A former Kentucky abortion facility that served as one of the state’s primary abortion businesses for years is set to be demolished, reports the Courier Journal.
According to the news outlet, EMW Women’s Surgical Center, which long served as Louisville’s primary abortion facility, closed for good in 2022, when a state law protecting nearly all preborn children from abortion went into effect. In June 2023, the building was listed for sale; reports now show that Zyyo, a real estate development company in New York City, has purchased the property and has requested a wrecking permit to raze the building. The company eventually plans to build a 27-story, $175 million hotel, but first the space will be used as a temporary parking lot.
EMW Women’s Surgical Center was previously embroiled in a long-standing controversy over a buffer zone ordinance, which was put in place by the city in 2021. The ordinance, which was meant to curtail the active pro-lifers sidewalk counseling outside the abortion facility’s doors, led to a back-and-forth legal fight.
Eventually, a circuit court ruled that the buffer zone ordinance violated the First Amendment.
READ: Kentucky police officer awarded settlement after being disciplined for praying at abortion center
The abortion business also made headlines years earlier, when a facility worker offered an undercover investigator information on how to bypass the state’s parental consent law. Facility staff also failed to notify law enforcement of the presumably underage girl’s statutory rape at the hands of an alleged 31-year-old abuser.
In 2019, an elderly pro-lifer was assaulted at EMW when she attempted to hand a woman exiting the abortion facility a card for a nearby pregnancy center. The pro-lifer, a sidewalk counselor for 23 years, ended up with a broken femur and other injuries as a result.
Kentucky Right to Life released a statement in 2023 celebrating the news that the facility was listed for sale, crediting the state’s law restricting abortion for ultimately closing the center.
“In the last 299 days there’s been no abortions in Commonwealth of Kentucky – except when medically necessary to protect the life of the mother. Let’s face it folks, when you can no longer profit from taking innocent lives, close the doors, it is time to move on,” Addia Kathryn Wuchner, Executive Director Kentucky Right to Life, said at the time. “For years Kentucky Right to Life and our members, faithful ProLife advocates and prayer warriors have stormed Heaven for those who had no voice. They waited, trusted, and advocated that one day they would see the day that God would shut EMW down. Well, that day has come!!”
