A Colorado abortion clinic killed eighteen-year-old Lexi Arguello during a botched abortion.
That clinic has called an ambulance thirteen times since, and Colorado still refuses to inspect it.
The same state that polices birth centers down to the letter has never once inspected the clinic where she died.
The Night Lexi Arguello Died at a Fort Collins Planned Parenthood
Lexi Arguello died after a second-trimester abortion at a Fort Collins Planned Parenthood.
Dr. Catherine Wheeler used to perform these exact procedures herself before leaving the abortion industry.
She says the risk climbs 38 percent every week after eight weeks of pregnancy.
By eighteen weeks, a woman is twice as likely to die from the abortion as from childbirth.
Second-trimester procedural abortions carry roughly a one-in-ten risk of a serious complication.
Removing a developing baby at that stage requires invasive surgery that can turn life-threatening in an instant.
Colorado's coroner initially fought to keep Lexi's autopsy sealed.
A judge eventually forced the release.
Planned Parenthood has never faced a state inspection over what happened that night.
Colorado Regulates Birth Centers More Strictly Than This Planned Parenthood
Colorado voters enshrined a constitutional right to abortion at the ballot box, believing it would guarantee safe, quality care.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey just signed a law in August expanding legal abortion through the entire pregnancy, and supporters celebrated it as the future.
Colorado is what that future actually looks like once the cameras leave.
Colorado already has a rule that defines what a facility like this one is.
Late-abortion clinics that need post-procedure observation care meet the state's definition of an ambulatory surgical center.
Every other ambulatory surgical center in Colorado gets inspected.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has no authority to inspect an abortion facility, no matter how many patients leave in an ambulance.
Nationally, ambulatory surgical centers send patients to the hospital in roughly one out of every thousand surgeries.
Thirteen ambulance calls from one clinic in twenty months is not a rounding error against that national rate.
Licensed birth centers in Colorado are barred from inducing labor at all because of the danger involved.
Abortion facilities performing the same induction procedures answer to no one.
Across town in Boulder, a clinic called RISE Collective keeps its provider's identity a secret until the patient is already inside.
Patients cannot bring a phone in to check that person's background beforehand.
A 2025 New York Times investigation into a Planned Parenthood clinic in New York uncovered botched procedures, filthy conditions, and a staff stretched too thin.
New York regulates its abortion clinics.
Colorado does not regulate its abortion clinics at all.
If a Planned Parenthood clinic can fail patients this badly under New York's oversight, there is no telling how badly Colorado's clinics are failing with no oversight whatsoever.
Colorado Is Repeating the Exact Mistake Pennsylvania Made With Kermit Gosnell
Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell ran a clinic that went uninspected for years before investigators finally walked in.
Regulators had every legal authority to inspect his clinic and simply never used it.
A woman died in his care, and investigators uncovered a practice a grand jury called a house of horrors.
Gosnell was convicted of first-degree murder in 2013.
Colorado has not even given its regulators the authority Pennsylvania's already had.
Every state that skips inspections is betting a patient's life that a Gosnell never walks through its door.
Colorado already lost that bet once, and it is still refusing to check whether it will lose it again.
State Rep. Scott Bottoms sponsored a bill in 2025 that would have finally let Colorado inspect clinics like this one.
The House Health and Human Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Kyle Brown, killed it on an 8 to 4 vote in March 2025, right after lawmakers heard testimony about Lexi's death.
Bottoms tried again in 2026 with a narrower bill targeting only second- and third-trimester abortion facilities.
A different committee killed that one too, voting 8 to 3 to bury it in March 2026.
Operation Rescue has since tracked two dozen more women killed or injured at Colorado's unregulated abortion clinics.
Dr. Wheeler put it plainly: Colorado legislators care more about abortion access than about the health and safety of women.
That is not empowerment.
It is abandonment, dressed up as choice.
Sources:
- Dr. Catherine Wheeler, "Planned Parenthood Killed a Woman in Botched Abortion, It Was Never Held Accountable," LifeNews.com, September 11, 2026.
- "Autopsy Confirms Planned Parenthood Killed Woman in Botched Abortion," LifeNews.com, May 18, 2026.
- "Judge Orders Colorado Coroner to Release Unredacted Copy of Lexi Arguello's Autopsy," Operation Rescue.
- "24 Women Killed or Injured By Unregulated Colorado Abortion Clinics," Operation Rescue.
- HB25-1252, "CDPHE Regulation of Abortion Clinics," Colorado General Assembly.
- HB26-1243, "CDPHE Regulation of Abortion Clinics," Colorado General Assembly.
- "Planned Parenthood Clinics," The New York Times, February 15, 2025.
- "Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell convicted of first-degree murder," NBC News, May 2013.
