Notorious Illinois abortion facility sends another woman to the hospital

Analysis·By Cassy Cooke

An Illinois abortion facility notorious for injuring women has again sent a patient to the emergency room.

Key Takeaways:

Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois, commits abortions up to 34 weeks of pregnancy.
It has a reputation for injuring women and, rather than sending them to a nearby hospital, has them frequently transported to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, across state lines.
Erin King, the abortionist and owner of Hope Clinic, is married to abortionist David Eisenberg, who has gynecology privileges at Barnes-Jewish.

The Details:

Pro-life watchdog group Operation Rescue (OR) reported information about Hope Clinic's latest known injury, which occurred on March 3.

Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, following witness reports of a woman being loaded onto an ambulance on a stretcher at the facility, OR discovered that a 29-year-old woman reportedly experienced "extra bleeding" following an abortion. It is not known how far into her pregnancy the patient was, or what procedure she endured, but Hope Clinic for Women advertises abortions through 34 weeks gestation on its website — long past the period when a preborn baby can survive outside of the womb.

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Image is a screenshot of Hope Clinic's website showing that it commits abortions through 34 weeks. — Photo: Screenshot Hope Clinic website

Interestingly, upon receiving the address of the facility, the 911 dispatcher seemed to immediately recognize that the call was coming from Hope Clinic.

After telling the dispatcher the patient was 29, having "extra bleeding," and was conscious and breathing, the Hope Clinic staffer quickly added — without any prompting — that "she'll be going to Barnes." Hope Clinic routinely sends injured patients to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, located not in Illinois, but in St. Louis, Missouri, a 20-minute drive away... even though Gateway Regional Medical Center is located across the street from the abortion facility.

After being asked if there was a nurse with her, the Hope Clinic staffer laughed, said there were four doctors there, and that "we're good."

The owner of the abortion facility, abortionist Erin King, is married to David Eisenberg, a gynecologist who works at Barnes-Jewish — a hospital designated as a Level 1 trauma center, meaning it is a "comprehensive regional resource that serves large cities and is equipped to provide the most complete and complex level of care for trauma patients."

Eisenberg has been involved with multiple abortion-related studies and is the "Division Chief of Complex Family Planning" at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In addition, as Live Action News has previously reported:

[A]bortionist David Eisenberg (also a Washington University physician) was the medical director at Planned Parenthood in St. Louis. Eisenberg was caught practicing questionable hand hygiene at the facility and downplayed the seriousness of the health code violations. Eisenberg said that abortionists at the facility did not report complications because, according to the lawsuit, “they did not expect the state to enforce the law.”

Why It Matters:

Hope Clinic is known to have sent multiple abortion patients to the hospital with injuries. This includes sending three women to the hospital in the span of two months in late 2023; that year, Hope Clinic had 17 known injuries. Less than one year prior, a staffer was heard cavalierly laughing on a 911 call after a woman was injured.

The Bottom Line:

Despite numerous injuries happening with alarming regularity at Hope Clinic, officials continue to turn a blind eye.

“Shoddy abortionists at ‘Hopeless’ Clinic can botch any abortion, then they just send the hemorrhaging woman across the state line for Barnes and Eisenberg to clean up the mess,” Operation Rescue president Troy Newman said, adding, “This latest hemorrhage — or butchering — incident comes as no surprise. Operation Rescue has documented dozens of emergency calls from this hopeless clinic masquerading as a women’s health facility over the years. Yet Illinois lawmakers continue to turn a blind eye. Or worse, some actively protect and expand the abortion cartel."

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