As you all know, last Friday brought the incredible news that the US Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade. Below we’ve included pertinent information regarding Tuscaloosa, Alabama, & the surrounding states and where things now stand.
It was great to get a report from those on the sidewalk at West Alabama Women’s Center as soon as the decision was announced! “While this prayer team was praying one of our prolife advocates was praying with a father from TN who brought his 24 year old daughter for the first consultation for an abortion. When that was done a lady pulled over to the shoulder of the road and yelled out through the window that Roe had been overturned. The Pro Lifers could not believe it. Five minutes later the abortuary emptied out and they all drove off. HOW IS THAT FOR AN ENDING! AFTER THESE DECADES!“
Soon thereafter Alabama Attorney General issued a press release announcing that abortion in Alabama was now illegal.
A bloody abortion cannula was improperly discarded by the West Alabama Women’s Center. It contains a bit of flesh, likely from an aborted baby.
(Operation Rescue) When Fr. Terry Gensemer and his wife returned to their Birmingham, Alabama, home one evening earlier this month, they discovered mysterious back trash bags left anonymously on their property. Curious, they inspected the contents of the bags and were shocked by their grisly discovery.Inside were documents and bloody refuse from the West Alabama Women’s Center, (WAWC), an abortion facility in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Included were suction abortion cannulas that contained blood. One had a bit of what appeared to be human tissue.
Documents included patient names, remittance receipts from credit cards used to pay for abortions, and ultrasound images of babies inside their mothers’ wombs with the name of the abortion facility clearly printed at the top.
The items represented obvious violations of state and federal laws, including the illegal dumping of infectious medical waste and privacy violations under HIPAA.
Life Legal Defense Foundation was notified and has filed complaints on behalf of Fr. Gensemer, Director of the pro-life organization CEC for Life, and several other pro-life groups and individuals, including Operation Rescue.
The complaints against the WAWC went to the following governmental officials and agencies:
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall,
Alabama Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth,
Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
Click here to read letter to the Steve Marshall Attorney General of Alabama.
The West Alabama Women’s Center has been fraught with problems and tragedy since it was purchased by the Yellowhammer Foundation in the spring of 2020. The same week the new management took over, April Lowery, died from internal injuries received during a botched abortion by Louis Payne. Soon after, Payne was forced to surrender his medical license.
Sad discovery: This ultrasound image of a baby in the womb was one of many found in trash bags discarded by the West Alabama Women’s Center, It is likely the baby was aborted. This represents a violation of HIPAA privacy laws since the woman’s name was printed on the image. (Redacted by Operation Rescue.)
Seven months after Lowery’s death, another woman suffered similar life-threatening injuries during an abortion she barely survived. The woman, going under the pseudonym “Jane Stone,” sued the WAWC and abortionist Tamer Middleton for her life-altering injuries and for ignoring her pleas for an ambulance as her condition deteriorated.
The WAWC hired abortionist Leah Torres as the facility’s medical director soon after Stone’s botched abortion. But Torres’ temporary Alabama medical license was suspended by the Alabama Department of Public Health after it discovered she had committed fraud by repeatedly lying on her license application. Torres has since been granted a permanent medical license and has resumed abortions.
It was Torres that admitted to Department of Health inspectors last December that she was using rusty medical instruments and other unsanitary surgical supplies during abortions, and that clinic workers often did not change gloves or wash hands in accordance with CDC protocols. The WAWC was cited for nearly identical violations in 2020, as well.
This is the last known photo taken of April Lowery. It shows her leaving the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa after an abortion on May 7, 2020. Hours later, she would be dead from a perforated uterus and other internal injuries.
(Operation Rescue) For the second time in a row, an Alabama abortion facility that was responsible for the death of one woman and horrific injuries to another, has failed a licensing inspection that included citations for conducting abortions with rusty, unsanitary surgical equipment.
The West Alabama Women’s Center, located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was inspected by the Alabama Department of Public Health on December 14, 2021, during which it was cited for the following:
Failure to render patient care in accordance with all applicable laws.
Failure to discard rusty and damaged surgical instruments.
Failure to properly clean and sterilize surgical instruments.
Failure to properly test and maintain autoclaves where surgical instruments are sterilized.
Failure to follow CDC handwashing guidelines.
The six-page deficiency report was signed by the WAWC’s new Operations Director, Robin Marty, whose background is in communications and not in any area of medicine or medical facility oversight.
Also referenced in the report was abortionist Leah Torres, who serves as the abortion facility’s medical director. The ADPH suspended Torres’ temporary medical license in August 2020 for committing fraud by lying on her license application and was ordered to cease and desist the practice of medicine. Torres was finally issued a permanent Alabama medical license on March 24, 2021, after which she resumed her position as medical director, which includes conducting abortions.
Page six of the 2021 deficiency report notes that Torres was interviewed by the health inspector and confirmed the conditions for which the facility was cited and agreed they should be corrected. However, this shows that Torres had to know that she was using rusty, unsanitary instruments on women during abortions – and probably had been for months.
“It is sickening to learn that the West Alabama Women’s Center, which has been fraught with serious health and safety issues in the past several months, would intentionally continue to engage in practices we might have expected to find in a back-alley abortion mill. These people are either incapable of complying with basic health rules due to incompetence or they just don’t care if they comply. That attitude puts women at risk of harm from their shoddy practices every day they are open.”
(Operation Rescue) An Alabama woman has filed a medical malpractice suit against the West Alabama Women’s Center (WAWC) abortion facility in Tuscaloosa and one of its abortionists, Tamer Middleton, after she endured a near-fatal botched second trimester abortion last December.
Her complaint detailed her injuries that bear similarities to those that resulted in the death of WAWC patient April Lowery in May 2020.
The plaintiff filed her suit on November 11, 2021, under the pseudonym Jane Stone. Her true name is sealed under a protective order.
Jane Stone was lucky to survive her ordeal, which included being misled about the abortion process and its potential complications, forced dilation of an inadequately prepared cervix that resulted in cervical lacerations and perforation, uterine perforation, sliced broad uterine ligament and arteries, massive internal hemorrhaging, and a refusal of WAWC staff to heed her pleas for an ambulance to transport her to the hospital until she lost consciousness.
Operation Rescue has uncovered that a woman who died after leaving the West Alabama Women’s Center (WAWC) abortion facility in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on May 7, 2020, has been identified through her autopsy report as 29-year-old April Lowery.
The report was obtained by the CEC for Life on behalf of a coalition of national and local pro-life groups that also includes Operation Rescue, Life Legal Defense Foundation, and Pro-Life Tuscaloosa.
Lowery was seen on May 7, 2020, leaving the WAWC by pro-life activists, who described her as “sick and pale.” She had to be physically supported as she struggled to walk from the clinic to an awaiting private vehicle, which then reportedly transported her to what is believed to have been UAB Hospital in Birmingham, where she was later pronounced dead.
One local pro-life activist had been wrongly told by at least one WAWC employee that Lowery had died from a drug overdose and that she had not even wanted an abortion.
Now, the coalition of pro-life groups has now learned her true cause of death, which has led to questions about whether she was coerced or forced into having the surgical abortion.
Alabama abortionist Leah Torres, pictured left, was ordered to immediately surrender her medical license after Life Legal and a coalition of pro-life groups expressed concerns about her professional ethics. Torres has made callous, heinous comments about what she does to unborn babies, including a Twitter post where she boasted that she cuts babies vocal cords so they can’t scream.
She also justified her abortion practice by claiming “God does way more abortions than I do.”
The Alabama Board of Medical Examiners determined that Torres “may constitute an immediate danger to her patients and/or the public.” The BME found that Torres made numerous fraudulent statements in her application for a provisional license to practice medicine. Torres lied about having been sued for malpractice, in addition to lying about whether she has lost staff hospital privileges in the past.
Tuscaloosa, AL – It has been confirmed that the death of a woman who visited the West Alabama Women’s Center abortion facility in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on May 7, 2020, is under criminal investigation. A coalition of pro-life groups, including CEC for Life, Life Legal Defense, Operation Rescue, and other Alabama organizations sought the autopsy report for a woman who reportedly died at Druid City Hospital, soon after leaving the Tuscaloosa abortion facility.
The request was submitted on August 5, 2020, by Dr. Patricia Gensemer for “autopsy reports for any females over 14 years of age and under 40 years of age with a date of death for May 7, 2020 in Tuscaloosa County. Your office confirmed on August 5 that files matching this request are finally available.” Dr. Gensemer received a written response dated August 27, 2020, from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, which stated in part, “District Attorney Hays Webb has notified the Alabama Department of Forensic Science that this case remains under criminal investigation. . . Consequently, the final reports in this case are not currently public record.”
West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa made headlines in May 2020, when the Yellowhammer Fund, a non-profit organization, purchased the business from long-time owner Gloria Gray.
Amanda Reyes, anti-life activist and former Tuscaloosa abortion clinic escort, is the Yellowhammer fund’s founder and director. Reyes, who had no experience running an abortion facility, took over administration of WAWC – reportedly on the same day in May when one of their first patients died.
When a woman, was helped out of the West Alabama Women’s Center (WAWC) abortion facility in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on May 7, 2020, pro-life activists on the scene suspected something had gone very wrong with an abortion.
Later, clinic workers informed a local pro-life activist that the unidentified woman had in fact died.
That launched efforts by a coalition of pro-life groups, including Operation Rescue, CEC for Life, Life Legal Defense Foundation, and other Alabama pro-life groups to learn more about this incident.
The pro-life groups discovered that the clinic never called 911 for help, even though witnesses said the woman looked unwell, struggled to walk, and needed the support of another person to make it the few feet from the facility to the parking lot and into a private vehicle.
