Earlier this month, an all-trimester abortion facility lost its Beverly Hills lease after widespread pushback from the community, as well as the pro-life movement. And now, the abortion industry is hitting back.
Last year, the DuPont Clinic announced its plans to open an abortion facility in the wealthy Beverly Hills neighborhood, with their “services,” including an abortion doula, there for each procedure. Tim Clement, Director of Outreach for the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, said earlier this month that the pro-life response to the new facility, which would kill preborn children in all three trimesters of pregnancy, helped get the lease dropped.
“I think the property management for the building didn’t realize what they were signing up for when they agreed to lease to DuPont,” he said. “Being home to a first-of-[its] kind abortion business is not what this city wants to be known for and they definitely weren’t pleased with the presence of protestors taking to their streets every day.”
Previously, the Beverly Hills city council voted 5-0 in favor of a resolution expressing support for abortion. “We have stood up and spoken out when we’ve seen human rights taken away,” then-Mayor Lili Bosse said at the time. “This is something I wholeheartedly support with all my soul.”
Now, however, the DuPont facility has sent letters to the city, accusing them of conspiring to prevent them from opening. The letters are a required legal precursor to filing a lawsuit, insinuating that will be their next step.
DuPont claims four city officials, including Mayor Julian Gold, withheld permits, pressured the landlord to cancel the lease, and held “secret meetings” with Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, during which they “promised them it would stop DuPont from opening.” They already filed a lawsuit against the landlord, Douglas Emmett Inc.
“It’s disappointing to try to return to California — after so much has been in the news about how the state is ready to help people access abortion — only to discover that the reality is different,” Matthew Reeves, DuPont’s founder, told the Los Angeles Times. The abortionist who was going to commit abortions at the facility, and whose name was not given, said, “To me, you’re pro-choice if you act on your values… ‘We support abortion rights, but not when there’s going to be a protest?’”
She also said she still plans to get a facility opened in Los Angeles, though not in the ritzy Beverly Hills area.
“A lot of amazing things have been done in California — laws passed, funding created — but none of it means anything if people can’t open clinics and patients can’t be seen,” she said. “If we want to be a haven state and be welcoming people from across the country to come here, then we have to really do that. We have to go all the way.”
