Only One Remains Abortion Facility Closes Doors in North Dakota.

North Dakota pro-lifers saw their efforts and their prayers bear fruit in late January when the Fargo Women's Health Organization, one of the state's two abortion facilities, closed after 20 years. The Red River Women's Clinic is now the only abortion clinic in operation in North Dakota.

The Fargo Women's Health Organization was owned by the Raleigh, North Carolina-based National Women's Health Organization (NWHO), which operates seven other abortion facilities around the country. Susan Hill, president of NWHO, told local reporters that the decision to close was a business decision.

Hill told the Bismarck Tribune that the Fargo clinic "lagged behind all the other clinics," and that "It's been the hardest one to manage in terms of the distance from the home office, the inability to have local doctors working there. We've had to transport doctors in."

Stacey Pfliiger, executive director of the North Dakota Right to Life Association (NDRL), points out the moral behind the story: "We all know that businesses close when in financial difficulty," she told NRL News. "The culture of death is not concerned about women's health issues; they are concerned about money."

Based on an average cost of $296 for an abortion, the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund estimates that abortion is nearly a $400 million per year industry.

The closing of the Fargo Women's Health Organization ends 20 years of abortion at that facility, which opened in 1981. The clinic performed abortions during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy.

Health Department figures reported in the Bismarck Tribune show that 1,345 abortions were performed in North Dakota in 1999. This is an increase of 103 over the previous year, when a second abortion facility, the Red River Women's Clinic, opened in Fargo.