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The Ryan Center, the University of Chicago’s campus abortion clinic, advertises potentially illegal late-term abortions on its websites, according to a recent report from The Chicago Thinker, the university’s right-leaning student newspaper.
The 2019 Illinois Reproductive Health Act (RHA) states that, if an unborn baby can live outside the womb, an abortion can only be performed “if, in the professional judgment of the health care professional, the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the patient.”
The Ryan Center, however, offers abortions of preborn babies up to 23 weeks and 6 days old, when a significant percentage can survive outside the womb, and regardless of any threat to the mother’s life or health. The Family Planning Associates (FPA) Chicago clinic similarly offers abortions up to 23.5 weeks. These are both ages at which babies prematurely delivered and given standard medical care often survive outside the womb.
“U.S. babies delivered at 22 weeks survive approximately 28% of the time, while babies delivered at 23 weeks survive approximately 55% of the time,” writes Thinker reporter Ben Ogilvie. “Their survival rate is presumably even higher at a state-of-the-art health center like UChicago Medicine.”
Essentially, killing viable babies is only allowed in extreme situations threatening the life of the mother in Illinois, yet the Ryan Center and FPA clinic appear to be advertising late-term abortions of babies at a known viable stage to anyone, under any circumstance.
The Ryan Center and the FPA
