"That decision does not reflect the purpose and mission of a hospital, to heal and sustain human life," he said. "That decision instead facilitates the very destruction of the weakest of our human family, the unborn in the womb."
The claim that the agreement aligns with a life-saving mission "defies logic," the bishop said, because it "facilitates the denial of 'life-saving health care' for the most vulnerable, unborn babies."
Bishop Thomas cited the words of Pope Francis: "In all its phases and at every age, human life is always sacred and always of quality. And not as a matter of faith, but of reason and science."
The abortion clinic has filed a motion asking the Ohio State Supreme Court to reconsider its decision given the existence of the agreement with the hospital.
Attorneys for the State of Ohio have argued that Capital Care Network should still lose its license and apply for a new one.
"The clinic's promise to come into compliance now does not change the past," they said in a March 5 legal motion against reconsidering the case. "It rightly lost its old license."
An attorney for the abortion clinic provider, Jennifer Branch, objected to the obstacles to reinstatement.
"This whole process is simply unfair and not designed to provide better health care to women," she told The Toledo Blade.
In 2013 the University of Toledo Medical Center said it would not renew its transfer agreement with the abortion clinic. That year, the state legislature barred public hospitals from entering into such agreements.
In recent years the number of abortion clinics in Ohio has fallen from 16 to eight. There are three in the Cleveland-Akron area, two in Columbus and one in Toledo, Dayton and Cincinnati, according to the Toledo Blade.
Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.