I'm still a bit angry. I got a snotty comment from an abortion advocate sneering that I'm not lamenting childbirth deaths. After all, they are deaths from a "reproductive choice".
You know, I have yet to encounter an abortion advocate who fails at some point to dredge up childbirth mortality, usually with some smug, snide remark about how much more dangerous childbirth is than abortion.
Earth to abortion apologists: Even if your claim was true (which is unlikely and certainly unproven) -- it's irrelevant.
Could you imagine the public outcry if, in the wake of an airline crash, the FAA and the airline industry insisted that there was no need for an investigation and no need to take corrective measures on the grounds that, "Well, flying is still safer than driving!" We'd never stand for it. No matter how much safer airline travel is than driving, we still hold airlines to strict safety standards. No matter how much safer airline travel is than driving, we still investigate crashes. No matter how much safer airline travel is than driving, we still remain ever alert for ways to reduce risks and make it safer.
The comparative safety of an alternative method of transportation simply isn't relevant. We ask the question, "What caused this tragedy? What can we do to prevent this from happening again?" The question of how many of those airline passengers might have died had they driven instead is never asked, because it's not relevant.
But let a woman die from a legal abortion, and abortion apologists come out of the woodwork simpering, "Well, women die in childbirth all the time! Why not worry about them!" To which I say -- Then do so!
By all means, yes, let's address childbirth mortality. And let's start by acknowledging that legalizing abortion had nothing to do with the dramatic reduction of childbirth mortality in the 20th Century. The biggest heroes in the fight against needless maternal and chid mortality are sewer workers and the guys who keep clean water running to your kitchen and bathroom taps, followed cloesly by the chain of workers, from farmer to grocer, that bring fresh milk, meat, and produce from farm to you. The idea that abortion advocacy had anything to do with it is galling, and belittles the people whose thankless drudge work makes our lives clean and healthy.
That said: Let's go ahead and address the remaining childbirth mortality factors. Let's make better prenatal care available. Let's educate women about the importance of good nutrition before and during pregnancy. Let's develop protocols for referring high-risk women to specialists. Let's improve all aspects of obstetric care, for the better health and safety of mothers and babies. But let's not for a minute forget that none of this will change a thing about abortion practice.
The fact remains that there is no amount of addressing childbirth safety that will change how abortions are performed. No matter what we do about how prenatal care is provided, or what equipment is available in delivery rooms, and so forth, none of this will change what goes on in abortion clinics, just as putting airbags in cars doesn't make airline travel safer.
If abortion apologists are serious about their often chanted mantra of "safe and legal," they'd do something to address "safe" other than obsessing with "legal." They'd investigate abortion mishaps the way the FAA investigates air travel mishaps. They'd make recommendations about preventing further mishaps. They would, in short, take abortion safety as seriously as they take abortion legality.
And if they really cared about childbirth mortality, they'd address it instead of simply sneering about it.
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9 comments:
Could you imagine the public outcry if, in the wake of an airline crash, the FAA and the airline industry insisted that there was no need for an investigation and no need to take corrective measures on the grounds that, "Well, flying is still safer than driving!" We'd never stand for it.
Your analogy might make some sense if you had some evidence that pro-choicers don't care about improving abortion safety. I know you don't have that evidence because it's not true. Ever since abortion was legalized, it has become safer and safer, and the pro-choice people performing those abortions are primarily responsible for those safety improvements.
I'm not the one who wants to outlaw abortion and make it more dangerous, Christina, YOU ARE.
To use your own analogy, it's as if you are trying to BAN flying, because "it's dangerous!!" I'm here telling you that driving is even more dangerous, and you do not care, because you do not really care about saving lives at all.
Your analogy might make some sense if you had some evidence that pro-choicers don't care about improving abortion safety.
Prochoice citizens may care, but prochoice activists are another matter entirely. And, sadly, prochoice citizens trust them.
"In my gut, I am completely aghast at what goes on at that place [Dadeland]. But I staunchly oppose anything that would correct this situation in law." -- Prochoice activist Janis Compton-Carr, co-founder of the Florida Abortion Council.
In the the 60 Minutes show about Hillview, where Debra Gray and Suzanne Logan were fatally injured (and the owner, Susan Lofton, was passing herself off as a doctor), Barbara Radford, then-president of the National Abortion Federation, defended the head-in-the-sand attitude the organization took toward safety issues by saying, "We want to make sure that women have choices when it comes to abortion services, and if you regulate it too strictly, you then deny women access to the service." Reporters asked pro-choice Maryland State Senator Mary Boergers why nothing was being done to address dangerous abortion clinics. Boergers said, "There's only so much of a willingness to try to push a group like the pro-choice movement to do what I think is the responsible thing to do because they then treat you as if you're the enemy."
The main claim is that safety is ensured via encouraging abortionists to join the National Abortion Federation and follow their Clinical Guidelines. Yeah, that'll do the job. NAF members have included:
Eastern Women's Center, where Venus Ortiz, Dawn Ravenelle, and Dawn Mack all underwent their fatal abortions. They couldn't find their medical director, and got cited for violations including having just an LPN in charge of the recovery room, unqualified staff reviewing medical histories with patietns, failure to administer necessary medications, missing and/or inadequte records, no evidence that physicians were overseeing anesthesia or recovery, moldy ceiling tiles, and re-use of single-use medical equipment.
Another "Trust us, we're the professionals" NAF member is Family Planning Associates Medical Group, where a dozen women that I know of underwent fatal abortions. Owner/founder Edward Allred admitted in a deposition in the Deanna Bell death that he never had his people do any sort of assessment or preventability study after patient deaths. They'd just go merrily about their business.
In one NAF Risk Management Session, during a discussion period, one of the guys said that he dealt with "pulled bowel" (pulling a loop of the patient's bowel out through a hole you'd just made in her uterus) by stuffing it back in, giving her extra drugs, keeping her a little longer in recovery, and keeping his fingers crossed. The moderator, Michael Burnhill, chewed him out for playing Russian roulette with patient's lives, reviewd proper procedures for caring for these patients, THEN asked for a show of hands for how many used the "stuff it back and cross your fingers" technique. EVEN AFTER HE'D CHEWED THEM OUT, six of them raised their hands and admitted that they did this! And what Burnhill predicted came to pass when Bruce Steir used the "cross your fingers" method on Sharon Hamplton. And what was the prochoice response? They set up a defense committee for the guy who killed her!
Yeah, lots of evidence that abortion advocates just LOVE those poor, minority women.
Prochoice citizens may care, but prochoice activists are another matter entirely.
Please. Back in the 1970s, the abortion death rate was around 4 deaths per 100,000 abortions. Today, it's more like 0.8 deaths per 100,000 abortions.
http://tinyurl.com/64o5xt
The pro-choice doctors performing the abortions are responsible for this improvement. If pro-choice people didn't care about safety, it wouldn't have gotten safer.
What are YOU doing to improve abortion safety? Oh, that's right, you don't want to improve abortion safety. You want to throw doctors who know what they're doing in prison and let amateurs take over, safety be damned. So really, who the hell are you to complain about the safety of abortion?
If you go back and check CDC Abortion Surveillance Summaries, you'll notice something very interesting. You'll notice that a sudden drop in reported abortion deaths comes right when two names vanish from the list of authors: David Grimes and Willard Cates.
When Cates and Grimes were in Abortion Surveillance, they sent out letters every year to emergency physicians, family doctors, and ob/gyns, asking them to report abortion deaths. If they didn't get an answer, they'd send a follow-up letter. The abortion mortality surveillance was active. They looked for deaths.
When Cates and Grimes left, the data collection method was dropped and became passive. They started just counting what came to them automatically through the National Center for Health Statistics, which comes from ABSTRACTED SAMPLES of death certificates sent from the states.
I spent six months researching this full-time. You're welcome to replicate my efforts if you like.
At any rate, when you stop looking for something, you're bound to not discover it as often.
Now, what have I done to improve abortino safety? When law enforcement in Ohio caught Nabil Ghali performing abortions, I sent a dossier that helped them to get him held without bail. He was locked up, unable to injure or rape anybody else. Then, sadly, a judge let him plea-bargain to time served and he was released, but I've not seen any sign of him since. I'm hoping that we scared him into another line of work, say, running a car wash.
I tried to alert Diane Sawyer to seedy abortionists who were still in practice, including Lawson Akpolonu, who was raping his patients. Sawyer dropped the ball on what she considered "a non-story", but the help we gave the nurse who called us got the medical board alerted to him and helped launch an investigation. He fled the country. Women are safe from him now.
I coach people on investigating these quacks and getting them shut down.
While the self-appointed Champions of Women are setting up defense funds for them.
You know, I'm not the one who considers them "heroes" above reproach simply because they kill fetuses.
Look up obituaries for Harvey Karman, Benjamin Munson, and Milan Vuitch. The prochoicers go into raptures about them. The fact that Harvey Karman killed Joyce Johnson, Benjamin Munson killed Linda Padfield and Yvonne Tanner, and Milan Vuitch killed Wilma Harris and Georgianna English are considered beneath prochoice notice. If you want to make omelettes, you gotta break a few eggs, I guess, and Joyce, Linda, Yvonne, Wilma, and Georgianna were expendable.
Christina, Thanks for your comments. You do a great job of bringing up a great many cases of legalized babykilling where the mother is also killed. As for "statistics" on the issue, I tend not to believe abortion supporters because they have a lot to gain financially from falsifying data. ANY statistic from them NEEDS to come with a specific report on the methodology if it's to be believable. Not so with pro-lifers who are in the business of selling bare ideals and pro bono crisis pregnancy center care.
Well, prolifers can get confused or out-of-date. I get a bit tired of having to point out, for example, that not all late abortions are PBAs, especially not the ones Tiller does.
But there's a world of difference between being confused and deliberately lying.
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