Women’s Med Center in Kettering can operate despite having no transfer agreement with a local hospital as required by law because the Ohio Department of Health granted the clinic a license under an exemption called a variance. That variance is predicated on four local doctors agreeing to treat patients in an emergency.
The earlier budget language would have prohibited those doctors from teaching at a state-funded hospital or medical school, but that was removed from the bill. All four of the physicians signed onto the Kettering clinic’s variance are affiliated with the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine.
Language requiring doctors signed onto a variance to work within 25 miles of the facility remained in the final budget. It appears that Women’s Med Center and the only other abortion clinic operating under a variance, Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region’s Mount Auburn Health Center, are in compliance with that rule.
Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region President & CEO Kersha Deibel denounced the legislation for creating unnecessary barriers to abortion.
DeWine left that measure in, saying Thursday that he agrees with the budget language and welcomes any protests that come.
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