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Under Governor Robert Casey, she said, the department inspected abortion facilities annually. Yet, when Governor Tom Ridge came in, the attorneys interpreted the same regulations that had permitted annual inspections for years to no longer authorize those inspections. Then, only complaint driven
inspections supposedly were authorized. Staloski said that DOH’s policy during Governor Ridge’s administration was motivated by a desire not to be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions.
Brody confirmed some of what Staloski told the Grand Jury. He described a meeting of high-level government officials in 1999 at which a decision was made not to accept a recommendation to reinstitute regular inspections of abortion clinics. The reasoning, as Brody recalled, was: “there was a concern that if they did routineinspections, that they may find a lot of these facilities didn’t meet [the standards for getting patients out by stretcher or wheelchair in an emergency], and then there would be less abortion facilities, less access to women to have an abortion.”
Brody testified that he did not consider the “access issue” a legal one. The
Abortion Control Act, he told the Grand Jurors, charges DOH with protecting the health
and safety of women having abortions and premature infants aborted alive. To carry out this responsibility, he said, DOH should regularly inspect the facilities.
Nevertheless, the position of DOH remained the same after Edward Rendell
became governor. Using the legally faulty excuse that the department lacked the authority
to inspect abortion clinics, Staloski left them unmonitored, presumably with the
knowledge and blessing of her bosses, Deputy Secretary Stacy Mitchell and a succession
of Secretaries of Health. The department continued its do-nothing policy until 2010,
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