The state has filed a lawsuit against EMW Women's Clinic in Lexington, saying it performed unlicensed abortions, was unsanitary and had expired medication in its procedure room.

The Cabinet for Health and Family Services filed the lawsuit against Eubanks & Marshall of Lexington, P.S.C. to stop it from operating a facility that "has performed abortions without a license and a required emergency transfer agreement."

Employees of EMW declined WKYT's request for comment. Workers at an office in Louisville told WKYT's Victor Puente that they would get back to him.

Vickie Yates Glisson, secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said in a statement that the cabinet was notified last month that EMW had been operating without a license.

"Our inspectors visited the location and confirmed that EMW is unlicensed and does not have the required ambulance transfer agreement in place to protect women in the case of an emergency," Glisson said in a release. "Furthermore, the inspector found the facility in an unsanitary condition."

Glisson noted that the facility had not been inspected by the cabinet since 2006.

No other details were included in the governor's release, however, court documents provided more details about the state's findings.

The 10-page lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Fayette Circuit Court by M. Stephen Pitt, attorney for the governor's office and Jennifer Wolsing, counsel for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

The lawsuit says the state launched an investigation after it received an anonymous complaint about the clinic in February.

Two cabinet investigators visited the facility on Feb. 17 and interviewed a medical assistant who said the facility "does not provide any care other than abortions."

"It is an abortion facility, and as such, the law requires that it be licensed," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit says investigators -- Elizabeth Richards and Laurie Heckel from the Office of the Inspector General -- interviewed the clinic director and owner and determined the facility at 161 Burt Road "is an abortion clinic and does not provide any other services or procedures. Labwork, ultrasounds and pelvic exams are only performed in conjunction with the abortion procedure."

Additionally, the lawsuit says the clinic maintained a "significant quantity of expired medication, and was unsanitary." The inspectors noted that there was clear tape at the bottom of a procedure, which would "inhibit cleaning of the surface and breed bacteria."

Bags were covered in dust, dirt and grime and a portable oxygen tank had dust on the tank and its gauge, the lawsuit said.

The procedure room had "multiple" expired medications or medications that did not have labels. A vial of Normal Saline and a bottle of Potassium hydroxide solution both had an expiration date of October 1997, the lawsuit says.Several other tablets and medicines had expired dates and the expiration date was scratched off a cylinder canister.

As for the transfer agreement, the lawsuit says licensed abortion facilities are required to protect the health and safety of the women who utilize the facilities. A transfer agreement must be in place with both a hospital and an ambulance service in case there are complications during the procedure.

The lawsuit said EMW had a transfer agreement with a hospital, but not with an ambulance service. That places women in a life-threatening situation, the suit says.

"Its only plan is to call 911 in the event of an emergency," the lawsuit says.

This is the second clinic that has come under fire by the Bevin administration.

In January, the administration went after a Planned Parenthood clinic in Louisville. A cease-and-desist letter was sent to the clinic in January, a month after the clinic opened. And, in February, the cabinet filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc.

That lawsuit, which was filed in Jefferson Circuit Court, said the facility performed 23 abortions unlawfully from Dec. 3, 2015 through Jan. 28.

Michael Aldridge, executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky, told WKYT that the ACLU-KY Reproductive Freedom Project is "deeply concerned about the increasingly hostile climate around access to abortion in our commonwealth."

"Safe and legal abortions are already difficult for many Kentucky women to access, with only two clinics in Louisville and Lexington," Aldridge said. "Through lawsuits and a string of anti-abortion bills this legislative session Constitutional rights are being eroded under the guise of “women’s safety.”

Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation, lauded the Bevin administration for "doing what previous administrations said they were doing but weren't — acting to protect the health of women."

"Abortion mills whose business it is to take the lives of unborn children should not be allowed to operate with little or no regulatory oversight," he said. "Women in Kentucky are owed an explanation as to why their interests were sacrificed for political convenience."