Anti-abortion activists gather at Preterm facility

Ohio Right to Life, the state's largest anti-abortion organization, is establishing a chapter in Cuyahoga County.

(Marvin Fong / The Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Right to Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group, is expanding its footprint in Cuyahoga County.

The group announced Monday it is establishing a chapter to further its mission in Ohio's largest county, where the group has an affiliate, Cleveland Right to Life.

The Cleveland Right to Life organization split from the state group over the issues of gay marriage and expanding Medicaid, the state- and federally-run medical insurance program for poor and disabled Ohioans.

Ohio Right to Life President Michael Gonidakis said Cleveland Right to Life has a different focus.

"They changed their mission statement, we kept ours intact," Gonidakis said. "As a nonprofit organization in a big state like Ohio, it's important to have strong chapters."

The mission of Ohio Right to Life is "to promote and defend the right to life of all innocent human beings, from the time of fertilization until natural death." Cleveland Right to Life's mission is to "foster a culture of life" in part by rejecting "such practices as abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, and same-sex marriage that are contrary to 'the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.'"

The Cuyahoga County chapter, the organization's 41st county chapter, will be headed by Northeast Ohio native Rachel Mullen, who has been active in the Cuyahoga County GOP.

Of the 23,216 abortions performed in Ohio in 2013, 39 percent were in Cuyahoga County, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

Since 2013, two Cuyahoga County abortion facilities have closed, leaving Planned Parenthood of Bedford Heights and Preterm in Cleveland.