With the autumn 40 Days for Life campaign just underway, this great news provides more evidence that sustained pro-life presence in front of abortion clinics hurts business, whether we think so at the time or not.

From New York Daily News, October 1, comes this article, the title and subtitle of which provides pretty much all the information you need to know: “Sunset Park clinic will no longer offer abortions, instead only outpatient surgical care: Protesters drove away doctors and patients, says clinic owner”:

A Sunset Park abortion clinic has shut down after Catholic protesters drove away doctors and patients, according to the owner of the clinic.

The Ambulatory Specialty Surgery Center of Brooklyn on 43rd St., closed earlier this month and will reopen in October as a new medical center providing outpatient surgeries, but not abortion.

Catholic leaders claimed the clinic’s closure after 22 years as a victory for their anti-abortion effort. Abortion advocates said they had never heard of a clinic in the city closing under pressure from protesters….

Lazar said the clinic tried to provide both abortions and other types of procedures, but doctors and patients refused to cross the throngs of religious protesters who tried to convince them not to go in….

The new clinic – slated to open as the New York Center for Specialty Surgery under the direction of a California-based medical firm – is undergoing renovations.

So far as many as 20 doctors have expressed interest in working at the new clinic – a stark difference from as recently as a month ago when Lazar struggled to find doctors willing to work there.

Monsignor Philip Reilly – leader of the group the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants – said he has gone to the center every week since it first opened to protest the abortions.

Reilly said both he and local Catholics were so happy, a celebration mass was held on Saturday at St. Michael’s Church on the same block as the clinic….

Julie Kashner, president of the Brooklyn and Queens chapter of the National Organization for Women… added there are others dealing with the same problem. NOW has planned a rally in support of another medical center offering abortions in Jamaica, Queens also struggling to find doctors and patients.

This clinic was apparently a very big, deadly fish. According to The Tablet:

“This was the oldest and largest abortion clinic in New York City and for many years, in the United States,” said Msgr. Reilly. “I believe more than a quarter of a million unborn children lost their lives there.”

[HT: Sean on Facebook; photo of Msgr Phillip Reilly, left, and Fr Kevin Sweeney, right, via New York Daily News]

Reprinted with permission from JillStanek.com