Monday, December 31, 2007
Searches: Llewelyn Crooks, phony docs, and an abortion suicide
Anniversary: Shoved out the door to bleed to death
Eighteen-year-old Sylvia Moore 
underwent an abortion at the hands of Arnold Bickham (pictured) on New Year's Eve of 1986. She was in the second trimester of her pregnancy, but Bickham used a suction technique suitable for a first-trimester pregnancy. After the abortion, Bickham gave Sylvia repeated injections of Demerol because she was reporting severe abdominal cramps.
According to Sylvia's mother, Sylvia was bleeding, weak, and unable to walk. When Sylvia tried to get to her feet and collapsed, Bickham called her "lazy," put her in a wheelchair, and physically ejected her from his Chicago clinic.
Sylvia's mother took her to a nearby hospital, where staff tried in vain to save Sylvia, who had arrived with no pulse and no blood pressure. An emergency hysterectomy was done to remove her lacerated uterus, which still had a plastic instrument embedded in it. The instrument was embedded in a 6.5 cm laceration, and Sylvia also had a 2.2 cm laceration of her vagina. Sylvia bled to death.
Bickham claimed that he "didn't think there was anything wrong" with Sylvia, and said that he'd merely been helping her with the wheelchair. He blamed Sylvia's death on the hospital, saying, "They were successful in repairing the damage done in the abortion, but in doing that, they perforated an artery causing there to be blood loss in the chest cavity. That was something she was not able to survive." The autopsy report, however, noted the chest tube incision but noted "lungs are well expanded and the pleural cavities are free of fluid and adhesions." An attorney with the Department of Professional Regulation said, "This patient would never have been allowed to leave Bickham's clinic with her mother.
The postmortum report said: "The circumstances of injury, review of the Medical records, the findings at autopsy examination, and subsequent investigation of the circumstances of the case provide evidence of gross negligence and abandonment on the part of the original treating physician. In consideration of the above, the manner of death is determined to be Homicide." However, no charges were pressed against Bickham.
The suit filed by Sylvia's survivors noted that Bickahm had failed to perform an ultrasound, and failed to have adequate staff or equipment. The specimen of abortion tissue sent from clinic contained segments of placental tissue, umbilical cord, and fetal intestinal parts and liver.
Sylvia left one child motherless.
Bickham's license was revoked by Illinois in October of 1988 due to Sylvia's death. He was arrested in September of 1989 for practicing medicine without license, and sentenced to 30 months probation and 2,600 hours of community service in lieu of 6 months jail, in addition to a $10,000 fine.
underwent an abortion at the hands of Arnold Bickham (pictured) on New Year's Eve of 1986. She was in the second trimester of her pregnancy, but Bickham used a suction technique suitable for a first-trimester pregnancy. After the abortion, Bickham gave Sylvia repeated injections of Demerol because she was reporting severe abdominal cramps.According to Sylvia's mother, Sylvia was bleeding, weak, and unable to walk. When Sylvia tried to get to her feet and collapsed, Bickham called her "lazy," put her in a wheelchair, and physically ejected her from his Chicago clinic.
Sylvia's mother took her to a nearby hospital, where staff tried in vain to save Sylvia, who had arrived with no pulse and no blood pressure. An emergency hysterectomy was done to remove her lacerated uterus, which still had a plastic instrument embedded in it. The instrument was embedded in a 6.5 cm laceration, and Sylvia also had a 2.2 cm laceration of her vagina. Sylvia bled to death.
Bickham claimed that he "didn't think there was anything wrong" with Sylvia, and said that he'd merely been helping her with the wheelchair. He blamed Sylvia's death on the hospital, saying, "They were successful in repairing the damage done in the abortion, but in doing that, they perforated an artery causing there to be blood loss in the chest cavity. That was something she was not able to survive." The autopsy report, however, noted the chest tube incision but noted "lungs are well expanded and the pleural cavities are free of fluid and adhesions." An attorney with the Department of Professional Regulation said, "This patient would never have been allowed to leave Bickham's clinic with her mother.
The postmortum report said: "The circumstances of injury, review of the Medical records, the findings at autopsy examination, and subsequent investigation of the circumstances of the case provide evidence of gross negligence and abandonment on the part of the original treating physician. In consideration of the above, the manner of death is determined to be Homicide." However, no charges were pressed against Bickham.
The suit filed by Sylvia's survivors noted that Bickahm had failed to perform an ultrasound, and failed to have adequate staff or equipment. The specimen of abortion tissue sent from clinic contained segments of placental tissue, umbilical cord, and fetal intestinal parts and liver.
Sylvia left one child motherless.
Bickham's license was revoked by Illinois in October of 1988 due to Sylvia's death. He was arrested in September of 1989 for practicing medicine without license, and sentenced to 30 months probation and 2,600 hours of community service in lieu of 6 months jail, in addition to a $10,000 fine.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Clearing up what they're really all about
Longtime life activist Ed Snell of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was seriously injured when a man pushed him off the top of his car outside the Hillcrest abortion mill.
Ed and his wife and children frequently took troubled young women into their home. They cared for a woman's children while she was in prison. They've always been there when they're needed. Ed may be a thorn in Hillcrest's side, but he's a kind, gentle man who would give you the shirt off his back.
Then, when some young punk pushed him to the ground, causing the 69-year-old man head trauma, multiple spinal fractures, a broken shoulder blade and other injuries, the compassionate response of Hillcrest staff was to say that Ed "got what he deserved".
After New Year's I think I'll call Hillcrest and ask if they also think Kelly Morse got what she deserved.
Police refused to arrest the perpetrator, even as they were watching the wounded elderly man being loaded into an ambulance.
I guess it is really all about might making right. It's okay to kill the unborn because they're young and small and helpless, and it's okay to nearly cripple an old man because he's weak and fragile. It's all about the young, strong, and healthy getting whatever the hell they want, regardless of the cost to anybody else.
Thank you, Hillcrest and the Harrisburg police department for clearing that up.
HT: Catholic Musings
Ed and his wife and children frequently took troubled young women into their home. They cared for a woman's children while she was in prison. They've always been there when they're needed. Ed may be a thorn in Hillcrest's side, but he's a kind, gentle man who would give you the shirt off his back.
Then, when some young punk pushed him to the ground, causing the 69-year-old man head trauma, multiple spinal fractures, a broken shoulder blade and other injuries, the compassionate response of Hillcrest staff was to say that Ed "got what he deserved".
After New Year's I think I'll call Hillcrest and ask if they also think Kelly Morse got what she deserved.
Police refused to arrest the perpetrator, even as they were watching the wounded elderly man being loaded into an ambulance.
I guess it is really all about might making right. It's okay to kill the unborn because they're young and small and helpless, and it's okay to nearly cripple an old man because he's weak and fragile. It's all about the young, strong, and healthy getting whatever the hell they want, regardless of the cost to anybody else.
Thank you, Hillcrest and the Harrisburg police department for clearing that up.
HT: Catholic Musings
Babies as consumer goods
Outsourcing your pregnancy is becoming increasingly popular, it seems, since surrogate moms are much cheaper in India.
Now, infertility is a heartbreaking thing. I'm not belittling the anguish of dealing with that. But this idea that kids are a consumer good that you order from overseas because it's cheaper that way is a bit of a problem for me.
I wonder how many of the women hiring somebody to have a baby for them are the same ones insisting that we need abortion because there are so many kids who already need homes. You know, people who have the money and the resources to adopt, but just choose otherwise, becasue, you know, it's all about them choosing what they want. Because what they want is all that matters.
Just curious.
Now, infertility is a heartbreaking thing. I'm not belittling the anguish of dealing with that. But this idea that kids are a consumer good that you order from overseas because it's cheaper that way is a bit of a problem for me.
I wonder how many of the women hiring somebody to have a baby for them are the same ones insisting that we need abortion because there are so many kids who already need homes. You know, people who have the money and the resources to adopt, but just choose otherwise, becasue, you know, it's all about them choosing what they want. Because what they want is all that matters.
Just curious.
Anniversary: Back alley death in Chicago
On December 30, 1924, 21-year-old Agnes Nazar died at Chicago's St. Joseph's Hospital from an abortion performed earlier that day. On January 6, 1925, Rogie Hatal, whose profession was not listed in the source documents, was held by the coroner as the guilty abortionist. Mike Nazar, whose relationship to Agnes is not listed, was arrested as an accessory, as was Sarah Babian. Hatal was indicted for felony murder on February 15, 1925.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Anniversary: The macabre fate of Jacqueline Smith
Over the years, may details of the Jacqueline Smith case have been muddled, and the story often is dismissed as an urban legend. But strange and macabre as the story is, it was all too true.
Jackie was a 20-year-old fashion designer from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, who had moved to New York City to start a career as a fashion designer. She took an apartment with two other women, but began spending more and more time with her boyfriend, Thomas G. Daniels, age 24. She all but moved in with him.
On December 30, 1955, Jackie's father arrived for a visit, but there was no sign of his daughter. He met with Daniels and the two of them went to the police to report her missing. The police were quickly suspicious of Daniels and began to question him more closely. Daniels finally told police that Jackie had gone into the bathroom and stabbed herself to death due to his refusal to marry her, and that he had dumped her body in the Hudson River.
This story didn't hold water, and the police pressed Daniel until the story came out. Jackie had told Daniels that she was pregnant. Daniels did not want to marry Jackie and instead arranged for a scrub nurse, Leobaldo Pejuan, to perform an abortion at Daniels' apartment on Christmas Eve. After performing the abortion, Pejuan became alarmed at Jackie's condition, and summoned Dr. Ramiro Morales, who told him that Jackie was dead.
Daniels and Pejuan cut Jackie's body into pieces and took it to Pejuan's home, where over the next several days they cut into as many as 50 pieces, which they wrapped in Christmas paper and disposed of in trash cans along side streets off Broadway, from 72nd to 80th.
Police investigated, and found medical instruments in Pejuan's apartment. Pejuan pleaded guilty and testified against Daniels. Pejuan was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, and Daniels was sentenced to 8 years.
Jackie was a 20-year-old fashion designer from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, who had moved to New York City to start a career as a fashion designer. She took an apartment with two other women, but began spending more and more time with her boyfriend, Thomas G. Daniels, age 24. She all but moved in with him.
On December 30, 1955, Jackie's father arrived for a visit, but there was no sign of his daughter. He met with Daniels and the two of them went to the police to report her missing. The police were quickly suspicious of Daniels and began to question him more closely. Daniels finally told police that Jackie had gone into the bathroom and stabbed herself to death due to his refusal to marry her, and that he had dumped her body in the Hudson River.
This story didn't hold water, and the police pressed Daniel until the story came out. Jackie had told Daniels that she was pregnant. Daniels did not want to marry Jackie and instead arranged for a scrub nurse, Leobaldo Pejuan, to perform an abortion at Daniels' apartment on Christmas Eve. After performing the abortion, Pejuan became alarmed at Jackie's condition, and summoned Dr. Ramiro Morales, who told him that Jackie was dead.
Daniels and Pejuan cut Jackie's body into pieces and took it to Pejuan's home, where over the next several days they cut into as many as 50 pieces, which they wrapped in Christmas paper and disposed of in trash cans along side streets off Broadway, from 72nd to 80th.
Police investigated, and found medical instruments in Pejuan's apartment. Pejuan pleaded guilty and testified against Daniels. Pejuan was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, and Daniels was sentenced to 8 years.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Four safe and legal annivesaries, one pre-dating Roe
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Friday, December 28, 2007
It's even worse than I remembered
For those of you too young to remember, you might want to keep your minds unsullied. It's -- William --- Shatner's --- dramatic rendition -- of -- Rocket --- Man!
Broken link fixed, updated
I had a number of dead links because of the way my pages transferred from the old About.com site to the new RealChoice site. Well, one of them got pointed out and I've fixed it by building a new page: Ana Rosa vs. the National Abortion Federation, about how National Abortion Federation member Abu Hayat, the same guy who performed the fatal abortion on Sophie McCoy, tried to perform an illegal third-trimester abortion in his New York office, resulting in the birth of a maimed baby, her right arm traumatically amputated at the shoulder.
New quackery page: Saihb Sinuhe Halil
Saihb Sinuhe Halil lost his medical license, thank God, over the care of these three patients:
The medical board addressed the care of patient T.G., age 19. I will call her Thelma. The following account comes from California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576.
Thelma was 22 weeks pregnant when she went to Women's Medical Center of Los Angeles on December 28, 1988. Halil performed the first of two pre-abortion laminaria insertions. The medical board noted failure to perform an examination prior to planning surgery, and a lack of informed consent.
After a change of laminaria on the 29th, Thelma returned on December 30 for her abortion. Despite what Halil clearly knew, from the two laminaria changes, was an advanced pregnancy, he first attempted to perform a suction abortion without any anesthesia. Thelma, in so much pain that she had difficulty remaining still, repeatedly screamed, "You're killing me!" "I'm dying!" "Stop!" and "I can't stand the pain!" She lost consciousness multiple times.
There was no mystery to why Thelma was in such horrible pain; Halil had pulled so hard on her internal structures that he bent his forceps, then "broke the sterile field by using an unsterilized pair of desk scissors to cut inner body organs of [Thelma]." Halil pulled out Thelma's right ovary and fallopian tube, severed her left fallopian tube, and caused a large uterine rupture. He "lacerated and rendered necrotic almost four feet of small intestine" and "left the fetus floating in the abdominal cavity."
Halil didn't monitor Thelma's blood loss during the procedure, then delayed transferring her to a hospital and delayed his own arrival to treat her, allowing her to go into potentially fatal hypovolemic shock from blood loss.
Before transferring her, Halil had gotten Thelma to consent to a diagnostic laparoscopy at the hospital, but instead Halil "proceeded to perform a full invasive surgical procedure." He worked to repair "what was left of her uterus," and removed of about 4 feet of her small intestine. After surgery, Halil instructed Thelma to return for follow-up care.
Thelma attended regular follow-up appointments January through May of 1989. During those visits, Halil did not inform Thelma of "the full extent of damage she had sustained as a result of the abortion."
To add creepiness to his other wrongdoing, while Thelma was at Halil's office for appointments, he "kissed her face and lips, caressed her face, rubbed her shoulders, and suggested they go out together," Thelma accepted an invitation to go to lunch. "While at lunch, [Halil] rubbed her thigh, knee, and shoulders, hugged and kissed her, and told her he would like to see more of her. After that luncheon, [Thelma] terminated all contact."
I have information on two other cases involving Halil:
Martha H., age 20, filed suit against Halil, and the medical board investigated her case. She went to La Clinica Feminina on November 23, 1988, for a 7-week abortion to be performed by Halil. He failed to perform a proper examination of Martha before proceeding. He punctured her uterus twice and her bowel at least once, but neither informed Martha of this nor noted it on her chart. He allowed his unlicensed staff to make the decision to discharge the patient from the facility. On November 27 she was admitted to a hospital, and there the inuries were discovered and surgically treated. On December 20 she had to be again admitted to the hospital and required additional surgery to treat a bowel obstruction, periappendicitis, and peritonitis. (LA County Superior Court Case No. C720334; Los Angeles Times 7-6-93; California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576)
The medical board investigated the case of Vivian Q. Vivian underwent laminaria insertion by Halil at La Clinica Femenina on November 3, 1987. Halil did not perform an adequate physical examination or properly determine the gestational age. As a result he did not use enough laminaria to adequately dilate Vivian's cervix. "[Halil] halted the procedure because he suspected he had perforated the patient's uterus." Halil performed an ultrasound, which "determined that the pregnancy was still intact (albeit with a maimed fetus)." Rather than accurately charting this or informing Vivian, he discharged her. On November 7, Vivian was admitted to the hospital, suffering from a perforated utuers and a necrotic sigmoid colon. She required a colostomy and surgery to repair her uterus. One bright spot was that on February 28, doctors were able to repair her bowel and restore normal function without the colostomy. (Los Angeles Times 7-6-93; California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576)
The medical board addressed the care of patient T.G., age 19. I will call her Thelma. The following account comes from California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576.
Thelma was 22 weeks pregnant when she went to Women's Medical Center of Los Angeles on December 28, 1988. Halil performed the first of two pre-abortion laminaria insertions. The medical board noted failure to perform an examination prior to planning surgery, and a lack of informed consent.
After a change of laminaria on the 29th, Thelma returned on December 30 for her abortion. Despite what Halil clearly knew, from the two laminaria changes, was an advanced pregnancy, he first attempted to perform a suction abortion without any anesthesia. Thelma, in so much pain that she had difficulty remaining still, repeatedly screamed, "You're killing me!" "I'm dying!" "Stop!" and "I can't stand the pain!" She lost consciousness multiple times.
There was no mystery to why Thelma was in such horrible pain; Halil had pulled so hard on her internal structures that he bent his forceps, then "broke the sterile field by using an unsterilized pair of desk scissors to cut inner body organs of [Thelma]." Halil pulled out Thelma's right ovary and fallopian tube, severed her left fallopian tube, and caused a large uterine rupture. He "lacerated and rendered necrotic almost four feet of small intestine" and "left the fetus floating in the abdominal cavity."
Halil didn't monitor Thelma's blood loss during the procedure, then delayed transferring her to a hospital and delayed his own arrival to treat her, allowing her to go into potentially fatal hypovolemic shock from blood loss.
Before transferring her, Halil had gotten Thelma to consent to a diagnostic laparoscopy at the hospital, but instead Halil "proceeded to perform a full invasive surgical procedure." He worked to repair "what was left of her uterus," and removed of about 4 feet of her small intestine. After surgery, Halil instructed Thelma to return for follow-up care.
Thelma attended regular follow-up appointments January through May of 1989. During those visits, Halil did not inform Thelma of "the full extent of damage she had sustained as a result of the abortion."
To add creepiness to his other wrongdoing, while Thelma was at Halil's office for appointments, he "kissed her face and lips, caressed her face, rubbed her shoulders, and suggested they go out together," Thelma accepted an invitation to go to lunch. "While at lunch, [Halil] rubbed her thigh, knee, and shoulders, hugged and kissed her, and told her he would like to see more of her. After that luncheon, [Thelma] terminated all contact."
I have information on two other cases involving Halil:
Martha H., age 20, filed suit against Halil, and the medical board investigated her case. She went to La Clinica Feminina on November 23, 1988, for a 7-week abortion to be performed by Halil. He failed to perform a proper examination of Martha before proceeding. He punctured her uterus twice and her bowel at least once, but neither informed Martha of this nor noted it on her chart. He allowed his unlicensed staff to make the decision to discharge the patient from the facility. On November 27 she was admitted to a hospital, and there the inuries were discovered and surgically treated. On December 20 she had to be again admitted to the hospital and required additional surgery to treat a bowel obstruction, periappendicitis, and peritonitis. (LA County Superior Court Case No. C720334; Los Angeles Times 7-6-93; California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576)
The medical board investigated the case of Vivian Q. Vivian underwent laminaria insertion by Halil at La Clinica Femenina on November 3, 1987. Halil did not perform an adequate physical examination or properly determine the gestational age. As a result he did not use enough laminaria to adequately dilate Vivian's cervix. "[Halil] halted the procedure because he suspected he had perforated the patient's uterus." Halil performed an ultrasound, which "determined that the pregnancy was still intact (albeit with a maimed fetus)." Rather than accurately charting this or informing Vivian, he discharged her. On November 7, Vivian was admitted to the hospital, suffering from a perforated utuers and a necrotic sigmoid colon. She required a colostomy and surgery to repair her uterus. One bright spot was that on February 28, doctors were able to repair her bowel and restore normal function without the colostomy. (Los Angeles Times 7-6-93; California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576)
Searches: Seth again, scars, diaper-clad perverts, and more
Searches: Parsley and pennyroyal, perforated bowel, and more
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Today's searches: Quacks, abortion as birth control, nastiness, and complications
Rhonda B. (scroll down) at Chattanooga Women's Clinic (survived); Janet C. at Inglewood (survived); Diana S. under the care of Rebecca Stanley (survived); an unnamed patient (scroll down) at the same Planned Parenthood that performed the fatal abortion on Diana Lopez (pictured, with her children); Mindi at A - Z, the same facility where Lou Anne Herron and Lisa Bardsley underwent their fatal abortions; Gail Roe (fatal). More cases are written up here.To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Today's Quackfest
Anniversary: Safe and legal abortion leads to infection, death, for teen
Arnetta Hardaway was 18 years old when she had a mid-trimester abortion performed by Dr. George Tucker in Atlanta on December 23, 1985. Arnetta continued to bleed, and developed infection, after her abortion. On December 27, she died from her complications.
Tucker had an active medical board order on his license as of January 4, 2002. The Georgia medical board web site does not reveal the details of the order.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Tucker had an active medical board order on his license as of January 4, 2002. The Georgia medical board web site does not reveal the details of the order.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
"That's the pain talking"
I remember when I was in labor with my daughter. When the pain got to be so bad that I had dry heaves and was going into spasms on the bed, I begged for drugs. The midwife sat down with me and very patiently explained to me that this was the pain talking, that I -- the me that was rational and not thrashing around in pain -- wanted to try to do this without drugs.
Pam wanted to make sure that I made a rational choice about how to deal with the pain. She took the better part of an hour, using snatches of time between contractions, to find out how much was me changing my mind based on how much pain there actually was verus how much I'd anticipated. We talked about what my values were, what my reflections on this experience were going to be after my baby was born, how the pain was impacting the progress of my labor, et cetera. Pam took a lot of time, going over every pain relief option with me, and finally the rational part of me chose a small dose of Nisintil to just take the edge off and allow me to use the breathing techniques I'd learned. And the Nisintil did the trick.
Pam let ME, Chirstina, make the decision about the medication. She didn't let the pain override the choosing part of me.
Some abortion advocates often smugly gloat that many of the women undergoing abortions sob about how they never thought that they would end up on the abortion table, how abortion goes against their values, their core beliefs, their identity. But they feel trapped. They feel they have no other choice.
My choice was about how much medication to use when I was in labor. It was hardly a life-altering, life-shattering choice. But Pam remembered the discussions we'd had, the plans I'd made. I was shooting for drug-free. Pam wasn't going to stop me from changing my mind if I had really changed my mind. But she wasn't about to let the pain make a decision for me that I would regret later. And I had changed my mind. Drug-free was my ideal, yes, but I was in so much pain that it was slowing my labor. What were my options? What would the impact of my choices be on me and my baby? Pam considered it worth the time. I changed my mind from "drug free" to "something to take the edge off the pain", under careful guidance from somebody who really cared about me an about my choices. Pam prevented me from just screaming for an epidural, a choice I probably would have regretted later and seen as a cop-out, with my hippie flower-child natural-childbirth values. Pam spent the time to get past the pain to the choosing part of me.
Why aren't women weeping in the abortion clinic, about to make a life-shaking, life-altering decision, entitled to the same care and concern I got from Pam? Why is there nobody to say, "Is this really a choice that you are making rationally, based on new information? Or is this the pain talking? How are you -- with your values, your goals, your priorities -- going to look back on this choice?"
When women who oppose abortion -- be it for all women or only for themselves -- end up on the abortion table, hardocre abortion advocates then hold them up as "proof" that even women who hate abortion "need" abortion.
But is the woman signing the consent form as she wets it with her tears being served or being used?
The answer is pretty clear to anybody who has eyes to see.
Pam wanted to make sure that I made a rational choice about how to deal with the pain. She took the better part of an hour, using snatches of time between contractions, to find out how much was me changing my mind based on how much pain there actually was verus how much I'd anticipated. We talked about what my values were, what my reflections on this experience were going to be after my baby was born, how the pain was impacting the progress of my labor, et cetera. Pam took a lot of time, going over every pain relief option with me, and finally the rational part of me chose a small dose of Nisintil to just take the edge off and allow me to use the breathing techniques I'd learned. And the Nisintil did the trick.
Pam let ME, Chirstina, make the decision about the medication. She didn't let the pain override the choosing part of me.
Some abortion advocates often smugly gloat that many of the women undergoing abortions sob about how they never thought that they would end up on the abortion table, how abortion goes against their values, their core beliefs, their identity. But they feel trapped. They feel they have no other choice.
My choice was about how much medication to use when I was in labor. It was hardly a life-altering, life-shattering choice. But Pam remembered the discussions we'd had, the plans I'd made. I was shooting for drug-free. Pam wasn't going to stop me from changing my mind if I had really changed my mind. But she wasn't about to let the pain make a decision for me that I would regret later. And I had changed my mind. Drug-free was my ideal, yes, but I was in so much pain that it was slowing my labor. What were my options? What would the impact of my choices be on me and my baby? Pam considered it worth the time. I changed my mind from "drug free" to "something to take the edge off the pain", under careful guidance from somebody who really cared about me an about my choices. Pam prevented me from just screaming for an epidural, a choice I probably would have regretted later and seen as a cop-out, with my hippie flower-child natural-childbirth values. Pam spent the time to get past the pain to the choosing part of me.
Why aren't women weeping in the abortion clinic, about to make a life-shaking, life-altering decision, entitled to the same care and concern I got from Pam? Why is there nobody to say, "Is this really a choice that you are making rationally, based on new information? Or is this the pain talking? How are you -- with your values, your goals, your priorities -- going to look back on this choice?"
When women who oppose abortion -- be it for all women or only for themselves -- end up on the abortion table, hardocre abortion advocates then hold them up as "proof" that even women who hate abortion "need" abortion.
But is the woman signing the consent form as she wets it with her tears being served or being used?
The answer is pretty clear to anybody who has eyes to see.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The Guitierrez Abortion: A wretched Christmas
Carolina Gutierrez, only twenty years old, remained on a respirator in an intensive care unit of a Miami hospital over Christmas of 1995. She had been hospitalized since December 21, when her family had called an ambulance in their alarm over her difficulty breathing. She had arrived at the emergency room already in septic shock.Two days of trying to contact Maber Medical Center, where Carolina had undergone an abortion on the 19th, over her husbands objections, had yielded no help. The young mother, who had no medical insurance, had been suffering from fever and pain since the evening of the 19th.
Doctors at the hospital had performed an emergency hysterectomy, trying to halt the spread of infection from her perforated uterus, but the sepsis raged on.
Carolina spent Christmas on a respirator, sepsis raging through her body. Her two children spent most of their time in the care of relatives as their stepfather, Jose Linarte, spent as much time as he could by Carolina's side, waiting and praying.The ICU staff cared as best they could for their critically-ill patient, but the sepsis was getting worse instead of better.
Anniversary: Horrifying Christmas discovery
On Christmas day of 1934, the nude body of a young woman was found in a thicket near a highway south of New York City. She had been dead between 12 and 24 hours.
Laura and Joseph Devine, whose 19-year-old daughter, Loretta Wilson, had been missing since December 19, contacted authorities and were able to positively identify the body.
Loretta had left home at noon on the 19th, telling the landlady that she was going to see a doctor.
Loretta's family had reported her missing on the 20th.
When an autopsy revealed the cause of death as abortion, Loretta's husband of two years indicated that he had not even been aware that Loretta was pregnant.
A physician, John H. Becker Jr., who admitted to having examined Loretta on December 17, was charged with homicide in the death. He denied performing the abortion.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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Laura and Joseph Devine, whose 19-year-old daughter, Loretta Wilson, had been missing since December 19, contacted authorities and were able to positively identify the body.
Loretta had left home at noon on the 19th, telling the landlady that she was going to see a doctor.
Loretta's family had reported her missing on the 20th.
When an autopsy revealed the cause of death as abortion, Loretta's husband of two years indicated that he had not even been aware that Loretta was pregnant.
A physician, John H. Becker Jr., who admitted to having examined Loretta on December 17, was charged with homicide in the death. He denied performing the abortion.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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Monday, December 24, 2007
A blessed Christmas
It's Christmas morning here in Korea. My best gift will be meeting me in the lobby of the 63 Building in Seoul at noon: my friend from Sokcho that I last saw exactly one year ago, last Christmas.
God is good. It's just easier to see it when you're looking forward to seeing a friend in a few hours.
God is good. It's just easier to see it when you're looking forward to seeing a friend in a few hours.
Anniversary: Tragic holiday surprise
On the morning of Deceber 24, 1885, Dr. Sawdy of Howard City, about 40 miles north of Grand Rapids, Michigan, got an unexpected visit from the father of Harry McDowell, who had been courting Sawdy's 21-year-old daughter, Sylvia.
On December 10, Sylvia had taken a train to Grand Rapids, saying that she was going to visit with Harry's mother. The senior McDowell told Dr. Sawdy that he'd gotten a telegram from Harry, that Sylvia was very sick and wanted her mother to go to her.
Dr. Sawdy would not learn the truth until he picked up the newspaper the following morning: Sylvia was dead, and Harry was the prime suspect in her death.
It came out in Harry's trial that in November, Sylvia had consulted with Drs. Bodle, Hake, and Bradish, indicating that she was pregnant. Evidence indicated that McDowell had performed an abortion on Sylvia on December 23, and that she died that day. McDowell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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On December 10, Sylvia had taken a train to Grand Rapids, saying that she was going to visit with Harry's mother. The senior McDowell told Dr. Sawdy that he'd gotten a telegram from Harry, that Sylvia was very sick and wanted her mother to go to her.
Dr. Sawdy would not learn the truth until he picked up the newspaper the following morning: Sylvia was dead, and Harry was the prime suspect in her death.
It came out in Harry's trial that in November, Sylvia had consulted with Drs. Bodle, Hake, and Bradish, indicating that she was pregnant. Evidence indicated that McDowell had performed an abortion on Sylvia on December 23, and that she died that day. McDowell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Search: Dr. Robert F. Meger
Somebody was searching for Dr. Robert F. Meger. Here are the cases I have on file:
Mary L., age 29, filed suit against Dr. Robert F. Meger and Birth Control Care Center after an abortion she underwent there at Meger's hands on November 24, 1986. The suit says that Meger "punctured [Mary's] uterus and gouged out a portion of [her] colon." Twice Mary called the clinic to report pain, fever, and bleeding. Meger diagnosed her trouble as a urinary tract infection. Three days after the abortion, Mary was admitted to ths hospital, "wherein an intact fetus of 12 approximate weeks gestation, including an umbilical cord, and placental tissue were removed from Mary's abdominal cavity." Rather than remove the fetus, Meger had shoved it through a hole in Mary's uterus and left it there. Mary had to undergo surgery to repair her damaged uterus and colon. She was hospitalized for seven days. (Clark County District Court Cse No. A275976)
Ms. C, age 33, sued after an abortion by Meger (probably Robert F. Meger), affiliated with Birth Control Care Center, without first properly performing Rh factor testing and without administering Rho-gam. As a result, Ms. C became Rh-sensitized, and her subsequent baby, bing Rh-negative, required a total blood exchange. Ms. C was permanently Rh-sensitized, and will have problems with all future pregnancies.
Ms. P, age 35, alleged that on day two of a second-trimester abortion by Meger (probably Robert F. Meger), her uterus was perforated, resulting in bleeding into her abdomen. She went into shock and was transported to a hospital. There, she was found to have blood pressure of 40/20. She required five hours of surgery, including a hysterectomy.
Mary L., age 29, filed suit against Dr. Robert F. Meger and Birth Control Care Center after an abortion she underwent there at Meger's hands on November 24, 1986. The suit says that Meger "punctured [Mary's] uterus and gouged out a portion of [her] colon." Twice Mary called the clinic to report pain, fever, and bleeding. Meger diagnosed her trouble as a urinary tract infection. Three days after the abortion, Mary was admitted to ths hospital, "wherein an intact fetus of 12 approximate weeks gestation, including an umbilical cord, and placental tissue were removed from Mary's abdominal cavity." Rather than remove the fetus, Meger had shoved it through a hole in Mary's uterus and left it there. Mary had to undergo surgery to repair her damaged uterus and colon. She was hospitalized for seven days. (Clark County District Court Cse No. A275976)
Ms. C, age 33, sued after an abortion by Meger (probably Robert F. Meger), affiliated with Birth Control Care Center, without first properly performing Rh factor testing and without administering Rho-gam. As a result, Ms. C became Rh-sensitized, and her subsequent baby, bing Rh-negative, required a total blood exchange. Ms. C was permanently Rh-sensitized, and will have problems with all future pregnancies.
Ms. P, age 35, alleged that on day two of a second-trimester abortion by Meger (probably Robert F. Meger), her uterus was perforated, resulting in bleeding into her abdomen. She went into shock and was transported to a hospital. There, she was found to have blood pressure of 40/20. She required five hours of surgery, including a hysterectomy.
Anniversary: Two children orphaned by safe, legal abortion
"Kimberly" was 25 years old and 18 weeks pregnant when she underwent an abortion in New York City on December 23, 1970. During the abortion, she went into cardiac arrest and died, leaving behind two children.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Top Ten Mysteries of the Orient
10. Why can't Korean doctors prescribe a full course of antibiotics? Why make you come back every three days?
9. Where did Koreans get the idea that no pizza is complete without corn and sweet potatoes? It's tough to get a pizza that doesn't feature at least one of those toppings, even if you don't order it. While we're at it, why can't they make pizzas to order? Why must you stick only with their pre-ordained combos? Which, again, tend to include corn or sweet potatoes.
8. What's with Koreans and their love of wet floors? Why can't the shower drain in the shower? I nearly broke my neck this morning stepping into my bathroom, because it had slipped my mind (ha!) that after a shower, my entire floor is sopping wet for hours because the shower stall drains out into the bathroom. The main drain is under the sink. I'm just glad I finally got an apartment that doesn't have a washing machine that drains onto the floor, like my last three apartments.
7. Would it kill Koreans to put erasers on their pencils? I pass out pencils to my students and two seconds later I'm bombarded with pleas for erasers. I used to keep a supply of erasers in my basket but I got sick of the kids bouncing them off the floor and started just saying, "If you make a mistake, cross it out. And when you grow up, become a pencil manufacturer and put erasers on the ends of the stupid things!"
6. While we're on the topic of Korean pencils, could they improve the overall quality just a bit? The leads are ill-centered and fragile. One Korean pencil is usually good for three or four sharpenings and then it's nothing but a stub. And you have to sharpen them constantly because the leads break all the time. Conspicuous consumption has found its acme in the Korean pencil industry. Which may be why they don't bother putting erasers on them. You're going to throw the darned thing out before you have a chance to use the eraser anyway.
5. Other than the drunks, who smell like soju and kimchi, Koreans don't smell bad. How to they manage that in a country where you can't buy underarm deodorant?
4. Why are the standard envelopes in Korea too small to fit a standard sheet of paper into unless you fold it into strange configurations?
3. While we're on the subject of envelopes, why don't Koreans gum the darned flaps? You have to seal them with Scotch tape. See pencils and erasers, above. And why don't they gum their postage stamps? You have to glue them to the envelopes.
2. Why do Koreans put sugar on garlic bread?
And the Number One Mystery of the Orient:
1. How can a country so oblivious of safety be so densely poplated? Given the number of Koreans that must be flung through windshields because they never wear seatbelts, having their necks snapped when they roller-blade down the stairs, crushed between their mom and the dashboard because they ride on her lap, hit by the cars that get the signal to turn onto a street just as pedestrians are getting the green light to cross it, killed by falling material in constrution sites that pedestrians are free to wander through, run off the road by maniacal bus drivers, electrocuted by ungrounded outlets, and flattened and killed skatboarding without helmets in traffic, it's a wonder there are any of them left to reproduce.
9. Where did Koreans get the idea that no pizza is complete without corn and sweet potatoes? It's tough to get a pizza that doesn't feature at least one of those toppings, even if you don't order it. While we're at it, why can't they make pizzas to order? Why must you stick only with their pre-ordained combos? Which, again, tend to include corn or sweet potatoes.
8. What's with Koreans and their love of wet floors? Why can't the shower drain in the shower? I nearly broke my neck this morning stepping into my bathroom, because it had slipped my mind (ha!) that after a shower, my entire floor is sopping wet for hours because the shower stall drains out into the bathroom. The main drain is under the sink. I'm just glad I finally got an apartment that doesn't have a washing machine that drains onto the floor, like my last three apartments.
7. Would it kill Koreans to put erasers on their pencils? I pass out pencils to my students and two seconds later I'm bombarded with pleas for erasers. I used to keep a supply of erasers in my basket but I got sick of the kids bouncing them off the floor and started just saying, "If you make a mistake, cross it out. And when you grow up, become a pencil manufacturer and put erasers on the ends of the stupid things!"
6. While we're on the topic of Korean pencils, could they improve the overall quality just a bit? The leads are ill-centered and fragile. One Korean pencil is usually good for three or four sharpenings and then it's nothing but a stub. And you have to sharpen them constantly because the leads break all the time. Conspicuous consumption has found its acme in the Korean pencil industry. Which may be why they don't bother putting erasers on them. You're going to throw the darned thing out before you have a chance to use the eraser anyway.
5. Other than the drunks, who smell like soju and kimchi, Koreans don't smell bad. How to they manage that in a country where you can't buy underarm deodorant?
4. Why are the standard envelopes in Korea too small to fit a standard sheet of paper into unless you fold it into strange configurations?
3. While we're on the subject of envelopes, why don't Koreans gum the darned flaps? You have to seal them with Scotch tape. See pencils and erasers, above. And why don't they gum their postage stamps? You have to glue them to the envelopes.
2. Why do Koreans put sugar on garlic bread?
And the Number One Mystery of the Orient:
1. How can a country so oblivious of safety be so densely poplated? Given the number of Koreans that must be flung through windshields because they never wear seatbelts, having their necks snapped when they roller-blade down the stairs, crushed between their mom and the dashboard because they ride on her lap, hit by the cars that get the signal to turn onto a street just as pedestrians are getting the green light to cross it, killed by falling material in constrution sites that pedestrians are free to wander through, run off the road by maniacal bus drivers, electrocuted by ungrounded outlets, and flattened and killed skatboarding without helmets in traffic, it's a wonder there are any of them left to reproduce.
What real informed consent would look like
I posted this long ago on the old Pro Life Views forum at About.com. Now I submit it for the commentary/perusal of visitors here. What would constitute adequate informed consent for abortion?
First, the woman should be told that panic is normal, and that it usually passes. She should be informed of the normal psychology of pregnancy so that she can get a handle on whether she's just in the throes of normal early pregnancy stress, or if there is something bigger going on. She should also be told about the impact of stress on decision-making, so she can assess to what degree stress may be coloring her choice, overriding her real wishes and needs.
Second, she should be informed of the range of responses women have from abortion, from the satisfied customer to the women who suffer unspeakable anguish the rest of their lives. She should be given a collection of post-abortion women's writings, and an opportunity to speak to women who have had abortions, along the spectrum of experience. And she should be given information on risk factors so she can assess which is more likely to be her reaction to abortion.
Third, she should be informed of the particular physical risks of pregnancy and abortion as they relate to her specific case, including her age, any medical conditions she has, etc. This should include telling her exactly how much controversy there is in the medical community about exactly how high the risks are, to her body and to subsequent pregnancies. And she should get this information from people without an axe to grind -- say, a prochoice ob/gyn who does not perform abortions but has treated abortion complications, or a perinatologist who has experience with high risk pregnancies, depending on her specific situation.
Fourth, she should be informed about the entity that the abortion will destroy, including being shown a realtime ultrasound of her embryo or fetus, and pictures or models. After all, she's bound to find out sooner or later, so better to find out while she is still able to back out or go ahead. And she does need to be prepared for what she might see if she expels a whole fetus or fetal parts. She should explore her own ideas of when prenatal life is entitled to protection, and when it is wrong to kill an unborn entity. She should be warned that any moral qualms she has now will likely only intensify after the abortion, rather than fade.
Fifth, she should be informed of resources available to her, not only in her community, but national groups such as The Nurturing Network should she choose to go elsewhere to complete the pregnancy. This should include information relevant to her specific needs, particularly if she is considering abortion for maternal or fetal indications.
Sixth, she should be offered a consult with a clergyperson of her faith -- one whose beliefs are similar to her own. No taking the one prolife Unitarian minister in the county, or the only prochoice Roman Catholic priest. If she's a prochoice Unitarian, get her a consult with a prochoice Unitarian. If she's a prolife Unitarian, it'll be a little tough, but she should be able to sort out the spiritual ramifications of what she's considering while she's still making up her mind, and not when it's too late.
Finally, she should also be offered the opportunity to meet with people who've suffered any complications she has uneasiness about, like a colostomy or a hysterectomy.
The decision to end a pregnancy with a dead fetus instead of a live baby is a one shot deal that she'll carry with her for the rest of her life. We trivialize it, and then trivialize her pain if she's rushed into a bad choice. That's not right.
Please provide any feedback, and suggested links.
First, the woman should be told that panic is normal, and that it usually passes. She should be informed of the normal psychology of pregnancy so that she can get a handle on whether she's just in the throes of normal early pregnancy stress, or if there is something bigger going on. She should also be told about the impact of stress on decision-making, so she can assess to what degree stress may be coloring her choice, overriding her real wishes and needs.
Second, she should be informed of the range of responses women have from abortion, from the satisfied customer to the women who suffer unspeakable anguish the rest of their lives. She should be given a collection of post-abortion women's writings, and an opportunity to speak to women who have had abortions, along the spectrum of experience. And she should be given information on risk factors so she can assess which is more likely to be her reaction to abortion.
Third, she should be informed of the particular physical risks of pregnancy and abortion as they relate to her specific case, including her age, any medical conditions she has, etc. This should include telling her exactly how much controversy there is in the medical community about exactly how high the risks are, to her body and to subsequent pregnancies. And she should get this information from people without an axe to grind -- say, a prochoice ob/gyn who does not perform abortions but has treated abortion complications, or a perinatologist who has experience with high risk pregnancies, depending on her specific situation.
Fourth, she should be informed about the entity that the abortion will destroy, including being shown a realtime ultrasound of her embryo or fetus, and pictures or models. After all, she's bound to find out sooner or later, so better to find out while she is still able to back out or go ahead. And she does need to be prepared for what she might see if she expels a whole fetus or fetal parts. She should explore her own ideas of when prenatal life is entitled to protection, and when it is wrong to kill an unborn entity. She should be warned that any moral qualms she has now will likely only intensify after the abortion, rather than fade.
Fifth, she should be informed of resources available to her, not only in her community, but national groups such as The Nurturing Network should she choose to go elsewhere to complete the pregnancy. This should include information relevant to her specific needs, particularly if she is considering abortion for maternal or fetal indications.
Sixth, she should be offered a consult with a clergyperson of her faith -- one whose beliefs are similar to her own. No taking the one prolife Unitarian minister in the county, or the only prochoice Roman Catholic priest. If she's a prochoice Unitarian, get her a consult with a prochoice Unitarian. If she's a prolife Unitarian, it'll be a little tough, but she should be able to sort out the spiritual ramifications of what she's considering while she's still making up her mind, and not when it's too late.
Finally, she should also be offered the opportunity to meet with people who've suffered any complications she has uneasiness about, like a colostomy or a hysterectomy.
The decision to end a pregnancy with a dead fetus instead of a live baby is a one shot deal that she'll carry with her for the rest of her life. We trivialize it, and then trivialize her pain if she's rushed into a bad choice. That's not right.
Please provide any feedback, and suggested links.
Anniversary: Back-alley abortion proves fatal
On December 22, 1891, a Swedish girl named Tillie Thom was found dead at the office of Dr. Franklin Brooks in Chicago. Tillie had died of an abortion performed there that day. Brooks was found responsible for Tillie's death by Coroner's Verdict.
Tillie's abortion was typical of those before legalization in that it was performed by a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Tillie's abortion was typical of those before legalization in that it was performed by a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Searches: Klopfer, death, saline, self-induced, and more
The Guitierrez Abortion: Into the ICU
On December 21, 1995, 20-year-old Carolina Gutierrez, already ill from an abortion performed in a Miami clinic two days earlier, could barely breathe. Her family called 911 and she was rushed to the hospital. She arrived at the emergency room already in septic shock.Carolina had tried over the previous two days to contact staff at the clinic, Maber Medical Center in Miami. She had been suffering pain in her chest and abdomen since the evening of the 19th. She kept getting an answering machine, but her messages were not returned. When somebody finally did answer the phone, they had hung up on her. Carolina had no medical insurance. She needed help. She tried to tough it out, to no avail.
Doctors at the hospital performed an emergency hysterectomy, trying to halt the spread of infection from her perforated uterus. After surgery, Carolina was put into the intensive care unit, where she battled for her life against the raging sepsis.
Relatives cared for her children, a five-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy from a previous relationship, while Carolina's husband, Jose Linarte, spent as much time as he could by her side. "I can't sleep. I try to take my mind off it, but it's impossible," he told the Miami Herald.His wife lay there on a respirator. All Jose could do was wait and pray.
Anniversary: Abortion stopover proves deadly for Australian woman
Denise Holmes, a 24-year-old Australian woman living in Texas, decided to undergo an abortion at Avalon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on her way home for Christmas of 1970.
Denise checked into Avalon Hospital (an abortion facility owned by Edward Campbell Allred) on December 21. Denise suffered an amniotic fluid embolism that carried pieces of fetal bone marrow into her lungs. She was pronounced dead by Edward Allred at Avalon at 5pm.
Denise is the first confirmed abortion death at an Allred facility. She died before the National Abortion Federation was founded, with Allred's Family Planning Associates Medical Group as a member.
Other young mothers known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include:
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Denise checked into Avalon Hospital (an abortion facility owned by Edward Campbell Allred) on December 21. Denise suffered an amniotic fluid embolism that carried pieces of fetal bone marrow into her lungs. She was pronounced dead by Edward Allred at Avalon at 5pm.
Denise is the first confirmed abortion death at an Allred facility. She died before the National Abortion Federation was founded, with Allred's Family Planning Associates Medical Group as a member.
Other young mothers known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include:
- Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
- Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
- Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
- Lanice Dorsey, age 17, 1986
- Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
- Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
- Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
- Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
- Christina Mora, age 18, 1994
- Kimberly Neil, 2000
- Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Anniversary: Abortion by midwife proves fatal for teen
On December 21, 1926, fifteen-year-old Emily Mueller died from complications of a criminal abortion performed somewhere in Chicago on December 11. A midwife, Magdelane Stegeman, alias Motzny, was booked on December 28. The coroner cleared Stegeman, but she was nevertheless indicted for felony murder by the Grand Jury on February 15, 1927.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
The things we do for "love"
Lori Borgman at Jewish World Review penned a haunting look at the price children pay for their mothers' willingness to tolerate anything, just to have a man, any man, even a slimebag man, in their lives.
I once listened to a tape of a National Abortion Federation meeting -- nurses fretting about how to get women to follow up on aftercare. The biggest problem was getting the women to abstain from sex for six weeks while they healed -- or to at least have their "partners" use a condom. But, the nurses commiserated, these women were in "relationships" with men who would not tolerate "No." (Isn't that rape?) Men who refused to wear condoms. Men who were festering ambulatory petri dishes of STDs because they were having sexual relations with every woman they could bully into putting out. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 82% of abortions are performed on unmarried women. How many of them are aborting to keep these "boyfriends" happy? The same "boyfriends" who are only too happy to keep them in an endless cycle of desperate unprotected sex, abortions, and life-endangering STDs?
Dr. Laura asked, "Is a woman just a wo-wo-wo on a man?" Evidently even the "wo-wo-wo" isn't necessary. He doesn't have to be Prince Charming. Any toad will do. As long as he has the Y chromosome, he'll suffice.
Why are so many women willing to sacrifice their self-respect, their bodies, their health, their children, just to have a man? And what men! Men that any reasonable community would tar, feather, and run out of town on a rail.
This is the end result of the Sexual Revolution, which holds that our best and highest calling is to capitulate to the urge every time our hormones tell us to rut. Or, in the case of these women, to capitulate to the man's urges every time his hormones tell him to rut. Human bonds of love fall by the wayside. The hunger for something more is denegrated. It's puritanical. It's old-fashioned. It's Ward and June. It's turning back the clock. It's unrealistic.
It's doable. And it's worth it.
P.S.: I'm not saying this from the comfortable ivory tower of a happy marriage. I've been divorced for about sixteen years now, and walked the chastity line since I became a Christian some thirteen years ago. I fell off that line a couple of times early on, picked myself back up, and have managed to tell my hormones and loneliness where to get off for eight or nine years now. It's doable. But it's an uphill climb in a society that treats you like a freak for even trying. Chastity isn't easy. We need to stop making it needlessly harder.
I once listened to a tape of a National Abortion Federation meeting -- nurses fretting about how to get women to follow up on aftercare. The biggest problem was getting the women to abstain from sex for six weeks while they healed -- or to at least have their "partners" use a condom. But, the nurses commiserated, these women were in "relationships" with men who would not tolerate "No." (Isn't that rape?) Men who refused to wear condoms. Men who were festering ambulatory petri dishes of STDs because they were having sexual relations with every woman they could bully into putting out. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 82% of abortions are performed on unmarried women. How many of them are aborting to keep these "boyfriends" happy? The same "boyfriends" who are only too happy to keep them in an endless cycle of desperate unprotected sex, abortions, and life-endangering STDs?
Dr. Laura asked, "Is a woman just a wo-wo-wo on a man?" Evidently even the "wo-wo-wo" isn't necessary. He doesn't have to be Prince Charming. Any toad will do. As long as he has the Y chromosome, he'll suffice.
Why are so many women willing to sacrifice their self-respect, their bodies, their health, their children, just to have a man? And what men! Men that any reasonable community would tar, feather, and run out of town on a rail.
This is the end result of the Sexual Revolution, which holds that our best and highest calling is to capitulate to the urge every time our hormones tell us to rut. Or, in the case of these women, to capitulate to the man's urges every time his hormones tell him to rut. Human bonds of love fall by the wayside. The hunger for something more is denegrated. It's puritanical. It's old-fashioned. It's Ward and June. It's turning back the clock. It's unrealistic.
It's doable. And it's worth it.
P.S.: I'm not saying this from the comfortable ivory tower of a happy marriage. I've been divorced for about sixteen years now, and walked the chastity line since I became a Christian some thirteen years ago. I fell off that line a couple of times early on, picked myself back up, and have managed to tell my hormones and loneliness where to get off for eight or nine years now. It's doable. But it's an uphill climb in a society that treats you like a freak for even trying. Chastity isn't easy. We need to stop making it needlessly harder.
Anniversary: Criminal abortion by midwife proves fatal
On December 20, 1926, 23-year-old Mary Paradowski died at Chicago hospital from complications of a criminal abortion performed on December 13. On January 15, 1927, a midwife named Josephine Petrova was indicted for felony murder in Mary's death.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Searches: Self induced and quacks
who died this past September on the abortion table at Women Health Center in Massachusetts, under the care of Dr. Rapin Osathanondh, remains a popular search.That's it for now. Time to hop in the shower and head for work.
Carolina Gutierrez: The abortion
Carolina Gutierrez, who had come to the United States as a refugee from Nicaragua at age 13, was 20 years old when she went to Maber Medical Center in Miami for an abortion on December 19, 1995. Carolina's husband did not want her to have the abortion, so Carolina got a friend to drive her back and forth to the clinic.The evening after her abortion, Carolina had pain in her chest and abdomen. She called the clinic for help, but whoever answered the phone hung up on her.
What followed will unfold on this blog over the same time it played out in real life.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Searches: assorted butchery, for the most part
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Searches: Quacks again. And another person trusting PP's honesty.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Anniversary: Illegal abortion death in 1982
Myrta Baptiste, age 26, had abortion of her 10 week pregnancy performed by Orlando Zaldivar at Woman's Care Clinic in Florida on December 18, 1982. But something went wrong. Myrta arrived at the hospital in critical condition due to delay of transfer by the clinic staff. She bled to death from 2 uterine perforations. Zaldivar could not be reached for 7 hours while hospital staff were struggling to save his patient's life.
Since Zaldivar's license was inactive at the time he performed Myrta's abortion, the CDC classified her death as being due to illegal abortion rather than legal abortion. The other deaths at that facility -- Ruth Montero, Shirley Payne, and Maura Morales -- were counted as legal abortion deaths.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Since Zaldivar's license was inactive at the time he performed Myrta's abortion, the CDC classified her death as being due to illegal abortion rather than legal abortion. The other deaths at that facility -- Ruth Montero, Shirley Payne, and Maura Morales -- were counted as legal abortion deaths.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Anniversary: Abortion by midwife proves fatal
On December 18, 1923, 40-year-old Sophia Hartozinski died at Chicago's County Hospital due to a criminal abortion performed there that day. The coroner identified a midwife, Mary Roback, as having been responsible for Sophia's death.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Searches: Quacks and miracles
Harvey Karman (pictured) was a self-styled "doctor" who managed to kill Joyce Johnson by doing an abortion on her with a nutcracker in a California motel room. This endeared him to abortion enthusiasts, who embraced his "menstrual extraction" method of very early abortion, and provided him with a busload of guinea pigs for his experimental "super coil" abortion method.The failed abortion who has a name: Ximenia Renearts
On December 16, 1985, 22-year-old Nadine Bourne arrived at the emergency room of Vancouver General Hospital, seeking care for complications of an abortion she'd undergone four days earlier at a Bellingham, Washington Planned Parenthood. She had fever and a rapid pulse. She said that she'd been 14 to 16 weeks pregnant.
Dr. Jaroudi, a resident, was summoned by the ER physian. He examined Nadine but failed to notice that she was still pregnant. Nadine was admitted to the hospital.
At 3:20 a.m. the next morning, December 17, Nadine gave birth to her baby while seated on the toilet. The little girl weighed about three pounds -- more consistent with an infant close to term, well into the third trimester.
A nurse, Vera Wood, did not call a resuscitation team or an infant transport team to take the shivering, whimpering, gasping infant to Children's Hospital. Instead, according to court records, "She took the baby into the service room where dead fetuses are stored, and left it there [in a bedpan] for 40 minutes."
Thomas Berger, an attorney representing the child and her adoptive family noted, "We could prove that Vera Wood and other nurses did nothing to suction the baby or to provide warmth or oxygen for the child. Our case was that the baby suffered severe [trauma] as a result of these acts or omissions by VGH and its employees, resulting in brain damage in the form of mental retardation and cerebral palsy." After 40 minutes, nurse Wood called the night nursing supervisor, Joyce Hatherall, who cleared the baby's air passages, provided warmth and called for oxygen.
Mr. Berger also said, "We also had evidence that Dr. Jaroudi, called up to the ward, realized the baby had been delivered by Nadine Bourne, and realized it was viable, but nevertheless told the nurses not to resuscitate the baby ('...let it go'). He was ignored by Joyce Hatherall."
But even after Hatherall's intervention, the baby was placed on a metal counter, where she likely suffered further hypothermia. And when Jaroudi finally contacted the transport team for Children's Hospital, he gave them insufficient information, causing an additional half-hour delay in providing care to the baby.
That neglected baby, left to die, has since been adopted. And she has a name: Ximenia Renearts. But thanks to the attempts on her life both before and after her birth, she suffered permanent brain damage. She is quadriplegic and has the mental capacity of a three-year-old.
BC police made two abortive (how appropriate!) investigations of the case, with spokesman Sergeant Bob Cooper calling the case "bullshit", comparing it to cases where children die when being delivered by midwives. Which leaves me wondering if BC midwives routinely leave premature infants in metal bedpans in the closet for over half an hour at a time before somebody else comes along and provides care over the midwives' objections.
Part of the reason for the callous attitude of the police may be that the spokesman for the BC Minister of Health's Office, Michelle Stewart, is dismissive of the issue of infants born live during abortions, commenting, "As you know, this Ministry is very much in favor of giving women choices about their reproductive health." Which indiates to me that at least in this woman's mind, "choices" about "reproductive health" include the choice to have a near-term live-born infant put to death if the mother doesn't want her.
British Columbia's Chief Coroner Larry Campbell included a letter in a report on such live births, and dismissed them as to be expected in abortion and therefore outside the purview of BC coroners, who only get involved if a death is "unexpected". In other words, at least in British Columbia, abortion is 100% about achieving the death of the infant, even if the infant is born alive. Which leaves me to wonder if a perpetrator who shot Ximenia dead tomorrow would face charges at all. Is she still, legally, only an aborted fetus?
The family filed suit against the hospital, the doctor, and the nurse, settling out of court for over $8 million, which will be used to build an accessible hosue for Ximena and to provide her with the care she will need for the rest of her life.
The hospital never conducted an internal review of how a live-born infant came to be treated like a pathology specimen on their premises, in violation of the law forbidding anyone to abandon or expose a child under the age of ten "so that its life is or is likely to be endangered or its health is or is likely to be permanently injured." Under Canadian law, having been born alive, Ximenia was a living human being entitled to full protection under the law. Prolife activists hold that chareges of attempted murder might be more appropriate, since nurse Wood's intent in putting the child in the bedpan aside in a room for dead fetuses was to allow the baby to die and be sent to the pathology lab with the other results of recent abortions.
Ximena's adoptive mother, Margaret, says, "How can you ever bring justice when all the damage is done? I guess my big hope that what happened to Ximena won't be in vain. It could be you in the hospital and what if they feel that you're not worthy of life. We have to stop somewhere."
Dr. Jaroudi, a resident, was summoned by the ER physian. He examined Nadine but failed to notice that she was still pregnant. Nadine was admitted to the hospital.
At 3:20 a.m. the next morning, December 17, Nadine gave birth to her baby while seated on the toilet. The little girl weighed about three pounds -- more consistent with an infant close to term, well into the third trimester.
A nurse, Vera Wood, did not call a resuscitation team or an infant transport team to take the shivering, whimpering, gasping infant to Children's Hospital. Instead, according to court records, "She took the baby into the service room where dead fetuses are stored, and left it there [in a bedpan] for 40 minutes."
Thomas Berger, an attorney representing the child and her adoptive family noted, "We could prove that Vera Wood and other nurses did nothing to suction the baby or to provide warmth or oxygen for the child. Our case was that the baby suffered severe [trauma] as a result of these acts or omissions by VGH and its employees, resulting in brain damage in the form of mental retardation and cerebral palsy." After 40 minutes, nurse Wood called the night nursing supervisor, Joyce Hatherall, who cleared the baby's air passages, provided warmth and called for oxygen.
Mr. Berger also said, "We also had evidence that Dr. Jaroudi, called up to the ward, realized the baby had been delivered by Nadine Bourne, and realized it was viable, but nevertheless told the nurses not to resuscitate the baby ('...let it go'). He was ignored by Joyce Hatherall."
But even after Hatherall's intervention, the baby was placed on a metal counter, where she likely suffered further hypothermia. And when Jaroudi finally contacted the transport team for Children's Hospital, he gave them insufficient information, causing an additional half-hour delay in providing care to the baby.
That neglected baby, left to die, has since been adopted. And she has a name: Ximenia Renearts. But thanks to the attempts on her life both before and after her birth, she suffered permanent brain damage. She is quadriplegic and has the mental capacity of a three-year-old.
BC police made two abortive (how appropriate!) investigations of the case, with spokesman Sergeant Bob Cooper calling the case "bullshit", comparing it to cases where children die when being delivered by midwives. Which leaves me wondering if BC midwives routinely leave premature infants in metal bedpans in the closet for over half an hour at a time before somebody else comes along and provides care over the midwives' objections.
Part of the reason for the callous attitude of the police may be that the spokesman for the BC Minister of Health's Office, Michelle Stewart, is dismissive of the issue of infants born live during abortions, commenting, "As you know, this Ministry is very much in favor of giving women choices about their reproductive health." Which indiates to me that at least in this woman's mind, "choices" about "reproductive health" include the choice to have a near-term live-born infant put to death if the mother doesn't want her.
British Columbia's Chief Coroner Larry Campbell included a letter in a report on such live births, and dismissed them as to be expected in abortion and therefore outside the purview of BC coroners, who only get involved if a death is "unexpected". In other words, at least in British Columbia, abortion is 100% about achieving the death of the infant, even if the infant is born alive. Which leaves me to wonder if a perpetrator who shot Ximenia dead tomorrow would face charges at all. Is she still, legally, only an aborted fetus?
The family filed suit against the hospital, the doctor, and the nurse, settling out of court for over $8 million, which will be used to build an accessible hosue for Ximena and to provide her with the care she will need for the rest of her life.
The hospital never conducted an internal review of how a live-born infant came to be treated like a pathology specimen on their premises, in violation of the law forbidding anyone to abandon or expose a child under the age of ten "so that its life is or is likely to be endangered or its health is or is likely to be permanently injured." Under Canadian law, having been born alive, Ximenia was a living human being entitled to full protection under the law. Prolife activists hold that chareges of attempted murder might be more appropriate, since nurse Wood's intent in putting the child in the bedpan aside in a room for dead fetuses was to allow the baby to die and be sent to the pathology lab with the other results of recent abortions.
Ximena's adoptive mother, Margaret, says, "How can you ever bring justice when all the damage is done? I guess my big hope that what happened to Ximena won't be in vain. It could be you in the hospital and what if they feel that you're not worthy of life. We have to stop somewhere."
Sunday, December 16, 2007
A serious quack-fest
As I was blogging today's anniversaries, I noticed that we have a real quack-fest going on. Three of the four women whose deaths I am blogging about today died at the hands of habitual butchers. Two of those habitual butchers were safe and legal providers of vital reproductive health care services, and the other was evidently a role model.
Of today's four anniversaries, only Barbara Auerbach is not known to have been the victim of a serial botcher. Though she may well have been. My source documents did not identify the hospital where the fatal abortion was performed.
Our two victims of safe and legal vital reproductive health care services, Venus Ortiz and Mary Pena, suffered their fatal injuries under the care of National Abortion Federation member facilities.
Venus died after care at Eastern Women's Center in New York City, which had also allowed abortion patients Dawn Mack and Dawn Ravenelle to suffer fatal injuries.
Mary died after an abortion at San Vicente abortion hospital (Why would you name an abortion hospital after a Catholic saint?), which had already killed Sara Lint and Natalie Meyers before being bought out by National Abortion Federation member Familiy Practice Associates Medical Group shortly before Mary's death. And after Mary's death, Joyce Ortenzio died from care received at San Vicente. All of which is par for the course at Family Planning Associates Medical Group.
Other women and girls who died from their safe and legal abortions at FPA facilities include Deanna Bell, Chanelle Bryant, Patricia Chacon, Laniece Dorsey, Josefina Garcia, Denise Holmes, Susan Levy, Christina Mora, Kimberly Neil, and Tami Suematsu. That I know of.
But FPA owner Edward "Fast Eddie" Allred evidently had his role model in the doctor who was responsible for the death of the other woman whose fatal anniversary I mark today. Dr. Lucy Hagenow of Chicago was the "Fast Eddie" of her day, it seems. Courtesy of a revolving-door legal system in Chicago, she was able to do her dirty work on Bridget Masterson, Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Mary Moorehead, Jean Cohen, Elizabeth Welter, and Marie Hicht.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
From these needless tragedies, the prolife and prochoice can both learn important lessons:
1. For the prochoice: Legalization didn't eliminate quacks. It just changed their legal battles from staying out of prison to dealing with lawsuits.
2. For the prolife: Criminalization alone isn't enough to stop these butchers. We have to enforce the laws, not just put them on the books.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Of today's four anniversaries, only Barbara Auerbach is not known to have been the victim of a serial botcher. Though she may well have been. My source documents did not identify the hospital where the fatal abortion was performed.
Our two victims of safe and legal vital reproductive health care services, Venus Ortiz and Mary Pena, suffered their fatal injuries under the care of National Abortion Federation member facilities.
Venus died after care at Eastern Women's Center in New York City, which had also allowed abortion patients Dawn Mack and Dawn Ravenelle to suffer fatal injuries.
Mary died after an abortion at San Vicente abortion hospital (Why would you name an abortion hospital after a Catholic saint?), which had already killed Sara Lint and Natalie Meyers before being bought out by National Abortion Federation member Familiy Practice Associates Medical Group shortly before Mary's death. And after Mary's death, Joyce Ortenzio died from care received at San Vicente. All of which is par for the course at Family Planning Associates Medical Group.
Other women and girls who died from their safe and legal abortions at FPA facilities include Deanna Bell, Chanelle Bryant, Patricia Chacon, Laniece Dorsey, Josefina Garcia, Denise Holmes, Susan Levy, Christina Mora, Kimberly Neil, and Tami Suematsu. That I know of.
But FPA owner Edward "Fast Eddie" Allred evidently had his role model in the doctor who was responsible for the death of the other woman whose fatal anniversary I mark today. Dr. Lucy Hagenow of Chicago was the "Fast Eddie" of her day, it seems. Courtesy of a revolving-door legal system in Chicago, she was able to do her dirty work on Bridget Masterson, Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Mary Moorehead, Jean Cohen, Elizabeth Welter, and Marie Hicht.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
From these needless tragedies, the prolife and prochoice can both learn important lessons:
1. For the prochoice: Legalization didn't eliminate quacks. It just changed their legal battles from staying out of prison to dealing with lawsuits.
2. For the prolife: Criminalization alone isn't enough to stop these butchers. We have to enforce the laws, not just put them on the books.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Anniversary: Bowel obstruction from safe, legal abortion claims mom's life
Barbara Auerbach was 38 years old when she went to a New York hospital for a safe, legal abortion and tubal ligation, performed December 11, 1982. Two days later, she was discharged.
On December 16, Barbara was vomiting and suffering from back pain and inability to void her bladder. She was admitted to Princeton Medical Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Doctors there tried in vain to save her life, but she died within three hours of being admitted. The autopsy showed that Barbara had an obstruction of her small bowel, which caused massive infection throughout her body.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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On December 16, Barbara was vomiting and suffering from back pain and inability to void her bladder. She was admitted to Princeton Medical Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Doctors there tried in vain to save her life, but she died within three hours of being admitted. The autopsy showed that Barbara had an obstruction of her small bowel, which caused massive infection throughout her body.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Anniversary: After six years in nursing home, NAF abortion patient dies
On December 16, 1998, 29-year-old Venus Ortiz died in a New York nursing home. She had been totally incapacitated, diagnosed as in a "vegetative state", since her safe and legal abortion nearly six years earlier, performed at National Abortion Federation member Eastern Women's Center when Venus was 23 years old.
Evidence indicated that the abortion of Venus' approximately 15-week pregnancy was performed by a Dr. Leiber. The abortion took place at Eastern on February 24, 1993. The suit filed by Venus' family alleged that there was negligence in administering anesthesia, and failure to establish an airway. Brevital, fentanyl, and midazolam were administered in dosages and manners contrary to standards of practice, causing Venus to suffer a synergistic reaction.
Eastern's staff failed to promptly diagnose and attend to cardio-pulmonary arrest. Eastern's notes of 5:35 PM indicate "2:35 PM end of surgery ... we noticed patient's ashen color and the pulse oximeter tracing and digital readout were gone from the monitor." Emergency medical services were called. The reading of Venus' blood pressure at that time was 90/55; four minutes later it was recorded as being 146/62.
Venus was transported by ambulance to a hospital, accompanied by Dr. Cyrus, Dr. Goodman, and/or Dr. Jeffrey P. Moskowitz. However, the damage had already been done. Venus was left in permanent need of respirator, with profound brain damage. She was hospitalized a little over five months before being transferred to permanent nursing home care.
To further underscore Eastern's neglect of patients' needs, the suit also noted that although this was her 4th abortion, Venus had not been referred to a social worker.
Two other patients, Dawn Ravenelle and Dawn Mack, also died of complications of abortions done at Eastern Women's Center.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Evidence indicated that the abortion of Venus' approximately 15-week pregnancy was performed by a Dr. Leiber. The abortion took place at Eastern on February 24, 1993. The suit filed by Venus' family alleged that there was negligence in administering anesthesia, and failure to establish an airway. Brevital, fentanyl, and midazolam were administered in dosages and manners contrary to standards of practice, causing Venus to suffer a synergistic reaction.
Eastern's staff failed to promptly diagnose and attend to cardio-pulmonary arrest. Eastern's notes of 5:35 PM indicate "2:35 PM end of surgery ... we noticed patient's ashen color and the pulse oximeter tracing and digital readout were gone from the monitor." Emergency medical services were called. The reading of Venus' blood pressure at that time was 90/55; four minutes later it was recorded as being 146/62.
Venus was transported by ambulance to a hospital, accompanied by Dr. Cyrus, Dr. Goodman, and/or Dr. Jeffrey P. Moskowitz. However, the damage had already been done. Venus was left in permanent need of respirator, with profound brain damage. She was hospitalized a little over five months before being transferred to permanent nursing home care.
To further underscore Eastern's neglect of patients' needs, the suit also noted that although this was her 4th abortion, Venus had not been referred to a social worker.
Two other patients, Dawn Ravenelle and Dawn Mack, also died of complications of abortions done at Eastern Women's Center.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Anniversary: The Fast Eddie of the Back Alley Era Strikes Again
On December 16, 1925, 22-year-old Miss Bridget Masterson died in her Chicago home from a botched abortion. Police were able to question Bridget prior to her death, but she refused to implicate anybody. John O'Malley, a boarder and the father of Bridget's baby, committed suicide by gas after learning of Bridget's death. He left a note implicating "a lady doctor at 310 W. North Ave."
This was the address of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.
Hagenow was arrested, but it is unclear when, since the date of her arrest is noted in my source as being the day prior to Bridget's death. Hagenow was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury on January 5, 1926.
This was the address of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.
Hagenow was arrested, but it is unclear when, since the date of her arrest is noted in my source as being the day prior to Bridget's death. Hagenow was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury on January 5, 1926.
There were a number of deaths in Chicago attributed to either a Lucy Hagenow or a Louise Hagenow. I believe these to be the same woman. The deaths include Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Mary Moorehead, Jean Cohen, Elizabeth Welter, and Marie Hicht. Hagenow seems to have been the "Fast Eddie" Allred of her day, butchering women left and right but getting off the hook again and again.
Many current and former legal abortionists report having been inspired to become "safe and legal" abortion providers because of having seen so many injured women go through Chicago's hospitals. Perhaps this is because the Illinois judicial system and/or Chicago judges were so lenient with abortionists like Hagenow. Does anybody know if other jurisdictions were so cavalier about setting quacks free to kill again?
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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Anniversary: Woman dies, abortion slips body through the morgue without an autopsy
On December 16, 1984, Mary Pena died from an abortion performed the previous day at at San Vincente Hospital in Los Angeles. Mary had thought that she was 3 months pregnant, but doctors discovered she was at 22-weeks. During the procedure, performed by either Edward Allred or Ruben Marmet, Mary was bleeding heavily, so a hysterectomy was performed in an effort to save her life. The surgery was not successful, and at 1:50 am on December 16, 1984, she died while on the operating table.
Mary was 43 years old and the mother of five.
The Investigator's Report states "Dr. Allred cleared the case with Coroner and body was released to the family picked mortuary ... and services held. When the death certificate was taken to Kern County Health Department they refused to accept it and called the case to Los Angeles Coroner. ... Mortuary in Bakersfield will bring body to this office for autopsy on morning of 12-20-84."
Only then was cause of death attributed to exsanguination due to cervical laceration due to therapeutic abortion. The cervix showed two lacerations - a small one that had been sutured and a large unsutured one extending through the full ring of the cervix. Once a cause for the fatal hemorrhage was determined, the death certificate was accepted, and Mary was laid to rest again.
San Vicente had been purchased by National Abortion Federation member Familiy Practice Associates Medical Group shortly before Mary's death. Sara Lint and Natalie Meyers had already died from abortions performed there. And after Mary's death, Joyce Ortenzio died.
Nevertheless, under the umbrella of FPA, San Vincente remained a NAF member.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Mary was 43 years old and the mother of five.
The Investigator's Report states "Dr. Allred cleared the case with Coroner and body was released to the family picked mortuary ... and services held. When the death certificate was taken to Kern County Health Department they refused to accept it and called the case to Los Angeles Coroner. ... Mortuary in Bakersfield will bring body to this office for autopsy on morning of 12-20-84."
Only then was cause of death attributed to exsanguination due to cervical laceration due to therapeutic abortion. The cervix showed two lacerations - a small one that had been sutured and a large unsutured one extending through the full ring of the cervix. Once a cause for the fatal hemorrhage was determined, the death certificate was accepted, and Mary was laid to rest again.
San Vicente had been purchased by National Abortion Federation member Familiy Practice Associates Medical Group shortly before Mary's death. Sara Lint and Natalie Meyers had already died from abortions performed there. And after Mary's death, Joyce Ortenzio died.
Nevertheless, under the umbrella of FPA, San Vincente remained a NAF member.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
West Coast Walk for Life: January 19, 2008
Visit the West Coast Walk for Life web site
Speakers will include:
Dr. Alveda King, of the Martin Luther King, Jr. family and Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life
Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor
Rev. Clenard Childress, Director of LEARN
Jesse Romero,Radio Host and Evangalist
Fr. Frank Pavone from Priests for Life
And special invited speaker: Eduardo Verástegui, star of Bella
See ZombieTime's excellent photos of the 2006 West Coast Walk for Life.
Speakers will include:
See ZombieTime's excellent photos of the 2006 West Coast Walk for Life.
Biological imperialism?
Is the prolife stand "biological imperialism?" Is it inconsistent with a Christian perspective? A post to my old Pro Life Views Forum said so. I will respond to some of the issues this thought-provoking post raised.
I like this guy already. "Women's rights have nothing to do with the debate because they are common ground." That's what I've been saying for over 20 years. Nobody wants to see women abused or hurt. Where the prolife and prochoice disagree isn't whether women's rights should be preserved and respected, but how. More on this here. For now, back to the post:
This is one of the best presentations of the prolife stand I've ever seen coming from a prochoicer. The only bone of contention is that we define the individual in terms of DNA. We present the fact that the fetus has its own distinct DNA to illustrate that the fetus is not part of the mother's body. Identical twins have identical DNA, and prolifers don't consider them to be one entity, even if they are conjoined twins like the Hensel sisters. The DNA is, as it were, a blueprint for in individual. If, as in the case of identical twins, two individuals have the same DNA, that means that they began with the same blueprint. But they nevertheless are two separate and distinct individuals, each with an equal right to life.
Back to the post:
This is true. The study of biology can try to tell us how the gametes become a zygote, what the differences are between the gametes and the zygote, and when the zygote does the things that zygotes do. But biology can not answer the question of whether we should let the zygote be killed.
Here is where he and I part ways. I agree that prolifers start with, as their premise, "Individuals have rights." But then, that's the starting point for the prochoice argument. Where prolife and prochoice part ways is in how they define an individual. The post goes on to illustrate this very fact:
Again, a very succinct summation of the prochoice argument, although I've noticed that the prochoice do tend to be a little more varied in terms of defining the individual's point of coming into being. Some draw the line at birth, others at "quickening," others at "viability," others at developmental milestones that they find particularly significant. And herein lies the crux of the matter: the prolife define the individual existentially (He exists, therefore he is an individual), and the prochoice define the individual developmentally or behaviorally (He has X or can do Y, therefore he is an individual).
Here is where we again start drifting apart. Biology doesn't say a person is DNA. Biology says that a distinct individual being comes into existence when the two gametes merge and form a zygote. So here we have the individual. What type of individual the entity is depends upon the DNA -- is this an individual chimpanzee, rainbow trout, or human?
The prolife view isn't that the person is his or her DNA. It is that the person is a person as soon as he or she comes into existence, and not at some other arbitrarily chosen point later.
I'll buy the distinction -- Moral Agent is one who is aware of the consequences of his or her actions and is therefore responsible for his or her actions; Moral Patient is one who may not be self aware, but is capable of being impacted by the actions of others.
But from conception the zygote, thought not self-aware, can suffer from the actions of moral agents. He or she has an entire natural lifespan that belongs to him or her morally. A moral agent harms the zygote if he or she kills the zygote, thereby denying him or her the lifespan that he or she should have had. If the zygote is killed before he or she becomes aware, then the zygote is harmed more, not harmed less, because he or she is denied the opportunity to become aware of and purposefully interactive with his or her environment.
This is a misconception (ha!) of both the prolife and prochoice perspectives. To the prolife person, it's not that the fetus has the same rights as an adult human being. He or she does not have the right to vote, own property, marry, et cetera. He or she merely has a right to exist and to not be deliberately harmed by others. More clearly, we hold that moral agents have duties toward the zygote: duties to protect and nurture him or her until he or she matures enough to be entrusted to the care of other moral agents, or to his or her own care. It is his or her value, not rights, upon which we focus. Our personal preferences, we hold, are just preferences, with no moral standing. We may prefer Jay Leno to David Letterman, but each has equal moral value as a human life. We may prefer the child with Down Syndrome to the healthy adult who refuses to hold down a job, but each person is of equal moral worth as a human life. One or the other may contribute more to, or take more from, the community, but neither life is more expendable.
However, there's a corollary we, the prolife, tend to embrace as well -- that the more vulnerable the person, the greater the duty of moral agents to protect that person from harm. And the more powerful the person, the greater his or her duty to protect others from harm. Therefore, from the prolife standpoint, the fact that the fetus is small and immature and dependent confers upon those with power over him or her a duty to protect and nurture him or her. And if there are even further vulnerabilities, such as congenital conditions, then there is an even greater duty to protect, to offset that person's greater vulnerability.
In a more concrete example of how this principle plays out, if there's a tornado heading your way, you have a greater duty to help the infirm, elderly, and children to get to shelter than you do to help the able-bodied and intelligent adult to find shelter. The able-bodied intelligent adult has his own strengths to get through the crisis and seek shelter from the tornado, so we have less of an obligation to him. But by the same token, his life is of equal value, so we may not deny him entrance to the tornado shelter purely because he is a healthy intelligent adult, even if he is an adult that neglects his duties. He would have a duty, though, to give up a space in an overcrowded shelter to the infirm, elderly, and children. It's the old "Women and children first" credo. When the ship is sinking, the children, being the most vulnerable, go in the life boats first. They need adults to care for them, so we must put adults in the life boats as well. Since the men typically are stronger and more likely to be able to fend for themselves (clinging to drift wood, building a raft out of deck chairs, whatever), the women go into the boat to care for the children. It's not a matter of who we value more, but to whom we have the greater duty. (An infirm man, say, Stephen Hawkings, would go into the lifeboat before a healthy woman -- Hillary Swank, perhaps -- not because we value Hawkings more than Swank, but because being stronger and more capable, Swank has a duty to protect Hawkings.)
The prochoice, on the other hand, hold that the newly conceived entity has variable value, depending upon many things that each prochoicer formulates in his own way. The value they place on the entity depends upon the entity's age, developmental milestones, health, proximity to society's ideal of human perfection, and attitudes of the moral agents, particularly the mother. In other words, different prochoice folks give different weight to the entity's age, developmental milestones, health, proximity to the current ideal of perfection (smart, tall, attractive, etc), and attitudes of the moral agents who have power over that particular entity. The heaviest weight tends to be given to the attitudes of the moral agents who have power over the new entity, with the entity's mother holding all the aces. If the moral agents who have power over the new entity place no value on it, or hold animosity toward it, this outweighs almost all the value conferred upon it by age, health, development, and proximity to the ideal of perfection.
The "official" prochoice stand is that the will of the moral agent --most typically, the mother -- is absolute and will utterly trump anything else as long as the decision made by the moral agent as to the fate of the unborn entity is made prior to birth. (I say "moral agent" rather than "mother" because if the mother is in some way incapacitated or has been decreed "unfit" by powerful moral agents around her such as psychiatrists treating a mentally ill mother, the official prochoice stand is that her spouse, parents, physician, or the courts can make the decision to have the unborn entity put to death on her behalf.) The will of the moral agent is absolute. There is no degree of developmental sophistication, proximity to societal ideals of perfection, et cetera, that could trump the decision by the moral agent with power over the entity if they want that unborn entity to die. Should the unborn entity survive the attempt to kill it prior to its full emergence from the uterus, those carrying out the execution are obligated to ensure that the entity dies through neglect or whatever other means are necessary.
Most rank-and-file prochoice citizens have an age, developmental milestone, or other measure that at some point overrides the decision of the moral agent to have the unborn entity put to death. Some draw the line at birth, saying that if the entity survives the attempt to kill him or her in utero, he or she should be spared -- like the tradition of allowing the condemned man to go free if the rope breaks while you're trying to hang him. Others draw the line at some other developmental milestone such as "viability" or "12 weeks." And it is not at all uncommon for prochoice citizens to draw a grey zone during which the unborn entity's ailments or the degree to which he or she falls short of the societal ideal of perfection lowers his or her value to the point where the mother may, if she wishes, kill that unborn entity as if he or she were younger or less developed.
Yes; but the fetus was the entity he or she is ever since he or she came into existence. There is a point before which the zygote did not exist. One can not have rights when one does not exist, and one can not have obligations and duties toward a specific entity that does not exist. "Thou shalt not kill" can't apply if there isn't any entity to kill.
Why is it "clearly far too late?" After all, there are some moral agents that hold that we have no obligations toward born humans unless those humans meet certain ideals of perfection, such as intelligence, health, and soundness of limb. There are some who would hold that humans with IQs of less than 40 are not "moral patients," and that they have no rights, and we have no duties toward them. The full prochoice spectrum does include those who hold that even after birth, the parents (now both parents rather than just the mother) should still have full rights to demand the death of the new human entity if he or she lacks certain criteria of health, intellect, and soundness of limb. Once we say that the mere existence of a human being does not confer any rights upon that human being, and that we have no duties to that human being just because he exists, what reason is there to draw the line at any particular point?
We don't use that argument because it's not the basis of our stand toward protecting the vulnerable. It's not a question of what God does; it's what He expects of us: to love our neighbor as ourselves. We don't see any reason to start nit-picking about who constitutes our "neighbor," because we were told not to. If a vulnerable person crosses paths with us, we're not to sit around debating, "Is this our neighbor or not? Does he or she meet a list of neighbor criteria?" Since it's been clarified throughout the Bible that our neighbor includes our enemies, people of other cultures and faiths, the battered and sick, the naked and hungry, little children, and "the least of these, my brothers and sisters," there's no point in letting ourselves get side tracked on what's a purely intellectual exercise. Is this a human being? Yes. Is this person in need? Yes. Then do for this person what he or she needs. We're not to pick and choose. It's as simple as that. We're not supposed to check creed, IQ, or health status. (In fact, the Apostles were sent forth with instructions to heal the sick and raise the dead, so lack of a pulse or respiration is clearly no excuse for just throwing somebody away; we're required to at least try to help the person. That is the point at which God either does something or not; if He answers the prayer and the dead person arises, then give him a bath and a meal and a change of clothes; if not, give him a decent burial.)
So all questions of DNA or whatever are irrelevant from a Christian perspective. If we're even supposed to give raising the dead a shot before we dig a hole and bury them, what possible excuse could we have for getting into debates about "ensoulment?" If the lack of pulse and respiration in what looks to be a dead body doesn't shed us of our duties toward that individual, why should the lack of sophistication in a fetus? He or she is there; that's all we need to know. If he or she is destined by God to die, then our efforts to nurture and protect will fail. But it will be through God's soverign will, not through our choice to ursurp that will and substitute our own.
Exactly. The Bible never mentions DNA or "quickening" or "ensoulment" or "viability." Christ's life as a man began at the Annunciation; the Birth was just the announcement to the world. Science can tell us the how and when of the miracle of two diploid cells that would die coming together into a new man or woman, made in the image of God. It's not our place to draw a line, to make a value judgment based on human criteria. If Christ was the Messiah from the moment He was engendered in Mary's body, who are we do decide that our own sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, aren't people just because we don't see them through God's eyes?
My opinion of the debate on abortion is that both sides use very poor arguments a lot of the time. Pro-life tends to use the biological imperialism argument, and pro-choice tends to try and frame the argument as a women's rights issue. The latter is simply dishonest. Women's rights have nothing to do with the debate because they are common ground. I won't waste time on that ridiculous argument.
I like this guy already. "Women's rights have nothing to do with the debate because they are common ground." That's what I've been saying for over 20 years. Nobody wants to see women abused or hurt. Where the prolife and prochoice disagree isn't whether women's rights should be preserved and respected, but how. More on this here. For now, back to the post:
Biological imperialism means the inappropriate use and application of biology and biological facts and theory into arguments where it isn't relevant or valid. It's a very odd position for Christian pro-lifers to take up, especially, because biological imperialism is often used in a lazy sort of attack on Christian beliefs. For example, "Science has disproved the Bible."
The standard argument for pro-life is usually something like this:
- Individuals have rights, including the right to life.
- In biology an individual is defined thus (in terms of DNA).
- Therefore a foetus is an individual, and has the right to life.
This is one of the best presentations of the prolife stand I've ever seen coming from a prochoicer. The only bone of contention is that we define the individual in terms of DNA. We present the fact that the fetus has its own distinct DNA to illustrate that the fetus is not part of the mother's body. Identical twins have identical DNA, and prolifers don't consider them to be one entity, even if they are conjoined twins like the Hensel sisters. The DNA is, as it were, a blueprint for in individual. If, as in the case of identical twins, two individuals have the same DNA, that means that they began with the same blueprint. But they nevertheless are two separate and distinct individuals, each with an equal right to life.
Back to the post:
But the abortion debate is not a debate about biology. It is a debate about ethics. Biology is the study of life (complex chemical interactions) and it gives answers to things like "how" and "what" and "when." It does not answer "should" or "ought."
This is true. The study of biology can try to tell us how the gametes become a zygote, what the differences are between the gametes and the zygote, and when the zygote does the things that zygotes do. But biology can not answer the question of whether we should let the zygote be killed.
Abortion is an ethical debate and the starting point of the argument above is a statement of ethics individuals have rights. Not a statement of biology. Therefore the correct definition of what constitutes an individual is not the biological one, but the ethical (moral philosophy) one.
Here is where he and I part ways. I agree that prolifers start with, as their premise, "Individuals have rights." But then, that's the starting point for the prochoice argument. Where prolife and prochoice part ways is in how they define an individual. The post goes on to illustrate this very fact:
I can show this better by varying the argument above a little, showing how a pro-choice argument running on the same lines (and making the same sort of error) would arrive at the opposite conclusion:
- Individuals have rights, including the right to life.
- In law an individual is defined thus (in terms of birth).
- Therefore a foetus is NOT an individual, and has no rights.
Again, a very succinct summation of the prochoice argument, although I've noticed that the prochoice do tend to be a little more varied in terms of defining the individual's point of coming into being. Some draw the line at birth, others at "quickening," others at "viability," others at developmental milestones that they find particularly significant. And herein lies the crux of the matter: the prolife define the individual existentially (He exists, therefore he is an individual), and the prochoice define the individual developmentally or behaviorally (He has X or can do Y, therefore he is an individual).
But this would just by substituting one incorrect field of study (law) for the other inappropriate field of study (biology). Both are invalid reasoning. Certainly both law and, more so biology, can have a lot to say about the abortion debate when valid biological questions arise. For example, if the question, "At what point can a foetus feel pain?" becomes relevant to the debate, biology has an answer. Biology has nothing to say directly about what makes a person a person in the ethical sense. Biology just shrugs and says "a person is DNA." But in ethics someone is a lot more important than their DNA. DNA is not the answer. To say DNA is the answer to what makes a person a person, is to push biological imperialism.
Here is where we again start drifting apart. Biology doesn't say a person is DNA. Biology says that a distinct individual being comes into existence when the two gametes merge and form a zygote. So here we have the individual. What type of individual the entity is depends upon the DNA -- is this an individual chimpanzee, rainbow trout, or human?
The prolife view isn't that the person is his or her DNA. It is that the person is a person as soon as he or she comes into existence, and not at some other arbitrarily chosen point later.
What does ethics (moral philosophy) say about what constitutes a person? There are two types of person (I'm using the terms Tom Regan uses in Animal Rights here). The normal adult human would be called a moral agent. A moral agent is someone who has moral duties. They are smart enough to be aware of the likely outcome of their acts, and they know the difference between right and wrong. They are morally culpable if they fail to do right. They have duties.
A second type of person in ethics is the moral patient. A moral patient has rights. They may not have the sense to know what they are doing, they may not even be self-aware, but they are capable of suffering the harm of others actions. They have sensitivity to their environment. They can be hurt.
On the basis of these definitions of "person" --- the valid ethical definition, not a biological or legal definition --- you can see that a foetus is not a moral agent. In fact some laws say children don't become fully moral agents (held responsible for their actions) until they are teenagers.
I'll buy the distinction -- Moral Agent is one who is aware of the consequences of his or her actions and is therefore responsible for his or her actions; Moral Patient is one who may not be self aware, but is capable of being impacted by the actions of others.
It's also clear that at conception a foetus (zygote) is not a moral patient. It is a moral patient before it reaches birth. At what point it becomes a moral patient is a question of biology and it is somewhere around 10-14 weeks. I think this vague range provides a better starting point to the debate than the day-zero advocates at either end.
But from conception the zygote, thought not self-aware, can suffer from the actions of moral agents. He or she has an entire natural lifespan that belongs to him or her morally. A moral agent harms the zygote if he or she kills the zygote, thereby denying him or her the lifespan that he or she should have had. If the zygote is killed before he or she becomes aware, then the zygote is harmed more, not harmed less, because he or she is denied the opportunity to become aware of and purposefully interactive with his or her environment.
The day-zero advocate says that up until a certain point in time the foetus (zygote / baby / whatever it is at the time) is worthless junk. So much spare parts. At a certain point magically the same chemicals are pronounced to have the full rights of a normal adult human being. This is the position shared by both pro-life advocates and pro-abortion advocates. Pro-life wave the magic wand over the zygote and say that upon fusion of DNA the zygote gains rights. Previously it was so much chemical mush. Pro-abortion advocates wave the wand at birth. Again both these arbitrary dates are defended by invalid applications of biological or legal definitions of "person" (respectively). A valid treatment of the definition of "person" leaves no fixed date, no day-zero to hang a nail on in this way. Life just isn't that simple.
This is a misconception (ha!) of both the prolife and prochoice perspectives. To the prolife person, it's not that the fetus has the same rights as an adult human being. He or she does not have the right to vote, own property, marry, et cetera. He or she merely has a right to exist and to not be deliberately harmed by others. More clearly, we hold that moral agents have duties toward the zygote: duties to protect and nurture him or her until he or she matures enough to be entrusted to the care of other moral agents, or to his or her own care. It is his or her value, not rights, upon which we focus. Our personal preferences, we hold, are just preferences, with no moral standing. We may prefer Jay Leno to David Letterman, but each has equal moral value as a human life. We may prefer the child with Down Syndrome to the healthy adult who refuses to hold down a job, but each person is of equal moral worth as a human life. One or the other may contribute more to, or take more from, the community, but neither life is more expendable.
However, there's a corollary we, the prolife, tend to embrace as well -- that the more vulnerable the person, the greater the duty of moral agents to protect that person from harm. And the more powerful the person, the greater his or her duty to protect others from harm. Therefore, from the prolife standpoint, the fact that the fetus is small and immature and dependent confers upon those with power over him or her a duty to protect and nurture him or her. And if there are even further vulnerabilities, such as congenital conditions, then there is an even greater duty to protect, to offset that person's greater vulnerability.
In a more concrete example of how this principle plays out, if there's a tornado heading your way, you have a greater duty to help the infirm, elderly, and children to get to shelter than you do to help the able-bodied and intelligent adult to find shelter. The able-bodied intelligent adult has his own strengths to get through the crisis and seek shelter from the tornado, so we have less of an obligation to him. But by the same token, his life is of equal value, so we may not deny him entrance to the tornado shelter purely because he is a healthy intelligent adult, even if he is an adult that neglects his duties. He would have a duty, though, to give up a space in an overcrowded shelter to the infirm, elderly, and children. It's the old "Women and children first" credo. When the ship is sinking, the children, being the most vulnerable, go in the life boats first. They need adults to care for them, so we must put adults in the life boats as well. Since the men typically are stronger and more likely to be able to fend for themselves (clinging to drift wood, building a raft out of deck chairs, whatever), the women go into the boat to care for the children. It's not a matter of who we value more, but to whom we have the greater duty. (An infirm man, say, Stephen Hawkings, would go into the lifeboat before a healthy woman -- Hillary Swank, perhaps -- not because we value Hawkings more than Swank, but because being stronger and more capable, Swank has a duty to protect Hawkings.)
The prochoice, on the other hand, hold that the newly conceived entity has variable value, depending upon many things that each prochoicer formulates in his own way. The value they place on the entity depends upon the entity's age, developmental milestones, health, proximity to society's ideal of human perfection, and attitudes of the moral agents, particularly the mother. In other words, different prochoice folks give different weight to the entity's age, developmental milestones, health, proximity to the current ideal of perfection (smart, tall, attractive, etc), and attitudes of the moral agents who have power over that particular entity. The heaviest weight tends to be given to the attitudes of the moral agents who have power over the new entity, with the entity's mother holding all the aces. If the moral agents who have power over the new entity place no value on it, or hold animosity toward it, this outweighs almost all the value conferred upon it by age, health, development, and proximity to the ideal of perfection.
The "official" prochoice stand is that the will of the moral agent --most typically, the mother -- is absolute and will utterly trump anything else as long as the decision made by the moral agent as to the fate of the unborn entity is made prior to birth. (I say "moral agent" rather than "mother" because if the mother is in some way incapacitated or has been decreed "unfit" by powerful moral agents around her such as psychiatrists treating a mentally ill mother, the official prochoice stand is that her spouse, parents, physician, or the courts can make the decision to have the unborn entity put to death on her behalf.) The will of the moral agent is absolute. There is no degree of developmental sophistication, proximity to societal ideals of perfection, et cetera, that could trump the decision by the moral agent with power over the entity if they want that unborn entity to die. Should the unborn entity survive the attempt to kill it prior to its full emergence from the uterus, those carrying out the execution are obligated to ensure that the entity dies through neglect or whatever other means are necessary.
Most rank-and-file prochoice citizens have an age, developmental milestone, or other measure that at some point overrides the decision of the moral agent to have the unborn entity put to death. Some draw the line at birth, saying that if the entity survives the attempt to kill him or her in utero, he or she should be spared -- like the tradition of allowing the condemned man to go free if the rope breaks while you're trying to hang him. Others draw the line at some other developmental milestone such as "viability" or "12 weeks." And it is not at all uncommon for prochoice citizens to draw a grey zone during which the unborn entity's ailments or the degree to which he or she falls short of the societal ideal of perfection lowers his or her value to the point where the mother may, if she wishes, kill that unborn entity as if he or she were younger or less developed.
Life is a process and the foetus doesn't suddenly become anything. It gradually develops hardly changing from minute to minute, but changing vastly over the nine months. Any arbitrary point chosen to say that the foetus has rights after that point, would be subject to an argument of "Well what about the same foetus 2 minutes earlier? Doesn't that have the same rights? What's the difference?!?"
Yes; but the fetus was the entity he or she is ever since he or she came into existence. There is a point before which the zygote did not exist. One can not have rights when one does not exist, and one can not have obligations and duties toward a specific entity that does not exist. "Thou shalt not kill" can't apply if there isn't any entity to kill.
If anything birth is the better choice of the two for a "day-zero" because at birth a baby suddenly has to start breathing and experiencing the real world for the first time. There are a lot of very rapid changes within minutes. But its clearly far too late, and hardly anyone would want abortion on demand up to birth.
Why is it "clearly far too late?" After all, there are some moral agents that hold that we have no obligations toward born humans unless those humans meet certain ideals of perfection, such as intelligence, health, and soundness of limb. There are some who would hold that humans with IQs of less than 40 are not "moral patients," and that they have no rights, and we have no duties toward them. The full prochoice spectrum does include those who hold that even after birth, the parents (now both parents rather than just the mother) should still have full rights to demand the death of the new human entity if he or she lacks certain criteria of health, intellect, and soundness of limb. Once we say that the mere existence of a human being does not confer any rights upon that human being, and that we have no duties to that human being just because he exists, what reason is there to draw the line at any particular point?
From a Christian (religious) point of view you could argue that God "does something" at a particular moment. I've noticed Christians tend to avoid using religious based arguments like that (I don't know why).
We don't use that argument because it's not the basis of our stand toward protecting the vulnerable. It's not a question of what God does; it's what He expects of us: to love our neighbor as ourselves. We don't see any reason to start nit-picking about who constitutes our "neighbor," because we were told not to. If a vulnerable person crosses paths with us, we're not to sit around debating, "Is this our neighbor or not? Does he or she meet a list of neighbor criteria?" Since it's been clarified throughout the Bible that our neighbor includes our enemies, people of other cultures and faiths, the battered and sick, the naked and hungry, little children, and "the least of these, my brothers and sisters," there's no point in letting ourselves get side tracked on what's a purely intellectual exercise. Is this a human being? Yes. Is this person in need? Yes. Then do for this person what he or she needs. We're not to pick and choose. It's as simple as that. We're not supposed to check creed, IQ, or health status. (In fact, the Apostles were sent forth with instructions to heal the sick and raise the dead, so lack of a pulse or respiration is clearly no excuse for just throwing somebody away; we're required to at least try to help the person. That is the point at which God either does something or not; if He answers the prayer and the dead person arises, then give him a bath and a meal and a change of clothes; if not, give him a decent burial.)
So all questions of DNA or whatever are irrelevant from a Christian perspective. If we're even supposed to give raising the dead a shot before we dig a hole and bury them, what possible excuse could we have for getting into debates about "ensoulment?" If the lack of pulse and respiration in what looks to be a dead body doesn't shed us of our duties toward that individual, why should the lack of sophistication in a fetus? He or she is there; that's all we need to know. If he or she is destined by God to die, then our efforts to nurture and protect will fail. But it will be through God's soverign will, not through our choice to ursurp that will and substitute our own.
So please, no more "day-zero" arguments unless you can show the day in question is not arbitrary on ethical grounds. Don't tell me a man is no more than his or her DNA. I am more than my DNA.
Exactly. The Bible never mentions DNA or "quickening" or "ensoulment" or "viability." Christ's life as a man began at the Annunciation; the Birth was just the announcement to the world. Science can tell us the how and when of the miracle of two diploid cells that would die coming together into a new man or woman, made in the image of God. It's not our place to draw a line, to make a value judgment based on human criteria. If Christ was the Messiah from the moment He was engendered in Mary's body, who are we do decide that our own sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, aren't people just because we don't see them through God's eyes?
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Search: "Back alley abortion deaths"
I presume the person searching is interested only in those horrible deaths before legalization, rather than those horrible deaths that happened after legalization.
I can be cooperative. There were those criminal abortions performed by doctors. Those were, after all, the most common, accounting for perhaps 90% of illegal abortions, according to Mary Calderone, then-Medical Director of Planned Parenthood. Also according to the proceedings of the 1955 Conference on Induced Abortion. Also according to researcher Nancy Howell Lee.
The second most common type were those performed by nurses, midwives, and other people with some sort of medical training. Many of them had a physician providing training, equipment, medications, and emergency back-up.
Then there were those performed by people with no medical training. They could range from ordinary homemakers or the woman's paramour, to trained laypersons like the "Jane" collective in Chicago, that that had physician backup and training (albeit inexcusably poor judgment).
Rarest of all, and persisting to this day, are the self-induced abortions.
Frankly, I don't understand the obsession with dividing abortion into "bad" and "good" along lines of overall legality if the end result is the same.
Yeah, Barbara Lofrumento's abortionist chopped her up and flushed her down the toilet and garbage disposal when she died under his care. Yeah, Jacqueline Smith's abortionist, and the boyfriend who had arranged the fatal abortion, cut her up, wrapped her in Christmas paper, and tossed the pieces in New York City public trash cans. Yeah, illegal abortionists could be terrible.
But when Angela Sanchez died, her abortionist called an accomplice to help her stuff the body into the trunk of Angela's car. Magdalena Rodriguez was left unattended, bleeding out on the floor. Gaylene Golden died under the care of Joe Bills Reynolds, who had his janitor administering anesthesia in his trash-littered operating room. Jammie Garcia drowned in her own feculent fluids because her abortionist had shoved her fetus into her bowl and left it there to block things up. Carolina Gutierrez endured the amputation of her gangrenous limbs in a futile attempt to save her from abortion-related sepsis.
Call me a wierdo antichoice freakazoid, but I don't see any improvement.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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I can be cooperative. There were those criminal abortions performed by doctors. Those were, after all, the most common, accounting for perhaps 90% of illegal abortions, according to Mary Calderone, then-Medical Director of Planned Parenthood. Also according to the proceedings of the 1955 Conference on Induced Abortion. Also according to researcher Nancy Howell Lee.
The second most common type were those performed by nurses, midwives, and other people with some sort of medical training. Many of them had a physician providing training, equipment, medications, and emergency back-up.
Then there were those performed by people with no medical training. They could range from ordinary homemakers or the woman's paramour, to trained laypersons like the "Jane" collective in Chicago, that that had physician backup and training (albeit inexcusably poor judgment).
Rarest of all, and persisting to this day, are the self-induced abortions.
Frankly, I don't understand the obsession with dividing abortion into "bad" and "good" along lines of overall legality if the end result is the same.
Yeah, Barbara Lofrumento's abortionist chopped her up and flushed her down the toilet and garbage disposal when she died under his care. Yeah, Jacqueline Smith's abortionist, and the boyfriend who had arranged the fatal abortion, cut her up, wrapped her in Christmas paper, and tossed the pieces in New York City public trash cans. Yeah, illegal abortionists could be terrible.
But when Angela Sanchez died, her abortionist called an accomplice to help her stuff the body into the trunk of Angela's car. Magdalena Rodriguez was left unattended, bleeding out on the floor. Gaylene Golden died under the care of Joe Bills Reynolds, who had his janitor administering anesthesia in his trash-littered operating room. Jammie Garcia drowned in her own feculent fluids because her abortionist had shoved her fetus into her bowl and left it there to block things up. Carolina Gutierrez endured the amputation of her gangrenous limbs in a futile attempt to save her from abortion-related sepsis.
Call me a wierdo antichoice freakazoid, but I don't see any improvement.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Friday, December 14, 2007
Anniversary: Cardiac arrest during abortion proves ultimately fatal
Twenty-year-old LaSandra Russ, from Berkley, California, went to Los Angeles to have an abortion on December 13, 1971. She was six weeks pregnant. The abortion was performed at Memorial Hospital of Hawthorne the next day, December 14. LaSandra went into cardiac arrest almost immediately after the abortion. Attempts were made to revive her, but she was finally pronounced dead on December 15, 1971.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Searches. Thanks for ruining my day.
And, frankly, thinking about Sherri Finkbine and how much we've devalued people whose only crime is being different has demoralized me.
As Jeremy Irons said in The Mission, "If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don't have the strength to live in a world like that."
My presidential endorsement
Face it, he's got everything the American people are really looking for in a President.
Searches: A real mixed bag this time
I get ink at the Washington Times blog
The Washington Times blog is providing the Hodari video, including the infamous "license to lie" clip.
The blog entry included links to my pages about Alberto Hodari (pictured) and about Tamia Russell, the 15-year-old statutory rape victim who died under Hodari's questionable care.
HT: Jivin' J
The blog entry included links to my pages about Alberto Hodari (pictured) and about Tamia Russell, the 15-year-old statutory rape victim who died under Hodari's questionable care.HT: Jivin' J
Searches" A Woman's Choice, a woman's "choice", and how to tell a back alley butcher from a provider of vital reproductive health care services
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Anniversary: Abortion death from pulmonary embolism
Edith Cote was 38 years old when she submitted to a safe and legal abortion in New York. On December 14, 1991, she was unresponsive and was taken to the emergency room at Syosset Hospital. Hospital staff were unable to save Edith's life. Her cause of death was listed on her death certificate as pulmonary amniotic embolism after an induced abortion.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Searches: teens, illegal abortions that weren't, survivors, and how abortion kills women
Sharon Hamptlon (pictured, with son Curtis) in California, Ellen Williams in Florida, Julie Roe in New York, Sharon Davis in New Mexico, and Jammie Garcia in Texas, off the top of my head.Gotta leave for work so that's all for now, folks!
Searches: Quizzes, Planned Parenthood dupes, quackery, and death
who trusted Planned Parenthood when they sent Harvey Karman (pictured) to abort them after they'd been raped by soldiers; he used his own experimental technique on them, involving -- like Dave Barry, I am not making this up -- plastic springs and balsa wood, with predictable results.Anniversary: "The Invisible Woman" or "Your Tax Dollars at Work"
First, a little background.
In one session of a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar, a participant indicated that when he pulled bowel (extracted part of a patient's bowel through a perforation in her uterus), his preferred method of treatment (if you can call it that) was to stuff the bowel back through the perforation, administer medications to make the uterus contract and control bleeding, monitor the woman more carefully in recovery, and if she seemed okay, send her home none the wiser.
The moderator was appalled. He pointed out that even if there was no obvious injury to the bowel, it might be bruised and damaged. The recommended procedure is to admit the patient to the hospital and examine her bowel, and observe her for signs of further injury. The moderator then asked how many of the other participants followed this method of stuffing the bowel back in and hoping for the best. Six participants raised their hands to be counted.
I knew it was only a matter of time before one of these bowel-stuffing abortionists killed somebody. That's where the unwitting Sharon Hamptlon stepped into the picture. She went to Bruce Steir at A Lady's Choice Women's Medical Center for an abortion on December 13, 1996. She was 20 weeks pregnant.
Steir (rhymes with "fear") remained at the facility for about an hour after Sharon's abortion. She was still in the recovery room when he left.
Excerpts from Doris's statement to the medical board can be found at ...And So I Could Hold You and You Could Go to Sleep. Here are some excerpts:
It was too late. Sharon had already bled to death.
According to Nancy Myles, an untrasound technician who was assisting Steir during Sharon's abortion, Steir was having trouble locating and extracting the fetal skull. She said that he looked at her strangely and said, "I think I pulled bowel."
Steir was already on probation with the medical board at the time of Sharon's abortion; he had a history of botching abortions, including causing uterine perforations. He'd been found negligent in six abortion cases, including three in which the woman had to undergo a hysterectomy. One woman had to have a fetal skull removed from a tear in her uterus. Steir surrendered his licence in 1997, in the wake of the fallout surrounding Sharon's death.
Pro-choice organizations, including the national leadership of NOW, and the National Abortion Federation and the California Abortion and Reproduction Rights League, rallied around Steir. One supporter stood outside the courthouse with a sign reading, "Abortion doctors are heroes, defend Dr. Bruce Steir." The Feminist Women's Health Center in Chico, with whom he once was affiliated, set up a "defense committee" and raised funds for his legal expenses. Those who stepped over the dead body of Sharon Hamplton to defend Steir included Carol Downer and the ACLU of Northern California. Revolutionary Worker lamented that Steir was "Persecuted for Giving Women Choice", oblivious of Sharon and the choices she'll never get to make.
Joseph Durante, who owned the facility, was also on probation with the medical board at the time of Sharon's fatal abortion. He had attempted a late abortion which resulted in the birth of a live but injured infant.
Sharon was a single mother who worked part-time at Burger King while attending community college. Sharon's mother said that she wanted to go off welfare and become a nurse. California taxpayers funded the fatal abortion through Medi-Cal.
Steir eventually plea bargained. He was sentenced to a year in prison, with six months of the sentence suspended in leiu of community service. He was also given five years' probation. At the sentencing hearing, four years after Sharon's death, Sharon's father said he still often pulled his car to the side of the road, looked at his daughter's picture, and wept.
Steir was released after serving only four months of his sentence.
Again, from Doris Hamplton's statement:
In one session of a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar, a participant indicated that when he pulled bowel (extracted part of a patient's bowel through a perforation in her uterus), his preferred method of treatment (if you can call it that) was to stuff the bowel back through the perforation, administer medications to make the uterus contract and control bleeding, monitor the woman more carefully in recovery, and if she seemed okay, send her home none the wiser.
The moderator was appalled. He pointed out that even if there was no obvious injury to the bowel, it might be bruised and damaged. The recommended procedure is to admit the patient to the hospital and examine her bowel, and observe her for signs of further injury. The moderator then asked how many of the other participants followed this method of stuffing the bowel back in and hoping for the best. Six participants raised their hands to be counted.
I knew it was only a matter of time before one of these bowel-stuffing abortionists killed somebody. That's where the unwitting Sharon Hamptlon stepped into the picture. She went to Bruce Steir at A Lady's Choice Women's Medical Center for an abortion on December 13, 1996. She was 20 weeks pregnant.
Steir (rhymes with "fear") remained at the facility for about an hour after Sharon's abortion. She was still in the recovery room when he left.
Excerpts from Doris's statement to the medical board can be found at ...And So I Could Hold You and You Could Go to Sleep. Here are some excerpts:
Maybe around 3:00 pm I took Curtis inside to use the bathroom. I saw a grey haired man dressed in green surgical clothes sitting at a desk. He said, "You know she is far along." I said, "No. I didn't know because she didn't tell me." Then I saw Sharon in the recovery room about 3:30 or 4:00 pm. She looked so bad that I felt scared. She was laying on a lazyboy style chair with an IV in her left arm and a blood pressure cuff on the other. She looked very pale. Her eyes were partially open and I could see only the whites of her eyes as if she were in shock. She was not speaking and her whole body was shaking real hard in big shivers. Her legs were especially bad. The doctor said, "She doesn't react to drugs well." .... A woman came in and said that Sharon didn't need the blankets that were on her already and pulled the blankets off. Other girls in the recovery room were vomiting and the attendant woman told the girls to keep vomiting, that vomiting was good for them at this time. I went back to the waiting room and a Spanish lady came out and said that Sharon would be ready in a few minutes as soon as the IV finished.
Sharon was in the recovery for only about 45 minutes, because at 5:00 pm they came out and said she was ready to leave. I heard someone say that the doctor was real busy and he had to rush out like he was going to the airport, something about him having to go to Sacramento or San Francisco. I saw two women struggling to place Sharon in a wheelchair. Sharon could not walk at all and she was not speaking. She looked very, very pale now.
....
On the way home to Barstow, I stopped at Wendy's to get a sandwich for little Curtis. I tried to wake Sharon but all she said was "Huh, Huh." Then Curtis said, "Mamma, I love you. Do you need anything? Are you okay?" And Sharon said, "Okay. I'll take a drink." Sharon was lying in the backseat of the car and said to Curtis, "Come on back with me Curtis. I love you and so I could hold you and you could go to sleep." She was silent for about one hour. Near Victorville, she said, "I'm so hot. Please let the window down." I opened the window a bit. After that, Sharon was silent forever.
We got home to Barstow and I saw that Sharon, still laying in the back seat was naked from the waist up, having removed her shirt, shoes and socks. I started yelling, "Sharon. Sharon. Wake up," but she didn't and my husband, Ben Hamptlon, said, "Call 911."
It was too late. Sharon had already bled to death.
According to Nancy Myles, an untrasound technician who was assisting Steir during Sharon's abortion, Steir was having trouble locating and extracting the fetal skull. She said that he looked at her strangely and said, "I think I pulled bowel."
Steir was already on probation with the medical board at the time of Sharon's abortion; he had a history of botching abortions, including causing uterine perforations. He'd been found negligent in six abortion cases, including three in which the woman had to undergo a hysterectomy. One woman had to have a fetal skull removed from a tear in her uterus. Steir surrendered his licence in 1997, in the wake of the fallout surrounding Sharon's death.
Pro-choice organizations, including the national leadership of NOW, and the National Abortion Federation and the California Abortion and Reproduction Rights League, rallied around Steir. One supporter stood outside the courthouse with a sign reading, "Abortion doctors are heroes, defend Dr. Bruce Steir." The Feminist Women's Health Center in Chico, with whom he once was affiliated, set up a "defense committee" and raised funds for his legal expenses. Those who stepped over the dead body of Sharon Hamplton to defend Steir included Carol Downer and the ACLU of Northern California. Revolutionary Worker lamented that Steir was "Persecuted for Giving Women Choice", oblivious of Sharon and the choices she'll never get to make.
Joseph Durante, who owned the facility, was also on probation with the medical board at the time of Sharon's fatal abortion. He had attempted a late abortion which resulted in the birth of a live but injured infant.
Sharon was a single mother who worked part-time at Burger King while attending community college. Sharon's mother said that she wanted to go off welfare and become a nurse. California taxpayers funded the fatal abortion through Medi-Cal.
Steir eventually plea bargained. He was sentenced to a year in prison, with six months of the sentence suspended in leiu of community service. He was also given five years' probation. At the sentencing hearing, four years after Sharon's death, Sharon's father said he still often pulled his car to the side of the road, looked at his daughter's picture, and wept.
Steir was released after serving only four months of his sentence.
Again, from Doris Hamplton's statement:
I don't know how she heard about Dr. Durante's offices. I think he was recommended by the people at San Bernardino County Social Services or by Dr. Krider. Sharon was on Medi-Cal and had Pacific Care as the Medi-Cal managed care agent. I understand that because Dr. Durante and Dr. Steir were on probation they were not entitled to Medi-Cal payment, but they got it anyway. I understand that their office was not accredited as an ambulatory surgical office, and that it was supposed to be accredited to comply with the law. I had no idea that Dr. Durante and Dr. Steir were on probation with the Medical Board for incompetence and negligence against women patients. I am sure that Sharon did not know either. If I had known, I would never have taken Sharon to such a bad place with such bad doctors. I learned about their records in the newspaper articles.
....
I cry every day for the terrible loss of my daughter, and I am overwhelmed that 3 year old Curtis had his mother taken away forever. My husband, Ben Hamptlon, (father of Sharon), is sick with grief, has terrible head pain, is under the care of a doctor for this and has been taking strong pain medicine since Sharon's death. My prayer is that these doctors be stopped immediately so that no other girl will be killed and that no other family will have to suffer as we have.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Search: Raymond Showery and the abortion survivor
Somebody wanted Dr. Showery and abortion survivors. I'm assuming that they're interested in the baby he was convicted of murdering when she survived an abortion, and not in the death of Mickey Apodaca while Showery was out on bail, appealing his conviction.
Five of Showery's employees testified against him. They said that Showery was performing an abortion in 1979 on a woman who was between five and seven months pregnant. He was performing a hysterotomy, which is basically a c-section, but with the intention of achieving the death of the baby. The baby was a girl, about a foot long, with light brown hair.
The child lay curled up in Showery's hand. She was attempting to breathe. Showery held the placenta over her face. She continued breathing. Showery then dropped her into a bucket of water. Bubbles rose to the surface. Showery then retrieved the child from the bucket and put her in a plastic bag which he tied and set aside. The employees reported that the sides of the bag moved as though somebody was breathing inside it. Eventually the bag stopped moving.
One witness said that he held the bag while Showery put the little girl in it, and that he later put the bag into the freezer where the fetuses were stored.
Showery was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, though the body of the infant was never found and employees could not identify the baby's mother from among the facility's patients. Showery had "been convicted of a felony charge of altering his hospital's records," which hindered the state's attmepts to locate the woman. The jury chose to convict him of murder even though they had the option of convicting him of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
A news report said that Showery, "his voice breaking and tears filling his eyes," denied all the allegations. "I never killed a baby," Showery said, "and if I'm not telling you the truth, may I die right now."
Former employees reported that Showery falsified records on all patients over 20 weeks pregnant, saying they were just 20 weeks pregnant, and that such abortions were routine. One former employee, Gloria, said she assisted in abortions in which Showery would sedate the patient, dilate the cervix, and pull the fetus out with forceps. "He wanted them in pieces, but a lot of times they would come out whole." Gloria said that she saw signs of life in at least two fetuses aborted this way.
Another former employee, Belinda, said she looked away as Showery removed a fetus through a hysterotomy incision, and that when she turned back Showery had placed the fetus in a plastic bag in a bucket "and just waited until it stopped moving." She said the fetus squirmed and wiggled for about 10 seconds.
Former employee Anita said that for late abortions, "He walks in, closes the door, and locks it." She also said Showery instructed them "If you see any movement or anything, you don't see anything, you don't know anything," and that he asked employees to look away when the fetus was extracted.
A former employee said the fetuses would be put in plastic bags and frozen, that employees did not know what became them but that someone removed them from the freezer.
An autopsy on a male fetus identified as Baby John Doe #81-01, found among other fetuses in the freezer at Showery's hospital, was inconclusive as to whether he was born live due to decomposition during thawing. The fetus was just over 2 pounds, just over 13 inches long, with sparse dark hair. The autopsy also found meconium, usually found in the intestine of full-term fetuses.
Showery denied ever performing abortions after 20 weeks, and is quoted as saying, "If that baby takes a breath, that's life. Now the department of vital statistics comes into it and you fill out death certificates. It cried once. It took life. It took breath. It becomes a person. You cannot dispose of it with hospital wastage. It must go to the mortician and et cetera."
Showery's Family hospital was not known to have ever filed fetal death certificates.
Sources: New York Times April 29, 1984; DesMoines Register May 5, 1984; El Paso County Offense Report No. 00-380101; Houston Chronicle June 9, 1985; El Paso Times April 5-8, 1981, September 22, 1983, September 23, 1983; Dallas Morning News April 20, 1984; Dallas Times-Herald September 29, 1983)
Five of Showery's employees testified against him. They said that Showery was performing an abortion in 1979 on a woman who was between five and seven months pregnant. He was performing a hysterotomy, which is basically a c-section, but with the intention of achieving the death of the baby. The baby was a girl, about a foot long, with light brown hair.
The child lay curled up in Showery's hand. She was attempting to breathe. Showery held the placenta over her face. She continued breathing. Showery then dropped her into a bucket of water. Bubbles rose to the surface. Showery then retrieved the child from the bucket and put her in a plastic bag which he tied and set aside. The employees reported that the sides of the bag moved as though somebody was breathing inside it. Eventually the bag stopped moving.
One witness said that he held the bag while Showery put the little girl in it, and that he later put the bag into the freezer where the fetuses were stored.
Showery was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, though the body of the infant was never found and employees could not identify the baby's mother from among the facility's patients. Showery had "been convicted of a felony charge of altering his hospital's records," which hindered the state's attmepts to locate the woman. The jury chose to convict him of murder even though they had the option of convicting him of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
A news report said that Showery, "his voice breaking and tears filling his eyes," denied all the allegations. "I never killed a baby," Showery said, "and if I'm not telling you the truth, may I die right now."
Former employees reported that Showery falsified records on all patients over 20 weeks pregnant, saying they were just 20 weeks pregnant, and that such abortions were routine. One former employee, Gloria, said she assisted in abortions in which Showery would sedate the patient, dilate the cervix, and pull the fetus out with forceps. "He wanted them in pieces, but a lot of times they would come out whole." Gloria said that she saw signs of life in at least two fetuses aborted this way.
Another former employee, Belinda, said she looked away as Showery removed a fetus through a hysterotomy incision, and that when she turned back Showery had placed the fetus in a plastic bag in a bucket "and just waited until it stopped moving." She said the fetus squirmed and wiggled for about 10 seconds.
Former employee Anita said that for late abortions, "He walks in, closes the door, and locks it." She also said Showery instructed them "If you see any movement or anything, you don't see anything, you don't know anything," and that he asked employees to look away when the fetus was extracted.
A former employee said the fetuses would be put in plastic bags and frozen, that employees did not know what became them but that someone removed them from the freezer.
An autopsy on a male fetus identified as Baby John Doe #81-01, found among other fetuses in the freezer at Showery's hospital, was inconclusive as to whether he was born live due to decomposition during thawing. The fetus was just over 2 pounds, just over 13 inches long, with sparse dark hair. The autopsy also found meconium, usually found in the intestine of full-term fetuses.
Showery denied ever performing abortions after 20 weeks, and is quoted as saying, "If that baby takes a breath, that's life. Now the department of vital statistics comes into it and you fill out death certificates. It cried once. It took life. It took breath. It becomes a person. You cannot dispose of it with hospital wastage. It must go to the mortician and et cetera."
Showery's Family hospital was not known to have ever filed fetal death certificates.
Sources: New York Times April 29, 1984; DesMoines Register May 5, 1984; El Paso County Offense Report No. 00-380101; Houston Chronicle June 9, 1985; El Paso Times April 5-8, 1981, September 22, 1983, September 23, 1983; Dallas Morning News April 20, 1984; Dallas Times-Herald September 29, 1983)
You'd not think so....
Women Evolve More Spine to Carry Babies
Would that more women had real spines, or we'd not be dealing with scenarios like this woman's hysterical flip-out over her baby's disability, this piece of trash, or this plan to be weak and pathetic in advance of a crisis.
Women with real backbone don't have any use for abortion.
Would that more women had real spines, or we'd not be dealing with scenarios like this woman's hysterical flip-out over her baby's disability, this piece of trash, or this plan to be weak and pathetic in advance of a crisis.
Women with real backbone don't have any use for abortion.
Searches: Stats, saves, survivor, Steve, and then some
Pregnant with cancer: One mom's story
Personal story: pregnant with cancer
Of course, there are the prochoicers whose comment is that yeah, this is a nice outcome:
But that this is just as nice an outcome:
Live baby? Shredded fetus? There's something disturbing in finding both those outcomes equally satisfactory.
Of course, there are the prochoicers whose comment is that yeah, this is a nice outcome:
But that this is just as nice an outcome:
Live baby? Shredded fetus? There's something disturbing in finding both those outcomes equally satisfactory.
New post-abortion resource
For everyone. The parents who meant well when they pushed for the abortion. The girl who wanted so desperately to keep her boyfriend's love. The siblings who never got to know their brother or sister.
Abortion Changes You
Abortion Changes You
Anniversaries: Back-alley butchery, safe and legal reproductive health care, equally dead
On December 1, 1930, 22-year-old Jeanette Reder underwent a criminal abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. Emil Gleitsman. Jeanette died December 12. Gleitsman was arrested on December 13, and held for murder by abortion. Gleitsman was indicted by a grand jury for homicide, but was acquitted on June 15, 1931.
Thirty-year-old Sandra Williams was 11 weeks pregnant when whe underwent an abortion on December 12, 1984 in Pennsylvania. She went home following the abortion. Less than twelve hours later, she was dead. Her death certificate noted that she died from a pulmonary embolism.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Thirty-year-old Sandra Williams was 11 weeks pregnant when whe underwent an abortion on December 12, 1984 in Pennsylvania. She went home following the abortion. Less than twelve hours later, she was dead. Her death certificate noted that she died from a pulmonary embolism.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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ACOG puts politics ahead of women's welfare, docs' professionalism
National OBGYN Group Says Pro-Life Doctors Should Refer for Abortions
1. As if a woman who really wants her baby dead can't use the Yellow Pages. Clearly the intent here isn't to ensure "access" to somebody who will kill the baby. It's to force doctors to participate in abortion, if only by referring for them.
2. ACOG has taken a public stand against informed consent laws for abortion, on the spurious grounds that stressed-out women -- or even teenage girls -- have the ability to get all the information they need on their own to make decisions about the risks of abortion as it relates to them. How is it that these same women, who the ACOG considers smart and well-educated enough to get to a medical library and sort through scores of journal articles, are too clueless to use a phone book? Again, clearly the intent here isn't to ensure "access" to somebody who will kill the baby. It's to force doctors of conscience to participate in abortion.
3. What right do these abortion enthusiasts have to demand that other doctors harm their patients? Aside from the fact that it makes her the mother of a dead baby (Nobody's been able to satisfactorily explain to me how this helps women who don't hate babies.), abortion increases her risk of STDs, future infertility, ectopic pregnancy, suicide, poverty, drug abuse, and problems with future pregnancies. It takes balls of pure bronze, and hearts of stone, to demand that other doctors harm the women who trust them, just to satisfy your political preferences.
Here's where they go totally over the top. The Christian Medical Association quotes the ACOG:
You gotta be kidding! The ACOG wants prolife doctors to move their practices for the convenience of those patients who prefer dead babies to live ones!
Again, we need to clearly divide the medical community into the Hippocratic practitioners, and the "progressives". Let those who embrace practices such as abortion and euthanasia clearly be distinguished from those who reject killing as a "cure", and let the patients choose who to trust for their medical care.
Isn't it supposedly all about "choice"?
Clearly not. It's all about abortion.
And it's all about putting the preferences of women who prefer dead fetuses to live babies ahead of the rest of the world. These people just won't be satisified until they can force every living human being to participate in abortion.
I've just gotten off the phone with ACOG -- after being bounced around through several parties who were not the party to speak to. And the contact person is a Mary Mitchel. I won't give her email, but I'm sure you can give her a call or address mail to her at ACOG:
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
409 12th St., S.W., PO Box 96920
Washington, D.C. 20090-6920
(202) 638-5577
Yeah, some abortion enthusiasts will give kudos to ACOG for being in the abortion lobby's back pocket, but I'm guessing that those who think everybody has an obligation to participate in abortion are in the minority. Even many prochoice people ought to recognize that people have a right to abstain from participating in killing, and that doctors have an obligation to refrain from harming their patients.
The national organization for obstetricians and gynecologists is coming under fire for a new policy saying all doctors, including those who are pro-life, should refer women to abortion centers.
1. As if a woman who really wants her baby dead can't use the Yellow Pages. Clearly the intent here isn't to ensure "access" to somebody who will kill the baby. It's to force doctors to participate in abortion, if only by referring for them.
2. ACOG has taken a public stand against informed consent laws for abortion, on the spurious grounds that stressed-out women -- or even teenage girls -- have the ability to get all the information they need on their own to make decisions about the risks of abortion as it relates to them. How is it that these same women, who the ACOG considers smart and well-educated enough to get to a medical library and sort through scores of journal articles, are too clueless to use a phone book? Again, clearly the intent here isn't to ensure "access" to somebody who will kill the baby. It's to force doctors of conscience to participate in abortion.
3. What right do these abortion enthusiasts have to demand that other doctors harm their patients? Aside from the fact that it makes her the mother of a dead baby (Nobody's been able to satisfactorily explain to me how this helps women who don't hate babies.), abortion increases her risk of STDs, future infertility, ectopic pregnancy, suicide, poverty, drug abuse, and problems with future pregnancies. It takes balls of pure bronze, and hearts of stone, to demand that other doctors harm the women who trust them, just to satisfy your political preferences.
Here's where they go totally over the top. The Christian Medical Association quotes the ACOG:
Providers with moral or religious objections [to abortion] should ... practice in proximity to individuals who do not share their views....
You gotta be kidding! The ACOG wants prolife doctors to move their practices for the convenience of those patients who prefer dead babies to live ones!
Again, we need to clearly divide the medical community into the Hippocratic practitioners, and the "progressives". Let those who embrace practices such as abortion and euthanasia clearly be distinguished from those who reject killing as a "cure", and let the patients choose who to trust for their medical care.
Isn't it supposedly all about "choice"?
Clearly not. It's all about abortion.
And it's all about putting the preferences of women who prefer dead fetuses to live babies ahead of the rest of the world. These people just won't be satisified until they can force every living human being to participate in abortion.
I've just gotten off the phone with ACOG -- after being bounced around through several parties who were not the party to speak to. And the contact person is a Mary Mitchel. I won't give her email, but I'm sure you can give her a call or address mail to her at ACOG:
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
409 12th St., S.W., PO Box 96920
Washington, D.C. 20090-6920
(202) 638-5577
Yeah, some abortion enthusiasts will give kudos to ACOG for being in the abortion lobby's back pocket, but I'm guessing that those who think everybody has an obligation to participate in abortion are in the minority. Even many prochoice people ought to recognize that people have a right to abstain from participating in killing, and that doctors have an obligation to refrain from harming their patients.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Searches: Lysol douche, stem cells, our pal Hodari, and more
Search: Infection after abortion
Someone was looking for infection after abortion. I have 73 cases listed here. A sample:
Dorothy Brown, age 37, underwent an abortion at Friendship Medical Clinic in Chicago on August 16, 1974. Within hours, she was dead at a nearby hospital.
Chanelle Bryant was given the drugs for a chemical abortion at a Family Planning Associates Medical Group facility in California.
Marla Cardamone was browbeaten into an unwanted abortion by a social worker at Magee Women's Hospital.
Betty Damato was given a trash bag, and instructions to collect whatever she expelled in the bag and bring it to her abortion provider.
Edrica Greene died on Valentine's Day of 2007, after a nurse at Planned Parenthood ignored a vaginal infection and inserted laminaria anyway.
Carolina Gutierrez suffered multiple amputations before finally dying of sepsis from her safe and legal abortion.
Rosie Jimenez saved ten dollars by going to a midwife for an illegal abortion instead of going to Planned Parenthood for a legal aboriton.
Joyce Johnson died after allowing prochoice icon Harvey Karman (pictured) to perform an abortion on her with a nutcracker in a motel room.
Susan Levy was found dead in the car she had been living in.
Maria Lira: An autopsy found a decomposing fetus in her uterus.
Sophie McCoy died after abortion at the hands of National Abortion Federation member Abu Hayat.
Yvonne Mesteth was the second of two patients to die of infection after abortions by erstwhile criminal abortionist Benjamin Munson.
Katherine Morse was one of the customers of an airfare-plus-abortions package tourism company that opened in Texas when California legalized abortion.
Germaine Newman had a second-trimester abortion performed by Dr. E. Wyman Garrett in Newark, New Jersey. The next morning, her mother found her lying dead on the bathroom floor.
Allegra Roseberry was falsely told her baby was "doomed" in order to convince her to abort.
Tamia Russell was brought to Womancare in Detroit for an illegal third trimester abortion -- at the behest of her abuser's sister.
Stella Saenz had arranged for a legal abortion in the spring of 1968.
Vivian Tran, like Holly Patterson, got her abortion drugs at a Planned Parenthood.
Brenda Vise died of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy after a chemical abortion at Volunteer Women's Clinic in Tennessee.
Ellen Williams had raging peritonitis after her abortion at Miami's Dadeland. The administrator gave her tea, the abortionist gave her a bottle of oral antibiotics.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Joyce Johnson died after allowing prochoice icon Harvey Karman (pictured) to perform an abortion on her with a nutcracker in a motel room.For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Searches: bad abortions, the 1940s, dead teens, propaganda, and then some
Monday, December 10, 2007
Hey, sports fans!
The ESPN interviewer notes that Tim Tebow's story "almost ended before it began", and Tim mentions that doctors had told his mom to abort him.
Pray that the dads (and moms) who follow college football will be inspired to choose hope over despair in their own lives.
Searches: The creepy, the dead, and home abortion tea
Miracle baby becomes first sophomore to win the Heisman
Tim Tebow's mother was urged to abort him. The medication she'd been given when amoebic dysentery had put her in a coma had damaged the fetus.
Never forget that when a doctor gives you a prognosis, he's doing the same thing the weather man is doing: trying to predict the future.
Never forget that when a doctor gives you a prognosis, he's doing the same thing the weather man is doing: trying to predict the future.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Anniversary: Dr. Spencer's dead patient
On Saturday, December 8, 1956, 26-year-old Mary Davies of New York City arrived in the Ashland, Pennsylvania office of abortionist Dr. Robert Douglas Spencer. She was seeking an abortion. According to Spencer, Mary was alone, and reported that she'd been bleeding for about two weeks. He didn't examine her, but gave her medication for pain and ergotrate to stop the bleeding. He told her to return the following day for her abortion.
Mary returned at about 10 AM on the 9th. He administered 13 cc's of Evipal in a 10% solution to induce anesthesia. "I injected that solution into the vein of the left arm and in ten seconds she was asleep." Spencer said that the next thing he noticed was that Mary wasn't breathing. She also appeared blue. He injected five cc's of "Metrozol" into her left leg. She didn't respond, so he gave her an additional five cc's of "Metrozol", this time injecting the drug into a vein. Mary still did not respond, so Spencer attempted to resuscitate her with oxygen. He called his assistant, Mildred Zettlemoyer, into the room to assist him. With Mary in Zettlemoyer's care, Spencer went to another part of the building to retrieve adrenaline. He gave Mary three injections of adrenaline
Mary still was not responding, so Spencer had Zettlemoyer call the laboratory assistant, Steve Sekunda, and tell him to come to the office. Spencer put a breathing tube into Mary's throat, but had to work blind because the light on his scope wasn't working. He resumed artificial respiration, "and pulled on her tongue, but got no response." By the time Sekunda arrived, at around 11:30, Spencer had concluded that Mary was dead. The puzzled man concluded "that this patient died in my office from some heart disease."
Dr. Milton Helpern, chief medical examiner for New York City, was among the experts that testified in Spencer's trial for Mary's death. Helpern concluded that Mary had been pregnant, that the pregnancy had been terminated right before her death, and that she'd died from administration of a drug used for anesthesia for performing a D&C. Mary had been in good health prior to her death.
Patricia G. Miller, author of The Worst Of Times, asked another doctor, "Dr. Bert," who had practiced before legalization, to review news reports of Mary's death and speculate as to whether Mary would have died had abortion been legal. "Dr. Bert" faulted Spencer for not having an assistant while he was administering general anesthesia. "In my view, to give a general anesthetic alone is below good medical care, even in those days." He speculated that Spencer had not had an assistant working with him due to the law against abortion -- an odd speculation, since Spencer was doing abortions quite openly, with at least one member of his staff present in the building. It's also an odd speculation considering how many legal abortionists have had patients die from anesthesia complications, either due to inadequate supervision of the anesthesia process or inadequate resuscitation efforts.
Spencer's widow, Eleanor, told Patricia Miller that her husband had been quite stricken by Mary Davies' death. He continued to perform abortions, however, along with his regular medical practice, up until the trial. He was acquitted on all counts, likely because it was impossible to prove that Mary hadn't either miscarried during those two weeks of bleeding prior to her appointment with Spencer, or been aborted by somebody else. No mention is made of any fetal remains being found in Mary's body or in Spencer's office.
Spencer briefly stopped doing abortions after the trial, "for a month or so," his widow said. But he resumed his business and eventually got entangled with a fellow named Harry Mace who set up a business for himself rounding up abortion patients and bringing them to Spencer. Spencer's widow lamented that Mace flooded Spencer with patients, pressuring him to rush through abortions. Spencer's health began to fail. He was arrested again, due to the attention from Mace's activities, but died before the case went to trial.
Mary Davies is the only woman known to have died from abortion related complications under Spencer's care. Spencer is estimated to have performed between 40,000 and 100,000 abortions.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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Mary returned at about 10 AM on the 9th. He administered 13 cc's of Evipal in a 10% solution to induce anesthesia. "I injected that solution into the vein of the left arm and in ten seconds she was asleep." Spencer said that the next thing he noticed was that Mary wasn't breathing. She also appeared blue. He injected five cc's of "Metrozol" into her left leg. She didn't respond, so he gave her an additional five cc's of "Metrozol", this time injecting the drug into a vein. Mary still did not respond, so Spencer attempted to resuscitate her with oxygen. He called his assistant, Mildred Zettlemoyer, into the room to assist him. With Mary in Zettlemoyer's care, Spencer went to another part of the building to retrieve adrenaline. He gave Mary three injections of adrenaline
Mary still was not responding, so Spencer had Zettlemoyer call the laboratory assistant, Steve Sekunda, and tell him to come to the office. Spencer put a breathing tube into Mary's throat, but had to work blind because the light on his scope wasn't working. He resumed artificial respiration, "and pulled on her tongue, but got no response." By the time Sekunda arrived, at around 11:30, Spencer had concluded that Mary was dead. The puzzled man concluded "that this patient died in my office from some heart disease."
Dr. Milton Helpern, chief medical examiner for New York City, was among the experts that testified in Spencer's trial for Mary's death. Helpern concluded that Mary had been pregnant, that the pregnancy had been terminated right before her death, and that she'd died from administration of a drug used for anesthesia for performing a D&C. Mary had been in good health prior to her death.
Patricia G. Miller, author of The Worst Of Times, asked another doctor, "Dr. Bert," who had practiced before legalization, to review news reports of Mary's death and speculate as to whether Mary would have died had abortion been legal. "Dr. Bert" faulted Spencer for not having an assistant while he was administering general anesthesia. "In my view, to give a general anesthetic alone is below good medical care, even in those days." He speculated that Spencer had not had an assistant working with him due to the law against abortion -- an odd speculation, since Spencer was doing abortions quite openly, with at least one member of his staff present in the building. It's also an odd speculation considering how many legal abortionists have had patients die from anesthesia complications, either due to inadequate supervision of the anesthesia process or inadequate resuscitation efforts.
Spencer's widow, Eleanor, told Patricia Miller that her husband had been quite stricken by Mary Davies' death. He continued to perform abortions, however, along with his regular medical practice, up until the trial. He was acquitted on all counts, likely because it was impossible to prove that Mary hadn't either miscarried during those two weeks of bleeding prior to her appointment with Spencer, or been aborted by somebody else. No mention is made of any fetal remains being found in Mary's body or in Spencer's office.
Spencer briefly stopped doing abortions after the trial, "for a month or so," his widow said. But he resumed his business and eventually got entangled with a fellow named Harry Mace who set up a business for himself rounding up abortion patients and bringing them to Spencer. Spencer's widow lamented that Mace flooded Spencer with patients, pressuring him to rush through abortions. Spencer's health began to fail. He was arrested again, due to the attention from Mace's activities, but died before the case went to trial.
Mary Davies is the only woman known to have died from abortion related complications under Spencer's care. Spencer is estimated to have performed between 40,000 and 100,000 abortions.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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Saturday, December 08, 2007
Searches: A rougues' gallery for the most part
New Mexico abortion facility torched
Eyewitness Accounts Confirm Arson In Abortion Clinic Fire
Abortion Acceptance of Albuquerque, New Mexico, run by National Abortion Federation founding member Curtis Boyd, was damaged by fire late Thursday night. The fire was quickly contained and the damage seemed to have been limited to one office.
Witnesses described seeing two men in hooded sweatshirts throwing gas into the building and torching it -- after one witness had called out to them and let them know they'd been seen!
The whole thing smells pretty fishy to me, but unlike the abortion lobby, which is already assuming that prolifers are behind the fire, I'll not speculate. We can all thank God that nobody was injured, and pray that the perpetrators are caught and that their motives are discovered. Those of us who recognize the harm abortion does can also lament that the fire has in no way diminished Boyd's enthusiasm for the practice and he's reportedly scraping women out at another location.
Boyd also owns Fairmount Center in Dallas, Texas, where he performed the fatal abortion on Vanessa Preston.
Abortion Acceptance of Albuquerque, New Mexico, run by National Abortion Federation founding member Curtis Boyd, was damaged by fire late Thursday night. The fire was quickly contained and the damage seemed to have been limited to one office.
Witnesses described seeing two men in hooded sweatshirts throwing gas into the building and torching it -- after one witness had called out to them and let them know they'd been seen!
The whole thing smells pretty fishy to me, but unlike the abortion lobby, which is already assuming that prolifers are behind the fire, I'll not speculate. We can all thank God that nobody was injured, and pray that the perpetrators are caught and that their motives are discovered. Those of us who recognize the harm abortion does can also lament that the fire has in no way diminished Boyd's enthusiasm for the practice and he's reportedly scraping women out at another location.
Boyd also owns Fairmount Center in Dallas, Texas, where he performed the fatal abortion on Vanessa Preston.
Start planning now for Abortionists' Day in March
Just a reminder that March 10 has been designated "National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers" by the abortion lobby. Though it was originally launched with much fanfare, it seems to be petering out over the years and becoming more of a day for prolifers to remember abortionists than for prochoicers to "appreciate" them. They've not forgotten that this was supposed to be a day where the people they "help" let them know how much they're appreciated. I picture the abortionists sitting lonely and forgotten, like the Maytag Repairman. This is where we can step into the gap!
Priests for Life had suggested March 9 as "National Day of Invitation for Abortion Providers" to invite them to repent and reform. I don't see why we can't do it March 10 so that we're using the same day. In fact, it would be a powerful witness if the only people reaching out to abortionists on their special day were prolifers.
The National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers is mainly intended to overcome the powerful negatives of working in abortion. Dr. Rachel McNair has explored the stresses of abortion work in her Achieving Peace in the Abortion War. I'll not repeat Dr. McNair's findings here. I heartily recommend that between now and March 10, each and every person who is called to stand for life read this book online, prayerfully, with a heart open to ideas of how we can reach the folks who've fallen for the lie that abortion helps women.
Keep in mind that we're not dealing with evil people who enjoy killing babies. Yes, there's greed. Yes, there's egotism. But a common underlying motivation is the idea that somehow what they're doing is helping the patients. The typical abortion worker views himself as bravely overcoming his natural revulsion at destroying fetal life in order to better the lives of women.
So what we need to do is break through that illusion. With that in mind, let's look at Refuse and Resist's suggestions, and see where we can get ideas to reach these lost souls and help them break free. Refuse and Resist suggested the following activities for abortion fans last year:
My suggestions, based on the R&R list:
Keep your eyes open for events being planned to keep abortionists in thrall. Think of ways to counter these efforts. Let's be a soft place for these wounded souls to land.
Priests for Life had suggested March 9 as "National Day of Invitation for Abortion Providers" to invite them to repent and reform. I don't see why we can't do it March 10 so that we're using the same day. In fact, it would be a powerful witness if the only people reaching out to abortionists on their special day were prolifers.
The National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers is mainly intended to overcome the powerful negatives of working in abortion. Dr. Rachel McNair has explored the stresses of abortion work in her Achieving Peace in the Abortion War. I'll not repeat Dr. McNair's findings here. I heartily recommend that between now and March 10, each and every person who is called to stand for life read this book online, prayerfully, with a heart open to ideas of how we can reach the folks who've fallen for the lie that abortion helps women.
Keep in mind that we're not dealing with evil people who enjoy killing babies. Yes, there's greed. Yes, there's egotism. But a common underlying motivation is the idea that somehow what they're doing is helping the patients. The typical abortion worker views himself as bravely overcoming his natural revulsion at destroying fetal life in order to better the lives of women.
So what we need to do is break through that illusion. With that in mind, let's look at Refuse and Resist's suggestions, and see where we can get ideas to reach these lost souls and help them break free. Refuse and Resist suggested the following activities for abortion fans last year:
- Praise clinic staff and doctors with cards and letters of appreciation. Let them know they have your support and thanks.
- Bring your local clinic staff flowers or a breakfast basket of fruit or muffins.
- Organize local appreciation day events.
- Organize with others to hold a March 10th dinner with area providers.
- Step up to the front lines and be a volunteer clinic escort.
- Ask your local provider how you can help.
- Write your local newspaper, call talk shows to express support.
- Take out ads in your newsletters and local newspapers.
- Use your imagination, creativity and dedication to help create a climate at clinics where women, doctors and staff can hold their heads high without feeling shamed or fearing assault.
My suggestions, based on the R&R list:
- Send clinic staff letters gently letting them know that though they may have meant well, they hurt you or your loved one.
- Bring your local staff gift baskets that include information on the Society of Centurions, or Clinic Worker.com. Make the gifts real gifts, like gift cards for a restaurant, a nice flower basket, bath salts, and so forth, not phony "gifts" intended to crush the worker's spirit, like bloody dismembered baby dolls, baby clothes, etc.
- Organize a local event to increase awareness of how abortion hurts women, or provide a respectful counter-presence at locally organized pro-abortion events.
- Organize a job fair to help link clinic staff with people willing to give them new jobs that will allow them to escape the abortion business.
- Be a presence outside abortion facilities, reminding staff, patients, and the public of women who've been harmed there.
- Invite your local abortion staff to coffee, to let him or her vent in a safe environment without fear of being labeled a traitor.
- Write to your local newspaper, and call talk shows, to educate people about the harm abortion does to women. Take out an ad in your local paper.
- Use your imagination to create a climate in which abortion staff know that it's safe for them to approach you should they ever need your help.
Keep your eyes open for events being planned to keep abortionists in thrall. Think of ways to counter these efforts. Let's be a soft place for these wounded souls to land.
Searches: Back alley butchers.
Anniversary: "I knew I screwed up."
On December 8, 1994, 23-year-old Magdalena Rodriguez went to Suresh Gandotra's clinic, El Norte Clinica Medica, for what she thought was a second-trimester abortion. Gandotra later said, "I knew I screwed up," when he pulled out bowel instead of fetal parts.
Gandotra called a hospital and asked for directions to send Magdalena there by car. The staff at the hospital insisted that Magdalena should be transported by ambulance. They began to assemble an expert team for the expected catastrophic injuries.
In the mean time, Gandotra left Magdalena unattended while he did abortions on other patients. After a half-hour delay, he finally called an ambulance, but did not inform them about the hospital that was awaiting her arrival with a team ready to treat her.
When the ambulance crew arrived, they found Magdalena in ventricular fibrillation, with no pulse, bleeding, and on the floor. Since they'd not been told there was a hospital awaiting her with a team of surgeons ready, they took Magdalena to another hospital, one that was not prepared to treat a patient with her specific injuries.
Gandotra sent Magdalena to the hospital without a medical history or any information about her condition or what he'd done to her. The staff were totally unprepared for what they found when they examined her. Magdalena had no vitals on arrival at hospital. She was unresponsive with fixed, dilated pupils.
When the surgeon at the hospital opened Magdalena's peritoneum, it was so distended that the operating room was spattered with the escaping blood. Magdalena's uterus was ruptured, with a fetal limb protruding into her abdomen. Her cervix, uterus, bladder, and colon were lacerated. The mangled and partially dismembered fetus was of approximately 30 weeks gestation. As the autopsy describes it, "the body of the baby was not complete when autopsied. Both arms had been cut off; the heart, lungs, liver, and other organs had been cut out, the front of the chest and abdomen were missing, the right femur was fractured, the head was intact except for an area on the scalp which had been taken off from the back of the head."
Magdalena bled to death during surgery. Her death was attributed to "complications of the acute pelvic injuries which consisted of lacerations of the lower uterus, vagina, bladder and colon."
Gandotra told the medical board that he had delayed calling an ambulance because he had no admitting privileges and that Magdalena had asked to be released so she could walk home. In a seriously injured patient, this is a sign of hemorrhagic shock, which a physician should have recognized.
Gandotra's attorney said, "We don't believe this was blow the standard of care nor do we believe it was malpractice." A nurse at the hospital that tried to save Magdalena's life said, "I've never seen anything like this before and I don't want to again."
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Gandotra called a hospital and asked for directions to send Magdalena there by car. The staff at the hospital insisted that Magdalena should be transported by ambulance. They began to assemble an expert team for the expected catastrophic injuries.
In the mean time, Gandotra left Magdalena unattended while he did abortions on other patients. After a half-hour delay, he finally called an ambulance, but did not inform them about the hospital that was awaiting her arrival with a team ready to treat her.
When the ambulance crew arrived, they found Magdalena in ventricular fibrillation, with no pulse, bleeding, and on the floor. Since they'd not been told there was a hospital awaiting her with a team of surgeons ready, they took Magdalena to another hospital, one that was not prepared to treat a patient with her specific injuries.
Gandotra sent Magdalena to the hospital without a medical history or any information about her condition or what he'd done to her. The staff were totally unprepared for what they found when they examined her. Magdalena had no vitals on arrival at hospital. She was unresponsive with fixed, dilated pupils.
When the surgeon at the hospital opened Magdalena's peritoneum, it was so distended that the operating room was spattered with the escaping blood. Magdalena's uterus was ruptured, with a fetal limb protruding into her abdomen. Her cervix, uterus, bladder, and colon were lacerated. The mangled and partially dismembered fetus was of approximately 30 weeks gestation. As the autopsy describes it, "the body of the baby was not complete when autopsied. Both arms had been cut off; the heart, lungs, liver, and other organs had been cut out, the front of the chest and abdomen were missing, the right femur was fractured, the head was intact except for an area on the scalp which had been taken off from the back of the head."
Magdalena bled to death during surgery. Her death was attributed to "complications of the acute pelvic injuries which consisted of lacerations of the lower uterus, vagina, bladder and colon."
Gandotra told the medical board that he had delayed calling an ambulance because he had no admitting privileges and that Magdalena had asked to be released so she could walk home. In a seriously injured patient, this is a sign of hemorrhagic shock, which a physician should have recognized.
Gandotra's attorney said, "We don't believe this was blow the standard of care nor do we believe it was malpractice." A nurse at the hospital that tried to save Magdalena's life said, "I've never seen anything like this before and I don't want to again."
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Anniversary: Abortion, heart failure, death
28-year-old Myria McFadden underwent a second-trimester abortion on December 7, 1987, in Washington, DC. The abortion was performed by Dr. Hazel Tape. Myria had trouble breathing after the abortion. She suffered heart and lung failure the day after the abortion, and died at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Springs on December 8.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Friday, December 07, 2007
Search: Gloria Aponte
Twenty-year-old Gloria Aponte went to National Abortion Federation member Hanan Rotem in Stamford, Connecticut, for an abortion on April 19, 1986. A few hours after the abortion, Gloria was declared dead from hemorrhage at a nearby hospital. Rotem claimed that Gloria had died from an amniotic fluid embolism. An investigation by health officials found that Rotem had failed to perform necessary blood tests, and had permitted a receptionist with no medical training to administer anesthesia.
Rotem, by the way, also worked at Eastern Women's Center, the NAF facility where Dawn Mack, Dawn Ravenelle, and Venus Ortiz underwent their fatal abortions. There, Rotem performed an abortion on Angela H. on January 22, 1982. Angela sued, claiming an incomplete abortion and perforated uterus requiring corrective surgery and leaving her with scarring and subsequent recurrent urinary tract infections. A jury found that Rotem failed to arrange appropriate follow-up, that Angela was not adequately advised of the risks prior to her abortion, and that a reasonable person would not have consented to the surgery had she been adequately informed of the risks. (NY County Supreme Court Index No. 27563/82)
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Rotem, by the way, also worked at Eastern Women's Center, the NAF facility where Dawn Mack, Dawn Ravenelle, and Venus Ortiz underwent their fatal abortions. There, Rotem performed an abortion on Angela H. on January 22, 1982. Angela sued, claiming an incomplete abortion and perforated uterus requiring corrective surgery and leaving her with scarring and subsequent recurrent urinary tract infections. A jury found that Rotem failed to arrange appropriate follow-up, that Angela was not adequately advised of the risks prior to her abortion, and that a reasonable person would not have consented to the surgery had she been adequately informed of the risks. (NY County Supreme Court Index No. 27563/82)
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Atlanta Surgi Center
Somebody was searching for "Surgi Center Atlanta Shutting Down". As far as I know, Antlanta Surgi-Center is not shutting down. Alas.
Check out their web site:
Oh, yeah, they're members of the National Abortion Federation. Though what this says about them or about NAF is pretty debatable.
Catherine Pierce underwent an abortion at Atlanta Surgi-Center on March 11, 1989, performed by Daniel McBrayer. Catherine went into cardiac arrest while left unattended in the recovery room. State officials alleged "serious problems" after Peirce was injured. They cited the facility for administering "the same anesthesia dosages" to patients whose weights ranges from 107 to 167 pounds, inadequate record keeping, and inadequate supervision of patients. (Atlanta Constitution 5-12-89, AP 5-12-89)
State investigators indicated that they'd been turned away the first time they'd tried to inspect the facility, and were forced to stage a raid in order to obtain the records needed to investigate the mishap that later killed Catherine. The clinic complained that they'd only turned the state investigators away because they'd failed to display badges and a subpoena. They also complained to the press that the raid was "political harassment" due to the fact that an anti-abortion activist had complained to the state about the facility.
Catherine, meanwhile, was hospitalized, then transferred to a nursing home, where she died on October 10, leaving an 11-year-old girl motherless
Among the patient care problems cited, the investigators also said that they found discrepancies between the number of fetuses sent to the disposal lab and the number of abortions performed. In 1989 Atlanta Surgi-Center had logged 1,748 abortions, but had only sent 155 fetuses for disposal. In 1988 they had logged 2,774 abortions, but only sent 155 fetuses for disposal. In 1987 they logged 1,104 abortions but only sent 306 fetuses for disposal. The investigation into fetus disposal was prompted by local prolifers reporting that they had seen hundreds of fetuses in the clinic's dumpsters. Dr. Gay, the clinic director, denied the allegations. (AP 9-20-89, 9-22-89; Atlanta Constitution 9-21-89)
Atlanta Surgi-Center also operated at "Northside Women's Clinic", so it well might be the "Atlanta Northside" facility where Geneva Calton's fatal abortion was performed.
Check out their web site:
Celebrating 30 years of compassionate, reliable, and trustworthy medical services for women. Atlanta SurgiCenter has been performing abortions, providing gynecological care and educational services since 1973. .... Atlanta SurgiCenter complies fully with the standards of safety and professional care set by the National Abortion Federation.
Oh, yeah, they're members of the National Abortion Federation. Though what this says about them or about NAF is pretty debatable.
Catherine Pierce underwent an abortion at Atlanta Surgi-Center on March 11, 1989, performed by Daniel McBrayer. Catherine went into cardiac arrest while left unattended in the recovery room. State officials alleged "serious problems" after Peirce was injured. They cited the facility for administering "the same anesthesia dosages" to patients whose weights ranges from 107 to 167 pounds, inadequate record keeping, and inadequate supervision of patients. (Atlanta Constitution 5-12-89, AP 5-12-89)
State investigators indicated that they'd been turned away the first time they'd tried to inspect the facility, and were forced to stage a raid in order to obtain the records needed to investigate the mishap that later killed Catherine. The clinic complained that they'd only turned the state investigators away because they'd failed to display badges and a subpoena. They also complained to the press that the raid was "political harassment" due to the fact that an anti-abortion activist had complained to the state about the facility.
Catherine, meanwhile, was hospitalized, then transferred to a nursing home, where she died on October 10, leaving an 11-year-old girl motherless
Among the patient care problems cited, the investigators also said that they found discrepancies between the number of fetuses sent to the disposal lab and the number of abortions performed. In 1989 Atlanta Surgi-Center had logged 1,748 abortions, but had only sent 155 fetuses for disposal. In 1988 they had logged 2,774 abortions, but only sent 155 fetuses for disposal. In 1987 they logged 1,104 abortions but only sent 306 fetuses for disposal. The investigation into fetus disposal was prompted by local prolifers reporting that they had seen hundreds of fetuses in the clinic's dumpsters. Dr. Gay, the clinic director, denied the allegations. (AP 9-20-89, 9-22-89; Atlanta Constitution 9-21-89)
Atlanta Surgi-Center also operated at "Northside Women's Clinic", so it well might be the "Atlanta Northside" facility where Geneva Calton's fatal abortion was performed.
Search: nasty scars left from abortion
Somebody was looking for "nasty scars left from abortion".
Wanda S. sued San Vicente Hospital after her abortion (scroll down): The abortion was performed by Christopher Dotson November 28, 1973. The pre-op exam showed a normal size uterus despite a patient history suggesting a 10 week pregnancy. The pathologist failed to notify Dotson of a lack of chorionic villi in the specimen. Wanda was re-admitted to San Vicente for emergency surgery on December 11: "At the time of injury I awoke with the sensation of excruciating pain. The pain seemed like an explosion in my body. There was an extreme loss of blood. I had to drag myself to the door for help. Then it became much more severe, with a hard, sharp stabbing feeling. This pain caused me to lose consciousness every few minutes. .... I suffered extreme mental anguish when the medical personnel at the hospital said I was dying." Wanda also described the aftereffects: "Some times I have hard, sharp pains in my sides and vaginal tract a few days before my monthly period. Also, I have a noticeable scar at the pit of my stomach and that protrudes forward so as it can be seen under my clothing. The scar still has an itching sensation. At times there is pain in and around the incision." (LA County Superior Court Case No. C91104)
These women ended up with amputations as a result of their abortions, ranging from the loss of fingers to the loss of limbs.
The family of 13-year-old Cynthia sued The Facility Formerly Known as Prince after her abortion (scroll down): On April 28 or 30, 1973, Cynthia sought pregnancy counseling at Inglewood. The defendants "recommended that her said pregnancy be terminated and that they be authorized to perform the recommended abortion." Cynthia's abortion was performed by none other than Leo Kenneally. John Dupont indicated he was summoned by Morton Barke to assess Cynthia after Kenneally had finished the abortion. He "found she was grossly jaundiced and was suffering from a severe infection," and he had her transferred to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. Upon admission Cynthia was "very jaundiced." She suffered post abortal clostridia sepsis, diffuse intravascular coagulation, and acute tubular necrosis. "Some necrotic material was found in the uterus, draining of the cul-de-sac revealed pus, and the uterus was found to be quite involved by a suppurative process as were the tubes and ovaries. The plaintiff also suffered acute renal failure." The suit also noted that Cynthia "has suffered severe emotional, nervous, mental and psychological shock resulting from the complete abdominal hysterectomy, and demonstrated by prolonged periods of depression and lethargy." Cynthia was further treated at a hospital April 30 - May 22. The suit also noted the "possibility of future kidney and liver complications." Cynthia must take medications for remainder of her life, and suffered scars on her abdomen and arms. (LA County Superior Court Case No. SWC30375)
Rosa Naperstek-Taft, a Chicago-area attorney, was very politically active in championing legal abortion. She and her friends had actually celebrated the night before her abortion, because she was the first among them to have one of the new safe-n-legal abortions instead of the old-fashioned illegal kind. She certainly got to reap what she'd sown. Rosa said that she screamed in pain during the abortion, and a staffer responded by stuffing a tampon in her mouth. The abortion was so badly botched that Rosa lost all her reproductive organs and her spleen. She had to undergo a colostomy and tracheotomy, and suffered damage to her heart, lungs, kidneys, and vocal cords. She was hospitalized for eight months, with three of those months spent in intensive care. After her injuries were repaired, Rosa had to undergo intensive therapy to learn to walk and talk again. Rosa said, "I don't have my normal body. My abdomen looks like a sky map of the Grand Canyon. ... My voice is totally changed, and I have a lot of psychological scars that will be with me forever." (Chicago Sun-Times 11-15-78; Wayne County Circuit Court Case No. 73 250 920 CM)
Diana S. filed suit after her abortion, performed by Dr. Rebecca Stanley on May 20, 1989. Diana was in great pain and was bleeding heavily. Dr. Stanley repeated the procedure with ovum extractors. By the end of the second procedure, Dr. Stanley "knew ... she had perforated the uterus." In spite of this injury, Dr. Stanley sent Diana home with her husband, telling them that the abortion had been successful and without complications. To make a long story short, Dianna ended up in the hospital. Dr. Stanley had ripped a 4-cm tear into the back of Diana's uterus and shoved the head and chest of the fetus through the tear into Diana's abdomin. Dr. Stanley had also torn away the tissue covering Diana's sacral bone. Stanley had also managed to tear out about 10 cm of Diana's right ureter, clear up to the bottom of her kidney. Doctors had to implant tubes through Diana's abdominal wall to drain her kidneys directly. As of the time the documents were filed, it was still unclear whether or not doctors would be able to salvage Diana's damaged kidney. In order to prevent any future pregnancies, which would be life-threatening due to the extreme damage done to Diana's uterus, Diana had to have a hysterectomy. She was left with a 1-inch-wide scar running from her sternum to her pubic bone. (LA County Superior Court Case No. KC000309, Medical Board Case No. D-4249)
It's not always the mothers that end up with the scarring:
Abortion provider Enrique Gerbi performed an abortion on Ruth Ann S. October 3, 1984. Saline was injected into Ruth Ann's uterus to kill the fetus. At 12:30 AM on October 4, Ruth Ann delivered a live infant girl, that she named Vanessa. Vanessa suffered brain damage, required heart surgery due to saline damage, and required surgery "to relieve hydrocephalic conditions produced by the result of the salt injection." The baby suffered blindness, mental retardation, severe scarring and burning of her feet, growth retardation, and "Lack of coordination, ambulation and other dysfunctions not yet manifest." (Wayne County Circuit Court Case No. 85-529757)
Baby Claire had her arm ripped off in an abortion attempt.
Gianna Jessen has cerebral palsy and surgical scars thanks to damage she suffered during a saline abortion intended to kill her.
Ana Rosa Rodriguez had her arm ripped off by a provider of vital reproductive health care services, who was trying to kill her. (The abortionist, Abu Hayat, was a member of the National Abortion Federation, and he had also performed the fatal abortion on Sophie McCoy.)
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It's not always the mothers that end up with the scarring:
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Blame where blame is due
Operation Rescue and many of its visitors have their panties in a twist because of Kim, the staffer who called 911 when Laura Smith stopped breathing during her abortion.
The title of the post, "911 Call Reveals Cold-Hearted Attitude Toward MA Woman’s Abortion Death", is itself needlessly judgmental. Then OR says:
The folks leaving comments are even worse:
and
and
We can have no idea what was going on in Kim's heart or head. Maybe she was indeed cold and callous. But there are three other far more likely explanations for her "improper" emotion during the 911 call:
1. Kim was being as professional as she knew how to be. Medical personnel and people who work in medical settings are (at least supposed to be) trained on how to handle emergencies, and one thing they train you to do is to stay calm and cool and very task-oriented. (Stephen King said that when he was being loaded up after the van hit him, he'd asked the medic, "Am I going to die?" The medic had blandly reassured him, "Not today." King said the medic later told him that he didn't expect King to survive the ride to the hospital.) The idea is that you just do Step A, then Step B, then step C, very placidly and methodically, and you can always go home and come unglued later. The last thing you want in an emergency is hysterical, highly emotional staff. You want them as brusque and matter-of-fact as nuns supervising a canned food drive.
2. She could have been so shocked and stunned that she shut down emotionally. Sort of "This can't be happening. We can't be having a patient die! It's all gonna be okay!" Some people respond to a horrible, shocking thing with denial and disbelief as a coping mechanism. Kim could well be one of them.
3. Whoever it was that had told her to call 911 had lied to her, reassuring her that Laura could be easily resuscitated, that the ambulance was just a precautionary measure, that everything was going to be just fine. Back when Gwen Yarbour died at Lovejoy Surgicenter, the prolifers who routinely picketted the place knew about the death before the staff did. One of the prolifers had followed the ambulance to the hospital and stayed to find out if the woman was okay or not. The staff, on the other hand, had been sent home before the ambulance was called, and the next day they were told by the supervisors that Gwen had fully recovered and had gone home. They wouldn't believe the prolifers when they were first told no, Gwen had died. Kim might have made the understandable mistake of trusting her supervisor or the doctor, who she figured had more knowledge than she did.
This said, I can fault somebody -- perhaps Kim, perhaps the people who trained her -- for not giving the proper set of information when calling 911. The dispatcher should have been given the patient's age, whether or not the patient still had a pulse, and what interventions if any were being given. Was the patient intubated? Being bagged with O2? Being given CPR? But, that said, the information was evidently quite enough to dispatch proper help, as OR notes:
We can not know what went on in Kim's heart or head unless we ask her. And even then, we can't fully know. Only Kim and God know that. Let's stick to judging the behaviors, which is right and appropriate, and leave it to God to judge whether Kim's emotions at the time were "appropriate".
The title of the post, "911 Call Reveals Cold-Hearted Attitude Toward MA Woman’s Abortion Death", is itself needlessly judgmental. Then OR says:
Audio files and transcripts obtained by Operation Rescue of a 911 call and subsequent communications between emergency responders reveals a cold-hearted dispassion concerning the death of a Massachusetts woman during an abortion in September.
Records show that a woman named Kim, who was an employee of “Women’s Health Center,” an abortion office owned and operated by Rapin Osathanondh, made a 911 call to the Hyannis Fire Department on September 13 requesting medical assistance for a woman who had aspirated and was not breathing. ....
“I’ve heard people order pizza with more emotion than that clinic worker had when calling help for Laura,” said Operation Rescue spokesperson Cheryl Sullenger.
The folks leaving comments are even worse:
I would think if someone was lying dead in the next room, I might reflect a little more anxiety in my voice than this woman, Kim. It almost sounded like she was bored with the question when he asked her phone number.
and
Since Kim works for an abortionist, she sees death on a daily basis…no big deal to her. Anyone who works for an abortionist has to be very cold.
and
Just another example of “business as usual” at an abortion clinic.
The lack of emotion/concern in Kims voice is most likely due to training she received that stresses NO URGENCY when summoning help for a “botch victim”. After all, we don’t want any attention being drawn to a clinic where they don’t have the resources or the staff to handle an emergency.
We can have no idea what was going on in Kim's heart or head. Maybe she was indeed cold and callous. But there are three other far more likely explanations for her "improper" emotion during the 911 call:
1. Kim was being as professional as she knew how to be. Medical personnel and people who work in medical settings are (at least supposed to be) trained on how to handle emergencies, and one thing they train you to do is to stay calm and cool and very task-oriented. (Stephen King said that when he was being loaded up after the van hit him, he'd asked the medic, "Am I going to die?" The medic had blandly reassured him, "Not today." King said the medic later told him that he didn't expect King to survive the ride to the hospital.) The idea is that you just do Step A, then Step B, then step C, very placidly and methodically, and you can always go home and come unglued later. The last thing you want in an emergency is hysterical, highly emotional staff. You want them as brusque and matter-of-fact as nuns supervising a canned food drive.
2. She could have been so shocked and stunned that she shut down emotionally. Sort of "This can't be happening. We can't be having a patient die! It's all gonna be okay!" Some people respond to a horrible, shocking thing with denial and disbelief as a coping mechanism. Kim could well be one of them.
3. Whoever it was that had told her to call 911 had lied to her, reassuring her that Laura could be easily resuscitated, that the ambulance was just a precautionary measure, that everything was going to be just fine. Back when Gwen Yarbour died at Lovejoy Surgicenter, the prolifers who routinely picketted the place knew about the death before the staff did. One of the prolifers had followed the ambulance to the hospital and stayed to find out if the woman was okay or not. The staff, on the other hand, had been sent home before the ambulance was called, and the next day they were told by the supervisors that Gwen had fully recovered and had gone home. They wouldn't believe the prolifers when they were first told no, Gwen had died. Kim might have made the understandable mistake of trusting her supervisor or the doctor, who she figured had more knowledge than she did.
This said, I can fault somebody -- perhaps Kim, perhaps the people who trained her -- for not giving the proper set of information when calling 911. The dispatcher should have been given the patient's age, whether or not the patient still had a pulse, and what interventions if any were being given. Was the patient intubated? Being bagged with O2? Being given CPR? But, that said, the information was evidently quite enough to dispatch proper help, as OR notes:
“In contrast, it appears that the emergency workers did all they could for Laura. The amount of units that responded, and the call to the Captain indicated that they took the situation very seriously.”
We can not know what went on in Kim's heart or head unless we ask her. And even then, we can't fully know. Only Kim and God know that. Let's stick to judging the behaviors, which is right and appropriate, and leave it to God to judge whether Kim's emotions at the time were "appropriate".
Antichoice prochoicers win another round
Pro-Life Crisis Pregnancy Centre Bullied out of Fundraiser by Vicious Abortion Crusaders
Ottawa's First Place Pregnancy Centre has told the charitable foundation of the Ottawa Senators hockey team that it will be pulling out of a fundraising scheme because of negative publicity after attacks in the press on its pro-life position. The Ottawa Citizen reports that First Place told the foundation it would be pulling out of the fundraising drive after being called "anti-choice" by Planned Parenthood in a press release and "sinister" by CBC columnist Heather Mallick.
First Place was to be among three charities in Ottawa to receive the proceeds of a Christmas tree raffle organised by a group of Senators' wives and girlfriends called the Better Halves. Terri Mazik, executive director of First Place, told the Ottawa Citizen they withdrew for fear of tarnishing the foundation's positive image.
She said, "We felt, under the circumstances, they were doing a wonderful thing by including us and they did not deserve to be receiving the negative press."
First Place does make it clear on their web site that they do not perpetrate or refer for abortions:
Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates pretend that they're about "choice". But as the First Place main page says, "If you only have one choice, do you really have a choice at all?"
The antichoicers have won the battle, but let's not let them win the war. You can donate to First Place here.
A quote I can't resist!
"When someone asks you 'think about what Jesus would do', remember that a valid option is to freak out and turn over tables" -- Unknown
HT: Catholic Pillow Fight
HT: Catholic Pillow Fight
Anniversary: Death in 1925
On December 7, 1925, 18-year-old Margaret Zito died at Chicago's West End Hospital from a criminal abortion performed that day. The person responsible for Margaret's death wasn't identified.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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Searhes: Shelley Sella, fatal infection, and more
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Searches: dead teens, Crist's dead, Lisa Bardsley, and coathanger abortions
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Search: "18 week embryo"
Somebody was searching for "18 week embryo". There is no such thing, any more than there's 19-year-old infant. At conception, the new entity is an embryo. At 8 week, every major system is in place and the young human is now a fetus.
Here is The Visible Embryo's illustration of, and information about, an 18 week fetus. The fetus is about five to five and a half inches long from the crown of its head to its bottom (they're measured that way because of how they lie curled up in the womb) and weighs about 5.25 ounces or 150 grams. Among the developmental milestones:
At this site you can see 3D ultrasounds of unborn babies of various ages, and ultrasound video clips of 17 and 19 week fetuses.
Here is the famous Life magazine cover showing an 18-week fetus, still alive and with the amniotic sac entact, after a hysterotomy abortion. (Like a c-section, but with the intention being a dead fetus rather than a live baby.)
What does an abortion do to an 18 week fetus? A medical illustration of how a second-trimester D&E abortion is performed is here. The illustration uses a 14-week fetus but the only difference in a D&E at 18 weeks is the size, as you can see by this medical illustration of a D&E abortion of a 23-week fetus. And this site offers footage of an actual D&E abortion, though I can't determine exactly what gestational age. It's not far off from 18 weeks, as best as I can tell, and it's very graphic so click at your own risk. I can't find properly labeled photos of the body of a D&E aborted baby specifically at 18 weeks, but this one certainly is in the ballpark.
For a blast from the past, here is a picture of some "candy apple babies", as the victims of saline abortions were called. The bright red color of these babies was caused by the saline eating away the outer layer of skin. Abortion practitioners in the United States have largely abandoned this technique, which was usually done overnight in a hospital, for the D&E method which is far less likely to result in a dreaded live birth.
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Here is The Visible Embryo's illustration of, and information about, an 18 week fetus. The fetus is about five to five and a half inches long from the crown of its head to its bottom (they're measured that way because of how they lie curled up in the womb) and weighs about 5.25 ounces or 150 grams. Among the developmental milestones:
- Fetus has phases of sleep and waking and may prefer a favorite sleep position. .... Eyebrows begin to form.
- Ovaries of female fetuses contain primitive egg cells. The uterus of female fetuses is also fully formed.
At this site you can see 3D ultrasounds of unborn babies of various ages, and ultrasound video clips of 17 and 19 week fetuses.
Here is the famous Life magazine cover showing an 18-week fetus, still alive and with the amniotic sac entact, after a hysterotomy abortion. (Like a c-section, but with the intention being a dead fetus rather than a live baby.)
What does an abortion do to an 18 week fetus? A medical illustration of how a second-trimester D&E abortion is performed is here. The illustration uses a 14-week fetus but the only difference in a D&E at 18 weeks is the size, as you can see by this medical illustration of a D&E abortion of a 23-week fetus. And this site offers footage of an actual D&E abortion, though I can't determine exactly what gestational age. It's not far off from 18 weeks, as best as I can tell, and it's very graphic so click at your own risk. I can't find properly labeled photos of the body of a D&E aborted baby specifically at 18 weeks, but this one certainly is in the ballpark.
For a blast from the past, here is a picture of some "candy apple babies", as the victims of saline abortions were called. The bright red color of these babies was caused by the saline eating away the outer layer of skin. Abortion practitioners in the United States have largely abandoned this technique, which was usually done overnight in a hospital, for the D&E method which is far less likely to result in a dreaded live birth.
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Searches: moms and babies
Anniversary: Teen bleeds to death from safe and legal abortion
Life Dynamics lists 16-year-old Katrina Poole on their "Blackmun Wall" of women killed by legal abortions. LDI notes that Katrina's abortion was performed the afternoon of December 5, 1988, in a doctor's office in Jacksonville, Florida. She suffered a perforated cervix and uterus, and died of hemorrhage the following day.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Oooh! That's just sinister!
Abortion Campaigners Launch Attack on Hockey Wives' Charitable Support for Crisis Pregnancy Centre
An organization of the wives of Canadian hockey players is under fire from abortion fanatic journalist Heather Mallick because one of the charities they support is a prolife pregnancy center, or CPC. Mallick called the center "sinister".
"They take great care to look like kindly counselling centres," Mallick opined. "In fact, they exist solely to prevent abortion."
Preventing abortion! What a dastardly deed!
So much for the idea that nobody likes abortion.
An organization of the wives of Canadian hockey players is under fire from abortion fanatic journalist Heather Mallick because one of the charities they support is a prolife pregnancy center, or CPC. Mallick called the center "sinister".
"They take great care to look like kindly counselling centres," Mallick opined. "In fact, they exist solely to prevent abortion."
Preventing abortion! What a dastardly deed!
So much for the idea that nobody likes abortion.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Searches: Back alley butchery and other nasty stuff
Anniversary: Abortion leads to amputation
"Nadine" went to Women's Medical Center of Los Angeles on December 5, 1981. She said later that the consent for her abortion was "obtained solely and directly as the result of certain false, misleading, deceitful, and fraudulent statements and representations and concealment of facts on the part of the defendants." Had it not been for the misrepresentations by clinic staff, Nadine said, she never would have consented to the abortion.
The abortion was performed by Emmanuel Brandeis. When the intravenous drugs were administered, damage was done to Nadine's nerves and tissues in her right hand. She had to have portions of her fingers amputated as a result. The consent forms had never mentioned amputation as a potential complication. (LA County Superior Court Case No. WEC073497)
Nadine is not the only patient who required amputations as a result of something going wrong with an abortion. Patient "Lina," age 22, filed suit after an abortion performed by Oscar Gonzalez on April 1, 1985. Gonzales injected her with phenegren for the abortion, and sent her home afterward although her hand was swelling and developing a rash. When Lina's arm swelled and turned purple she went to the emergency room. Her arm developed gangrene and had to be amputated. Gonzalez reportedly admitted he may have misinjected the medication. (Houston Chronicle 7-18-85, Suburbia Reporter 7-24-85)
We also received reports at Life Dynamics of one woman who had to have a leg amputated due to post-abortion sepsis, and another woman who lost both feet and both arms below the elbow as a result of post-abortion sepsis. These women did not complain to the medical board or file suit, and did not wish to discuss their cases with us.
The most high-profile abortion amputation case is that of Carolina Gutierrez, who died after multiple amputations for post-abortion sepsis.
The abortion was performed by Emmanuel Brandeis. When the intravenous drugs were administered, damage was done to Nadine's nerves and tissues in her right hand. She had to have portions of her fingers amputated as a result. The consent forms had never mentioned amputation as a potential complication. (LA County Superior Court Case No. WEC073497)
Nadine is not the only patient who required amputations as a result of something going wrong with an abortion. Patient "Lina," age 22, filed suit after an abortion performed by Oscar Gonzalez on April 1, 1985. Gonzales injected her with phenegren for the abortion, and sent her home afterward although her hand was swelling and developing a rash. When Lina's arm swelled and turned purple she went to the emergency room. Her arm developed gangrene and had to be amputated. Gonzalez reportedly admitted he may have misinjected the medication. (Houston Chronicle 7-18-85, Suburbia Reporter 7-24-85)
We also received reports at Life Dynamics of one woman who had to have a leg amputated due to post-abortion sepsis, and another woman who lost both feet and both arms below the elbow as a result of post-abortion sepsis. These women did not complain to the medical board or file suit, and did not wish to discuss their cases with us.
The most high-profile abortion amputation case is that of Carolina Gutierrez, who died after multiple amputations for post-abortion sepsis.