We work with them to make sure they understand forgiveness and are not atoning for having an abortion.”

Seven years ago, the clinic received its first ultra sound machine. Statistics show the number of abortions drop radically when women receive ultra sounds and are able to see the developing child in the womb. After installing the machine, “We absolutely noticed a difference in the amount of women who would change their mind [about having an abortion],” Sparks said. “We saw client numbers increase and an additional 15 percent of the women decided not to have an abortion.”

The clinic also promotes an abstinence-only program. “Two and a half years ago the Lord stirred my heart to make it bigger and better,” said Sparks. She discovered ReL8, a program developed for public schools that uses biblical principles. “It’s amazing how God has really opened things up to come into the middle and high schools.” The ReL8 program serves a 23 county area in downstate Illinois.

Sparks is dedicated to exposing the truth about abortion and sharing Christ. “My life is the definition of Romans 8:28. My experience working in an abortion clinic has given me the motive and passion to share Christ in a tangible way.”

For more information about New Beginnings Pregnancy Care Center online go to nbpcc.org. The ReL8 abstinence program’s website is located atmyrel8.com.