When Kingston Hospital, a secular institution, and Benedictine Hospital, a Roman Catholic facility, sought to integrate operations, a state Department of Health condition for affiliation was creation of a reproductive health services facility.

The requirement was no small matter. The hospitals, both in the city of Kingston, had tried and failed previously to coordinate operations, unable to fashion an agreement that would satisfy the community over the availability of a full range of reproductive services, including abortion.

So it was that the governors of the two hospitals agreed to construction of a stand-alone facility adjacent to Kingston Hospital.

The Foxhall Ambulatory Surgery Center was opened in March 2009 to provide that full range of reproductive services, including abortions, tubal ligations and vasectomies, as well as some non-reproductive procedures.

So, how is it, then, that at least part of was an absolute prerequisite to affiliation is no longer offered?

The sole surgeon who performed abortions at the Foxhall Ambulatory Surgery Center retired about six months ago and no replacement has been found. (Tubal ligations and vasectomies continue to be performed there.)

Center administrator Donald Policastro said “we are working diligently” to find a replacement, but surgeons willing to perform abortions are scarce.

We don’t doubt it. The pool of willing practitioners is limited not just by the moral objections some physicians would have to abortion, but also by the pressure of zealous opponents of abortion rights. That pressure, in its most extreme incarnation, has included deadly violence against physicians.

Still, the state cannot allow what was an absolute prerequisite to affiliation to lapse within three years by simple default, victim to a lingering staff vacancy. To do so would be to perform a de facto sleight of hand.

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