County Council member Stan Tzouvelekas in Greenville, South Carolina, introduced a resolution Tuesday in an attempt to shut down the city’s only abortion facility, the Greenville Women’s Clinic.
The abortion business has been the site of a heavy police presence, with Sheriff Hobart Lewis noting in October that the police have visited the facility over 300 times in the past two years. Tzouvelekas cited the constant turmoil at the business as one of the reasons he would like to see it closed.
“In my book, that’s a disturbance, that needs to be shut down and it needs to be cleaned up. That’s the problem,” he said during an interview. “Greenville County has shut down businesses before that do not fall within the permits and laws that we have in the books.”
“You have to control the people,” he added. “They [clinic] don’t put security up. There are no security cameras. There are no security police. They have people out there with hate speech that are not very nice.”
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According to Greenville News, the proposal asks the county administrator to request the Department of General Services to remove the business license and classify the facility as a nuisance.
Dozens of people came out both in support of and against the measure.
“I am pro-life, I would like to see abortion ended across Greenville County, but it’s clear that this is not anything to do with the legality or illegality of abortion,” Hayden Laye, founder and leader of Campaign for Abortion Free Cities in Greenville said. “This is a resolution that would shut down the Greenville Women’s Clinic because it is a nuisance business and I agree with that fully.”
Abortion advocates claim that the business is only a nuisance due to the pro-life presence outside the facility, and some are calling for a buffer zone instead to limit free speech. Planned Parenthood of South Atlantic released a statement in support of the abortion facility.
“Abortion providers, clinic staff, and patients have long faced threats and harassment from anti-abortion extremists outside of the Greenville Women’s Clinic. These extremists are the nuisance to the community, not the providers of this essential health care,” said Vicki Ringer, Director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. “This attempt to intimidate and potentially punish both health care providers and patients at the Greenville Women’s Clinic in a brazen political attack is shameful and wrong.”
The resolution was sent to the Committee of the Whole, where it will be reviewed.
