The building that housed the last standing abortion facility in Louisville, Kentucky, is now set to be destroyed. The EMW Women’s Surgical Center has been purchased by a New York commercial real estate firm, whose short-term plans call for the property to be turned into a parking lot.
The surgical center was known as Louisville’s primary abortion clinic for nearly 40 years and was a familiar site for sidewalk counseling by pro-life advocates. Interaction between these advocates and abortion activists sometimes became violent, including an incident in 2019 when a woman was assaulted as she tried to hand materials for a nearby pregnancy center to a woman leaving the clinic. She received a broken femur as a result of the assault.
In 2021, the city of Louisville established a buffer zone ordinance, meant to stave off pro-life advocates counseling outside the clinic’s doors, and leading to a legal fight. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals eventually declared the ordinance in violation of the First Amendment.
The facility closed in 2022, after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which allowed Kentucky’s anti-abortion trigger laws to go into effect, and the building went up for sale.
Kentucky Right to Life credited the state’s law restricting abortion for the close of the center and released a statement celebrating the sale of the facility in 2023.
“In the last 299 days there’s been no abortions in the Commonwealth of Kentucky—except when medically necessary to protect the life of the mother,” said executive director Addia Wuchner at the time. “Let’s face it folks, when you can no longer profit from taking innocent lives, close the doors, it is time to move on.”
“For years, Kentucky Right to Life and our members, faithful pro-life advocates and prayer warriors have stormed Heaven for those who had no voice,” she continued. “They waited, trusted, and advocated that one day they would see the day that God would shut EMW down. Well, that day has come!”
Since the center opened in 1981, it has killed thousands of babies, said LifeNews.com.
“In early 2017, it became the sole abortion business in the state after its Lexington satellite clinic closed due to stringent licensing regulations to protect women,” the LifeNews article said. “The demolition of the clinic’s building marks a significant moment in Kentucky’s fight to protect women and children. With the closure of EMW Women’s Surgical Center and the cessation of services at Planned Parenthood Louisville following the 2022 abortion ban, the state no longer has any centers that kill babies, but hundreds that protect them and care for women.”
R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, posted on X after news broke about the center being demolished: “Christians in Louisville worked, marched, counseled, and prayed for this day. Thanks be to God.”
Above: [Escort volunteers line up outside the EMW Women’s Surgical Center in July 2017 to keep protestors away from a “buffer zone” outside the abortion clinic.]
Photo: AP/Dylan Lovan