By Dave Andrusko

Mervyn Samuel
As of last Friday, one of Columbus’s three abortion facilities, Complete Health Care for Women, will no longer be performing surgical abortions. Operated by Mervyn Samuel and Milroy Samuel, the facility has been open for the last 40 years. The decision to stop surgical abortions appears to be voluntary, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
There are now eight “abortion providers” in Ohio, according to Catherine Candisky of the Dispatch. “As recently as last year, the state had 13 clinics that performed abortions.”
The Dispatch reported that the father and son team did not return calls asking for comment.
The decision comes on the heels of the decision by infamous late abortionist Martin Haskell not to appeal the decision by Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Jerome Metz Jr. that it is the Ohio Department of Health’s “sole discretion” whether it gives a variance to the requirement that abortion clinics have a transfer agreement with a nearby hospital in cases of emergency.
As NRL News Today reported last week, the result is that Haskell’s Lebanon Road Surgery Center of Sharonville, Ohio, is no longer providing surgical abortions.
Attorney Dorothea Langsam told the Associated Press, “This is a difficult day for those of us who care about a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.” The clinic (which opened 35 years ago) provided some 2,000 abortions a year.
Responding to the decision by Complete Health Care for Women, Stephanie Ranade Krider, executive director of Ohio Right to Life, said “Women deserve better than abortion.” She added, “Pro-lifers across the state have been working to bring awareness to better options for women and their children. This is a sign that the abortion industry is losing its grip on vulnerable women.”
The number of abortions performed in the state has steadily declined since 2000, Candisky reported. “According to the Department of Health, 25,473 abortions were performed in 2012, the most recent data available. It’s the second-lowest figure since the state began tracking in 1976.”
Roughly 22% of the abortions, she noted, “were performed in Franklin County.”