FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 8, 2005

Contact: Marc Tuttle, Communications Director, (262) 408-0506
or Peggy Hamill, State Director, (414) 416-0489

Closing of Summit Reveals Instability of Abortion Industry

This Saturday, for the first time in the memory of many advocates on both sides of the abortion debate, there was peace at one of the main focal points of Milwaukee’s most divisive issue. The doors of Summit Women’s Health Organization remained closed after shutting down operations a little over a week ago. In addition, the city’s two remaining abortion facilities were not open that day.

“For the first time in as long as many of us can remember, there were no abortion mills open in Milwaukee this Saturday,” said Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. “I’ve spent years praying on the sidewalk here on Water Street. God has certainly granted us a tremendous gift by allowing Summit’s house of death to collapse,” said Hamill.

Milwaukee is a microcosm of the rest of the country when it comes to the issue of abortion. As PBS’s Frontline is scheduled to air an expose this evening titled “The Last Abortion Clinic” on the lack of abortion in Mississippi, the closing of Summit Women’s Health Organization points to many of the same trends in our own backyard. Milwaukee has long been bitterly divided politically over abortion and the number of facilities and physicians willing to commit abortions in the city has dwindled steadily over the past two decades. Twenty years ago the Milwaukee metropolitan area had ten active, highly public abortion centers. Today there are two.

The history of Summit Women’s Health Organization highlights three fundamental reasons that abortion businesses have been closing not just in Milwaukee, but across the country – the refusal of landlords to lease space to abortionists, the inability to find doctors willing to perform abortions and the continual presence of pro-life advocates in front of these clinics.

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In addition, Summit was the focal point locally of other controversies that have been part of the national political landscape surrounding abortion since Roe v. Wade was decided over thirty years ago.

Summit was a plaintiff in the NOW v. Scheidler case, a case that the Supreme Court is likely to take up yet again in the near future. In addition, Summit became embroiled in the controversial practice of harvesting aborted human remains for research when several boxes of baby parts were intercepted by pro-life activists. The body parts have since been respectfully interred at Holy Cross Cemetery.

Summit Women’s Health Organization was created in the late 1980’s out of the merger of two existing abortion clinics – Summit Medical Services located on 6th and Wisconsin and Milwaukee Women’s Health located on 12th and State. But the new organization ran into trouble finding office space. They initially tried to lease space in the Jefferson Building on Jefferson Avenue. After other tenants and the management of the office building were notified that it was an abortionist who planned to lease the space, the lease was broken and Summit found themselves out on the streets.

“No one wants to lease to an abortionist,” said Marc Tuttle, Communications Director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. “Finding a space to rent has historically been a huge problem for the abortion industry. That’s why abortion clinics are usually located in less than desirable buildings in less than desirable parts of town.” Summit was eventually able to move to Water St., where the clinic remained until it closed its doors last week.

But finding a building was not the only problem faced by the clinic. The clinic was plagued by lawsuits and the criminal activity of one of the only doctors they could find who was willing to commit abortions at the clinic. Dr. Neville Duncan was arrested in 1999 for possession of cocaine and beating his wife. In addition, he has a long list of lawsuits against him ranging from failure to pay child support to major medical malpractice. The latest is an ongoing malpractice suit filed in January of this year. Just a week before Summit Women’s Health Organization closed its doors, a process server was seen entering the building.

“Dr. Duncan is pretty typical of the caliber of people who work in reproductive health centers. Very few people go to medical school with the idea of becoming an abortionist,” said Tuttle. “Places like Summit are constantly scrounging for people who have been drummed out of legitimate medicine and have instead resorted to killing to make a living.”

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Summit also served as an example of the type of activism associated with the public debate about abortion. Summit had been the site of numerous “rescues” and other peaceful acts of advocacy in the early 1990’s. Last January, four pro-life Wisconsinites were arrested in front of Summit while praying the rosary. There has been a consistent prayerful presence, as well, by pro-lifers outside of Summit for as long as it has been in business.

“It would be nice to think that we did something to close this place down,” said Peggy Hamill. “But the truth is there was obviously some sort of divine intervention. We didn’t shut down Summit, God did. This is the fruit of many prayers offered by many pro-lifers on many bitterly cold mornings spent in front of Summit.”

Pro-Life Wisconsin and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society will hold a memorial service in front of the former Summit Women’s Health Organization on the afternoon of December 11th. For further details regarding Summit contact Marc Tuttle at (262) 796-1111.

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