Investigation Into Abortion Clinic Coming To Chattanooga

The mystery surrounding a proposed abortion clinic opening in Chattanooga next month continues. Since our initial story you have called and emailed us asking if the clinic is coming.

The company has a listing in the newest phone book out this week, but where exactly will the services be performed?

According to representatives of the abortion group they are not coming to Chattanooga, but according the 2009 Yellow Pages tell a different story. We've been told the group is looking at a property in Hixson, so today we went searching for answers.

Seventeen years ago vandals targeted this Chattanooga Abortion clinic on Vance Road. The clinic closed two years later and now Chattanooga is one of the largest cities in the country without a clinic.

But last week we found this website, tnabortion.com, which stated an abortion clinic will open in Chattanooga next month.

During our investigation the website actually went down and hasn't been back up since. We did manage to get a number which connected to The Preferred Woman's Health Center in Charlotte. But a representative named Charity told us she had no idea how their number landed on that website.

"I don't know if somebody did this as a joke but as far as I know we have no plans of opening a place there," Charity tells us last Friday.

But the 2009 Yellow Pages tell a different story. If you look up Abortion, A Preferred Women's Health Center has an ad touting abortions up to 20 weeks.

The ad also says they have same day appointments, and are state licensed facility. And to pro-life activist Charlie Wysong this ad means the organization is coming to Chattanooga.

"Real strong if you know what a quarter page advertisement in the yellow pages costs - they're real serious about coming," Wysong says.

The ad does not list an address. But pro-life activists tell us A Preferred Woman's Health Center IS looking at this property in Hixson.

So we called one of the property's co-owners.

"My name is Will Carr and I'm with Newschannel-9, how are you doing?" I say at the beginning of the conversation. "Okay,' the co-owner responds.

The owner tells us the property is under contract but not with A Preferred Woman's Health Center.

"That is not how they represented themselves," he says. "How did they represent themselves?" I ask. "I have a contract with a company, a real estate company, that's all I am comfortable saying," he responds.

But the co-owner went on to tell us he doesn't ask buyers what they plan to do with his properties once they're sold.

"You are the second person to tell me that this property might be the property in question. The only person who knows that as a fact are the people that are buying it and they have not told me," he says.

We did call The Preferred Woman's Health Clinic again today and were put into a voicemail for a woman named April. We told her that we've seen the Yellow Pages and wanted any information they can provide about the clinic. We made that call this morning and have not received a response since, but you can depend on us to continue to follow this story.