by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 8/20/14 12:52 PM

Once again proving you don’t need an abortion ban to stop abortions, a pro-life law in Ohio has successfully stopped surgical abortions at a late-term abortion clinic that couldn’t comply with the health and safety measure to protect women and unborn children.

Today, the Lebanon Road Surgery Center announced an end to its court battle to continue surgical abortions. The abortion center in question is owned and operated by Martin Haskell, the late-term abortion practitioner who popularized the partial-birth abortion method that Congress eventually banned.

Last week, Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jerry Metz, a Democrat, upheld two previous orders to close the late-term abortion facility. The center, ran by late-term abortionist Martin Haskell, stated it will not appeal the decision but will now act as only a referral site for his second abortion facility in the Dayton area.

“This appears to be the end of a long battle to protect life in Greater Cincinnati,” said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life. “Ohio Right to Life just achieved a victory it has been seeking for the last 30 years. The closing of an illegally operating abortion facility is good public policy for Ohio.”

“Today is a life-saving day for the women and children of Southwest Ohio,” said Gonidakis. “If a facility fails to ensure that they are operating at the legally required health and safety standards to protect women then certainly they should close. Ohio law affords no loopholes for abortion facilities. We thank Democrat Judge Metz for affirming the order from the Ohio Department of Health.”

Although initial indications were that the abortion facility may close, Haskell has told the media that he will not close down but may perform the first steps of late term abortions (it is a two-day procedure) and then send women to his other abortion facility in Dayton to complete it. Haskell is also reportedly considering doing abortions with the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug that has killed at least a dozen women and injured thousands more.

Previously, Ohio passed a law requiring that all ambulatory surgical centers must be licensed by the state and, in 1999, it came to the attention of the Ohio Health Department that abortion clinics were not in compliance with the law, having never applied for licensing. The OHD began the process of insuring that all abortion clinics came into compliance.

Haskell (pictured right), a nationally-known late-term abortionist who helped develop the now outlawed Partial-Birth Abortion procedure, has fought with the state for years and he sued the Ohio Department of Health this month for ordering his Sharonville abortion facility to close because it does not meet the minimum medical safety standards in Ohio law.

In July, Magistrate Michael Bachman ruled that the ODH had the authority to close abortion businesses andordered Haskell to shut down his Sharonville abortion business by July 10. Judge Jerome Metz intervened and issued a stay on Bachman’s order until he had time to consider the issues involved in the case.

Judge Metz concurred with Magistrate Michael Bachman and upheld the Ohio Department of Health’s January 2014 order to close the Sharonville, Ohio Lebanon Road Surgery Center (aka Women’s Med Center), for failing to have a written transfer agreement with a local hospital or a variance, i.e., exception, to cover patient emergencies.

In January, the Ohio Department of Health affirmed its order to shut down the facility for failure to have a written transfer agreement with a local hospital or a proper variance. At the end of June, Magistrate Michael Bachman upheld this decision. Last Friday, Judge Metz indicated that the Lebanon Road Surgery Center had five days to appeal the stay.