A woman with serious, significant bleeding was transported by ambulance following her abortion at Venice Woman’s Health Center in Port Charlotte, Florida. Under Governor Ron DeSantis, complaints about the abortionist involved in this and other dreadful incidents have gone unheeded by the state agencies responsible for regulating abortion. Reprotection, a national women’s health watchdog organization, is working with the Thomas More Society in seeking an investigation into and accountability for the dangerous situation at this abortion facility.

“This is a horrible scenario, putting women at serious risk,” explained Missy Stone, Senior Analyst and Director of Operations at Reprotection. “Dr. Ali Azima is a threat to the health and safety of women who seek his abortion services, and he has been allowed to practice despite multiple ongoing complaints. He must be stopped before he causes more damage to women – or worse – kills a patient.”

“Dr. Azima has a long history of patient mistreatment. His license was previously suspended following multiple complaints of endangering and injuring patients. The abortion business he is currently operating is not licensed as an abortion facility,” she said. “The stories of what he has done to the women in his care illustrate the incompetence and insensitivity of this man. The lack of oversight or action on the part of Florida’s health and licensing agencies is negligent and inexcusable.”

“If this were any doctor other than an abortionist, you better believe there would have been swift action to protect the public,” said Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Matt Heffron, who works regularly with Reprotection’s efforts. “This smells of political protection, the ‘abortion distortion’ we so often have to fight.”

“It ought to be particularly embarrassing for an otherwise pro-life governor that his own executive agencies refuse to do their jobs,” he said. The agencies involved are the Florida Department of Health’s Division of Medical Quality Assurance and the Agency for Health Care Administration, Division of Health Quality Assurance.

Azima’s medical license was suspended in 1985 due to five consecutive incidents in which he placed patients at great risk with sometimes disastrous results. Ongoing complaints have detailed his health violations and mistreatment of women, including:

• Performing surgical abortions without taking the patient’s medical history or checking RH blood factor;
• Performing an abortion but failing to recognize that he had not terminated the pregnancy, after which the patient had to undergo emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy;
• Inserting an IUD into a patient without first ensuring she was not pregnant (she was, and required an emergency abortion as a result);
• Using alcohol during abortion procedures that burned a patient’s cervix and vagina;
• Failing to take vital signs and perform blood work on patients;
• Failing to provide pre- or post-abortion counseling;
• Not sending aborted tissue to pathology (essential to ensure that all fetal parts have been removed).

“The bleeding woman rushed to the hospital by ambulance in September 2020 following an abortion by Azima is just the most-recent witnessed and documented incident of medical injury he has caused. Public safety demands that this man’s medical license be revoked, and his abortion business shut down,” remarked Stone. “Florida’s health and licensing agencies must be held accountable for the protection of the state’s residents.”

Reprotection has confirmed with the Florida Agency of Health Care Administration that Azima’s current facility in Port Charlotte, Florida, is not a licensed abortion facility.

Read the initial complaint letter regarding Dr. Ali Azima from Reprotection, Inc. to the Florida Department of Health, dated October 27, 2020, here.