By Cheryl Sullenger
Pensacola, FL – A disturbing incident at one of Florida’s most notorious abortion facilities highlights the dangers women face, especially when the abortionist flies in from another community to conduct the procedures.
Dr. Tom Messe, a pro-life activist, was at the American Family Planning abortion facility in Pensacola, Florida, on Sunday, March 15, 2020, to offer assistance to pregnant women. He and about ten other pro-life activists witnessed events as they transpired.
“A young black woman staggered out the clinic via the back door — the door they never use for patients. They were trying to conceal her illness from us,” Dr. Messe told Operation Rescue. “The patient starting vomiting profusely out the car door.”
Dr. Messe turned on his camera and rushed to the back of the clinic through adjoining public property. There, he captured on video a couple in a private vehicle with Alabama license plates parked at the back door. The woman in the passenger seat was obviously not feeling well.
One man wearing scrubs came out and stood several feet from the vehicle and watched while a female clinic employee spoke with the couple.
Instead of calling an ambulance for emergency assistance, a young security guard handed the woman a white trash bag. That “barf bag” was the only tangible help the sick woman got from the abortion clinic.
Dr. Messe called to the couple and told them to seek emergency care from the hospital, and offered to help get the woman get there, but the car pulled away without any response.
The abortionist on duty that day was said to be Mylaine Riobe-Heron. Pro-life activists at the scene confirmed with a clinic worker that Riobe-Heron had left for the airport an hour before the sick woman had been released from the clinic. Riobe-Heron lives just north of the West Palm Beach area, on the opposite side of the state from Pensacola, and flies in and out of the Florida panhandle to conduct abortions.
“Usually, a physician is not supposed to leave the premises before all patient are stabilized. It can be considered patient abandonment, which is cause for disciplinary action,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “With the abortionist in an airplane and outside of communications, this particular woman was left in a potentially dangerous medical condition that she was forced to deal with on her own.”
American Family Planning is a known affiliate of the disgraced New Jersey abortionist Steven Chase Brigham, who no longer holds a medical license in Florida or any other state. Brigham clinics are known for corners-cutting, deception, and shoddy abortion practices.
American Family Planning closed in 2019 after violations led to a denial of its facility license and a fine of $2,000. An inspection conducted in April 2019, revealed that the facility had presented health inspectors with a copy of a hospital transfer agreement – a requirement in Florida — but when a confirmation call was placed to the hospital, it denied having such an agreement.
In January 2020, it began operating again at full capacity after it was relicensed.
However, Riobe-Heron still holds no known hospital privileges or transfer agreement in Pensacola.
This, and her premature absence from the abortion facility, may account for why no ambulance was called.
“Sneaking sick and hurting women out the back door instead of calling for an ambulance is simply unacceptable behavior that places the lives of women at risk,” said Newman. “This shoddy clinic must be permanently closed by the state in order to protect the public from Brigham’s deceptive and dangerous abortion business practices.”
