The Abortion Industry is Crumbling

February 12, 2024

Foreword by Angela Michael

March 10, 2009

"...legal abortion is meaningless if no one is able or willing to perform it." - Warren Hern, Abortionist

This is more confirmation that here in America ’s Heartland the abortion industry is crumbling. This past fall the largest Midwest late-term abortion mill had to shutdown due to a lack of baby killers and numerous lawsuits that have been filed against this chop-shop. Read related article: Hope Clinic is Hemorrhaging

The directoress, Ms. Burgess, failed to mention in the accompanying article the two abortionists she hired from Chicago lasted briefly, as they were butchering and hurting women, and at least four lawsuits were filed in 2008 for gross negligence, battery, and malpractice against these female abortionists featured on our website. Legalized abortion was supposed to put an end to “back alley” abortions and the mutilations of women. Just part of the fable. “Where there is ‘choice’ there is Hope.”

Sally Burgess recently commented to a reporter when asked “What about the Michaels?” she said, “They are relentless,” referring to our daily ministry outside the Hope abortion Clinic.

The following article posted in the New York Times reiterates what we have been reporting. It’s not a question if legalized abortion will come to an end; it's a matter of time.

“Abortion opponents will achieve their goal without ever having to overturn Roe vs Wade.” ~Kate Michelman, former director NARAL

“When I look back on the Roe v Wade decision I thought these words had been written in granite. But I’ve learned it was not granite. It was more like sandstone. The immediate problem is: where will the doctors come from?”~ Sarah Weddington, pro-abortion attorney who successfully argued the Roe v Wade case.

Where to Pass the Torch?

March 8, 2009

Generation B

By MICHAEL WINERIP

GRANITE CITY , Ill.

WHEN Anne Baker graduated from Southern Illinois University in 1975, she was pleased to be hired as a birth control counselor for a Planned Parenthood clinic, though it was not her dream job. “I wanted to be an abortion counselor,” she recalled. “I wanted it so bad.”

Ms. Baker was thrilled when the Supreme Court legalized abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. “I remember going to rallies, and this was so long ago, instead of calling opponents pro-life, we called them ‘fetus supremacists.’ ” She had been raised by her Catholic divorced mother and her great-aunt. They had little money, and to put herself through college, she worked a year, saved, went to school for a year, then worked the next year. “I was so convinced that to stay independent, women needed abortion for a backup,” she said. “It was like a calling for me.”

And so, the following year, in 1976, when a counseling job opened at the abortion clinic here, a 30-minute drive across the Mississippi River from her home in St. Louis, Ms. Baker grabbed it and never left, becoming the head of counseling at the Hope Clinic for Women.

In that time, she estimates she has done abortion counseling for 25,000 women and a few girls, some as young as 11, others as old as 53. “It’s been my dream job,” she said. “I wanted to be standing by the side of someone who was making a decision that others would condemn her for, and support her and link arms and say, You’re a good person making a hard decision, and that’s what I’ve done for 33 years.”

But here is the question: As Ms. Baker’s generation approaches retirement — women whose commitment to abortion was forged in the pre-Roe v. Wade days — will younger women take their places at the clinics?

“We worry about that a lot,” said Sally Burgess, executive director of the Hope clinic, who is also chairwoman of the National Abortion Federation, the main professional support group for abortion providers. “Younger women have always had access to abortion care, they don’t fully appreciate the battle that was fought to have it available to them. And more important, I don’t think they know how precarious the option is at this point, even with Obama’s election.”

“What I observe for women in their 20s and 30s — there are fewer who really have the fire in the belly for this,” she said.

At 50, Ms. Burgess is the youngest member of the Hope clinic’s leadership team, which includes Ms. Baker; Debbie Wiehardt, 57, the office supervisor; and the two doctors performing abortions (the only men on the 30-person staff), who are both in their 60s.

A recent survey of 273 abortion clinics published in the journal Contraception found that 64 percent of their doctors were at least 50 years old, and 62 percent were men. Abortion advocates like Kelli M. Conlin, president of Naral Pro-Choice New York, say that while it’s not a problem finding younger doctors and support staff to work in clinics in large urban areas like New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, it is an issue in more conservative places, like upstate New York; smaller Midwestern cities; Southern states, including Texas; and rural areas.

For eight years, Ms. Burgess said, she has been trying to add a doctor who was not only younger but a woman. “Many women prefer females, and it’s particularly important if there’s been abuse,” she said. She has participated in a program with the University of Chicago aimed at teaching young physicians to do abortions, and though two women came here to train, neither stayed. “I take every opportunity to put feelers out for doctors,” she said. “We’re aging, we’re looking for leaders to take over for us.”

The staff at abortion clinics typically earn less than their counterparts in other medical disciplines. “We were able to pay about half what a doctor’s office or hospital paid,” said Tina Welsh, 67, who in 1981 helped found the Women’s Health Center , a nonprofit abortion clinic in Duluth , Minn. She was ready to retire as director in 2005, but couldn’t find a replacement.

Ms. Welsh said that when she finally did retire in 2008, she was making under $60,000 a year. After a two-year search that yielded little, she replaced herself with her associate director, who is in her 50s.

Most of the women hired at the Duluth clinic from 1981 to the present — nurses, counselors, lab technicians — came of age in the pre-Roe v. Wade era, Ms. Welsh said. When her nurse practitioner retired several years ago, she could not find a replacement and instead hired two registered nurses. Finally, last month, the clinic hired a nurse practitioner — a woman in her early 60s who had retired and decided to work again part time.

The lower pay at the nation’s 816 clinics — which provide about 94 percent of abortions according to a 2008 study in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health — reflects a modest revenue stream. The average cost for a first-trimester abortion — surgery that typically involves a four-hour stay — was $413 in 2006, said Rachel Jones, a senior researcher at the Guttmacher Institute. Ruth Arick, an abortion care consultant, said: “At many clinics, fees have not changed much since the mid-1970s. The cost was $175 then and I can still find you an abortion for that price in Detroit and Miami .”

While doctors like the two at the privately owned for-profit Hope clinic can supplement their incomes with a private gynecological practice, that’s rarely true of the other workers.

“People running these clinics,” Ms. Arick said, “have brains wired for social work and social justice even though they’re in the medical business.” Studies show the typical woman having an abortion is a poor, single parent in her 20s. Many don’t have insurance, or the insurance won’t cover abortion. Ms. Burgess said half who come to her clinic need financial help, and she employs a staff member to search for charitable grants.

Working at an abortion clinic intrudes into a person’s private life. “I never wanted to be political,” Ms. Welsh said, “but for the clinic to survive, I had to know all the legislators from our area. They can make or break you.”

“You work in abortion,” Ms. Burgess said, “it will affect who you will date, the parties you will be invited to.” Every day when she comes to work, she’s picketed. On the weekday I visited, 15 protestors carried signs comparing abortion to Hitler’s Holocaust.

A decade ago, after an Atlanta clinic was bombed, Ms. Welsh had to take terrorism prevention classes. “I’m a director of a nonprofit, and I’m sitting there thinking, Why am I learning about letter bombs?” she recalled. “My board decided after that, only I could open the clinic mail — I was the only one they insured, to save money on the premium.”

On July 11, 2008, protestors picketed Ms. Welsh’s retirement party.

It’s been years since there was violence at the Hope clinic. In 1982, the clinic was firebombed, and eight months later, the owner and his wife were kidnapped for a week, before being released. When Ms. Burgess arrived as director in 1990, all the windows were still boarded.

But in 1999, she opened a new clinic building that is twice as big and tastefully decorated with paintings, dried flowers, framed letters of commendation from former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore. The building was designed like a fortress — walls are three cinder blocks thick, windows are bullet-resistant and out front is a concrete booth where an armed guard is stationed.

After 33 years, Ms. Baker doesn’t worry, but she is still cautious, having the guard escort her to her car during periods when anti-abortion protest historically flares up — Christmas and Easter; the Jan. 22 Roe v. Wade anniversary; Mother’s Day. Her greatest joy is when a woman tells her, “You make me feel like I’m not a bad person.” Her biggest disappointment is how little has changed since the 1970s. “I used to hope some day, instead of people being so scared and ashamed, that the taint, the stigma, would stop. It has not.”

E-mail: Generationb@nytimes.com

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Illinois Abortion Clinic promises Hope, Delivers "A Nightmare"

By Restoration News • October 28, 2025

Oct 27, 2025 Samantha Flom Abortion | Follow the Money Patients' reviews of Granite City's longtime abortion mill describe the horrors and potential crimes that take place inside its walls. Less than 10 miles to the northeast of St. Louis sits Illinois' oldest continuously operating abortion clinic. Granite City's deceptively named Hope Clinic is well known in the Midwest for its long history of butchering babies since 1974—just one year after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. Much less publicized is the clinic's apparent history of butchering women. A search of Madison County's court records turns up decades of lawsuits accusing Hope Clinic and its abortionists of medical malpractice, negligence, and even wrongful death. Dozens of Google reviews build on those claims with chilling tales of unsanitary conditions, verbal abuse, and lasting physical and emotional trauma. Still, the clinic not only remains open but has now expanded to include a swanky new location in Uptown Chicago that advertises "all-trimester" abortions. So, how does a business plagued by litigation and poor reviews manage to survive? Nameless, faceless donors obscured by the Left's favorite dark money network. The Abortion Mill At one point, it was Granite City's old steel mill that drew people from across the country to the area. "Now, it's the abortion mill," said Angela Michael, CEO of Small Victories Pregnancy Outreach. Hope Clinic has made headlines in recent years for the sheer volume of traffic the facility continues to receive from states with stricter abortion laws since Roe's reversal. In Illinois, abortion is legal for any reason up until fetal viability—or roughly 22 to 24 weeks' gestation—and to protect the mother's life and health after that. Hope Clinic's Granite City location offers abortions as late as 27 weeks and six days into a pregnancy, or the end of the second trimester, making the facility a popular choice for desperate women seeking late-term abortions. "[Women from] all 50 states are flown in, and families come with them, so it's just very sad to see," Michael said. Those who arrive at the clinic are likely to find Michael, her husband Daniel, and their mobile pregnancy center out front. For more than three decades, the Highland couple has been helping Hope Clinic patients choose life for their babies by offering free pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, counseling, doctor referrals, and baby supplies to those in need. Michael estimates they've saved more than 7,000 babies through their efforts and convinced several abortion workers to leave the industry. "They have come out and blindsided me and told me, 'I'm leaving today, Angela. Your ministry's changed my life. I'm going out to do what real nurses should be doing," she said. But along with those miracles, they've also seen tragedies. "Almost two years ago in December, we saw four ambulances in one week," Michael recalled, noting that she chronicles everything she witnesses and learns about the clinic on her two websites and Facebook page. "People have shared with me, written me letters about the inside of that abortion clinic, the filthiness, and I've reported it," she said. "Just the stench was a turn-off to some of the women that went in there, and they would change their minds and not go through with it." A 'Nightmare' of a Misnomer Hope Clinic greets all visitors with a banner out front that reads: "Where there's hope, there's choice." On its website, the facility promotes itself as a provider of "safe" and "compassionate" care. Dozens of lawsuits and Google reviews* suggest otherwise. In 2018, one reviewer said she accompanied a 16-year-old family member to the clinic for an abortion performed by a male Indian doctor, whom she described as "rough, insensitive, and disrespectful." "He stabbed a needle forcefully into her pelvis without warning and went to great lengths to ensure her procedure was as painful as possible!" she wrote. She added that the abortionist treated the teen "like trash" and "yelled and screamed" in the hallway. "I felt this man had no respect for women at all. I would not recommend this clinic to any woman, it's a nightmare!" Hope-Clinic-review-2-screenshot.png Michael said the abortionist was likely Dr. Yogendra Shah, Hope Clinic's longtime chief abortionist, whom she said was forced out by new management this past February. "He eventually resigned because we exposed him to everybody, but this guy was the one that was doing the abortions that day when we had the four ambulances show up," she noted. Numerous other reviews complain of a doctor of the same description and with the same temperament. One woman noted that an Indian doctor "was so rough" with her during her procedure that she screamed and cried. Contrary to the "hope" the clinic promised, she wrote that she left feeling "hopeless and defeated." Another reviewer mentioned Shah by name, noting that he yelled at her for crying out in pain during procedure. "He was too rough, had no empathy or sympathy," she wrote. She also disclosed that she had since learned Shah denuded the lining of her uterus into the muscle to the point where she "bled for a month" and needed a hysteroscopy, laparoscopy, and another dilation and curettage to determine the extent of the damage. Other testimonials described instances where women needed emergency medical treatment to repair the damage done to their bodies, including a review posted just five months ago. "I began to bleed excessively—so much that they were filling bags with my blood," the patient wrote. "Despite repeatedly telling them I felt like I was going to die, my concerns were ignored, and no immediate action was taken." After two hours, she said the clinic told her that if she stayed there any longer, she could die. "I was rushed to the ER, where they immediately gave me blood and performed emergency surgery to save my life." Hope-Clinic-review-screenshot-1.png Describing the experience as "incredibly traumatic and dangerous," the woman added that she intended to sue. If she does, she will join a lengthy list of other women and families that have sued the clinic and its staff over the years. Shah has been named specifically in more than a dozen lawsuits, including two wrongful death suits, most of which have been settled out of court. In one notable case, patient Melanie Mills sued him for performing an abortion on her when she wasn't even pregnant. Mills went on to become an outspoken pro-life advocate. The Michaels have also sued the clinic. Their lawsuit, settled in 2007, accused a clinic escort of shoving their daughter to the ground and alleged Shah tried to run Michael's husband over with his car. "They've gotten away with so much violence, it's just, it's unbelievable," she said. Possible Criminal Activity One particularly troubling testimonial describes what at the very least appears to be a case of uncaring and unprofessional treatment by Hope Clinic staff. At most, it could be a crime. "This was by far the worst experience of my life," wrote the patient, who allegedly scheduled a surgical abortion at the clinic in September 2023. At her first appointment, she said the doctor's manual opening of her cervix "hurt extremely bad" and that she only received ibuprofen for the pain. She was then told to go back to her hotel until the morning, when she would be dilated enough for the procedure. At 4 a.m., the patient awoke to intense cramping and realized she was in labor. She called the clinic and was advised to take pain medication and see if that helped. It didn't. When she arrived at the clinic two hours later, she was in so much pain she couldn't walk. "My Uber [driver] had to hold me up," she wrote. Once inside, she told a nurse that she felt faint. The nurse's alleged response was to advise her to go to the emergency room. After a friend helped her convince the nurse over the phone to let her stay, the patient sank to the floor, crying and screaming in pain. Feeling overheated, she requested help removing her shirt. Instead of helping her, the nurse reportedly just "stood there and looked" at her until asked again. After finally removing the patient's shirt, the nurse told her to stand up "without offering help or nothing." Eventually, the nurse assisted her, and as she stood up, she realized her baby was crowning. She was then taken back to a treatment room where she delivered her baby. "I sat [there] 20 minutes with a baby hanging from inside of me," she wrote. "I cried ... I could feel the baby just sitting by my vaginal area." After that, she said the experience was "not too bad" because staff gave her anesthesia "to finish." What happened next is a mystery, though the reviewer's account appears to suggest her child received no immediate medical attention after it was born. As she does not disclose how far along her pregnancy was, it could be that the child was not viable. But as this woman's baby was large enough for her to feel it hanging out of her body and lying next to her, the circumstances certainly warrant further investigation. Under the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002, infants born alive after failed abortions are entitled to equal protection under the law. Though Illinois law does not specifically mandate protections for such infants—a proposal to that effect is pending—failing to provide them with necessary medical care could constitute criminal child neglect under existing law. The problem is getting the right people to care. Michael said she has tried countless times to get someone to investigate. "I have approached senators, I have approached politicians, I've even gone to Democrats that my husband grew up with," she said. "It's just amazing how everybody's covering up what's happening here in Illinois." Out of Sight, Out of Mind The evidence of a cover-up is compelling. While investigating a June 2022 incident at Hope Clinic, pro-life group Operation Rescue found evidence clinic staff were using private backchannels to secretly request medical transports for patients. When the organization's Freedom of Information Act request for the clinic's 911 call returned no responsive records, the group checked the emergency dispatch recordings for the corresponding time frame. Eight minutes before witnesses saw the ambulance arrive at the clinic, a dispatcher was recorded asking, "EMS, can you contact us back for a possible transport?" The dispatcher provided no additional details as to the emergency in question, though Operation Rescue holds that it must have been the Hope Clinic emergency. The group described the dispatcher's request for a phone call as "an obvious attempt to subvert the 911 system, a publicly available recording." In 2023, Operation Rescue documented 15 medical emergencies at Hope Clinic that required medical transfers, including three within one week in November. In one case, the pro-life group filed a formal complaint with the Illinois Department of Public Health after an abortionist perforated the uterus of a 13-year-old statutory rape victim. “It is unknown whether the abortionist who performed the botched abortion reported the child’s rape,” Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, said at the time. “My staff is looking into this and filing a formal complaint concerning this middle-school aged girl who was already violated sexually and then violated again by the blood-thirsty abortionists at this hopelessly dangerous facility.” The health department wrote back that the complaint "may or may not trigger an investigation," and that if one ensued, officials would be in touch. No further communication ever occurred. Journalist Megan Twohey—one of the reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal—has also reported on state officials' lack of transparency and curiosity when it comes to abortion-related data. In a 2011 article in the Chicago Tribune, Twohey noted that what little information was available to the public was so opaque "it was impossible to determine" whether six abortion-related deaths the Tribune had uncovered were ever documented. In a separate report, Twohey detailed the massive gaps in statewide abortion data. She found that state regulators recorded between 7,000 and 17,000 fewer abortions per year than those identified by a national research group and suggested that regulators "may be allowing doctors and clinics to operate off the books." Twohey also found that nearly 4,000 reports of abortion complications in 2009 were missing their required descriptions. "Health care providers who intentionally fail to submit accurate and complete reports are committing a criminal act, and a failure to report abortion complications is grounds for revoking their licenses, but the Department of Public Health has never sought disciplinary action against a provider," the journalist wrote. (RELATED: Illinois Doubles Down on Abortion Extremism, Forces Colleges to Offer Abortion Pills) Dark Money Covers Dark Deeds State officials have since revised the Public Health Department's abortion data collection and reporting methods to make the truth even less accessible. In 2023, the department announced that it would only report aggregate-level abortion totals for Illinois residents and out-of-state residents rather than county or state-specific totals. Additionally, the state now only reports age ranges for abortion patients instead of their specific ages, among other changes. Officials claimed the changes were to boost patient privacy. When you follow the money, however, another possible motive emerges. Tax filings reviewed by Restoration News reveal that from 2016 to 2023, Hope Clinic's Granite City location received more than $5.1 million in grant funding from Hopewell Fund. Hopewell is one of many shell nonprofits in the dark money web weaved by Arabella Advisors, the Left's limitless shadow ATM nestled deep in the heart of the Washington Swamp. Abortion, meanwhile, is Democrats' golden calf—the issue they can always count on exploiting to drive their blue-haired base to the polls. With deep-pocketed progressives keeping Hope Clinic's doors open, it should come as no surprise that Illinois' Democrat-controlled government—spearheaded by the state's abortion-obsessed Gov. J.B. Pritzker—has no interest in what really goes on inside. "Pritzker, our wonderful governor here, basically let the abortionists inside Hope Clinic write" the state's Reproductive Health Care Act of 2019, Michael said. The law established that women have "a fundamental right" to kill their babies in utero until fetal viability, as determined by their abortionist. It also repealed a 1975 trigger ban on all abortions except those deemed necessary to save a woman's life. The new law, Michael said, "only protects the abortionists, and there are no regulations. They don't even get inspected." With state officials refusing to look under the hood, Michael said she fears for the unsuspecting women who walk through Hope Clinic's doors. "These girls are taking a risk, and they don't understand," she said. "I tell them, 'You may leave in a body bag today because these people are not held accountable.'" *Editor's note: The names of these reviewers have been withheld for their privacy. (READ MORE: 'Plan C': The Dark Money Activists Smuggling the Abortion Pill into Red States)