Somebody came to my blog searching, "I've got an infection from abortion. Can I die?"
The answer is an unequivocal YES!
Get in touch with your family doctor ASAP, or go to the emergency room. If you don't have insurance, contact a CPC (They're under "abortion alternatives" in the Yellow Pages) and let them know you're sick after an abortion. I've seen many cases of CPCs, sidewalk counselors, and other groups of prolifers paying for abortion aftercare for injured women. To clarify for the sake of those readers who are SoMG, the CPC won't necessarily have a doctor who can provide care (though some do), but they are a resource to get a referral to a doctor and for paying medical bills if you're uninsured.
PLEASE GET HELP QUICKLY! Get seen by a doctor, or at the very least a triage nurse at an emergency room, even if the clinic is blowing you off and telling you that there's nothing to worry about.
If you're having trouble finding help, email me or post a comment here and I'll get you in touch with people in your city who can help you. DO NOT DELAY!
14 comments:
December 11, 2008, San Jose police found the body of a 35 year old woman outside the front door of the Planned Parenthood clinic. She has been identified as Corina Louis Fuerte. The police are saying this is a coincidence. I'm not so sure. Why does a woman choose to die at the front door of a Planned Parenthood clinic? Perhaps because she was suffering from a botched abortion and was waiting for the office to open? There's a lot of unanswered questions here.
The article can be found at the San Jose Mercury News.
You're right that it's odd, but we don't know the layout of the PP. This might have been a homeless woman and the door might have been set up in some sort of structure that offered shelter.
But do keep us posted.
Excuse me. If you have an infection from an abortion, turning to a CPC is a very silly idea. CPCs are not medical facilities.
Call the doc or clinic that did the abortion.
CPCs that do "free" ultrasounds do NOT have to do real ultrasounds. They could be showing you fake sonograms. If a doc does this it's malpractice, fraud, and other crimes. You can shut him/her down easily. There's nothing you can do against a CPC if they do this; since they're not charging a fee or operating under a medical licence, it's not a crime if they lie to you.
I didn't say to contact CPCs for medical care, SoMG. I said to contact them if you don't have medical insurance to pay for the aftercare. CPCs and other prolife groups have paid women's medical bills for abortion aftercare.
GG, if you have a post-abortion infection, you shouldn't even be thinking about costs. You should be thinking about getting real medical care right away.
I agree, SoMG, that getting medical care is the higher priority. But if you've done any work with women suffering abortion complications you'd know that often they delay seeking care because they're not insured and don't know where they'll get the money to pay the bills. That's where CPCs can help. They can take away the financial concern so the woman can focus on getting the care she needs without worrying that her children will be doing without necessities.
You wrote: "The CPC won't necessarily have a doctor who can provide care (though some do), but they are a resource to get a referral to a doctor ..."
She already has a doctor. One who specializes in handling problems after abortions. If the clinic is telling you there's nothing to worry about, they're probably right. What do you think, they wanna keep you from getting followup care if you need it??? They want their patients to die?
"...and for paying medical bills if you're uninsured."
Suuuure. OK, suppose I'm uninsured and facing medical problems after an abortion and for some reason there's no way to recover any of the costs from the doc who did the abortion--he's been shot to death by a right-to-lifer. I go to a CPC asking for help. Realistically, what portion of my bills would you expect them to pay? How much would you advise me to count on getting, based on (say) averages?
The CPCs do have an agenda: to interfere with abortion docs as much as they can. THAT'S why they want to talk to women with abortion complications. This goal may accord with SOME of the patient's interests--for instance you both want to get as big a settlement as possible--but not all of them. The worse things turn out for you, the stronger a weapon you can be for CPCs to use against the abortion doc. This gives them a good reason for preferring your outcome to be bad.
As always, the important thing to remember is that because CPCs do not charge a fee or operate under licence, THEY ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANYTHING THEY DO OR TELL YOU TO DO. They have NO legal obligation to help you or be truthful with you. That's what you pay a doc for.
She already has a doctor. One who specializes in handling problems after abortions.
Yeah -- one who has already injured her. Not to mention he might be off in another city if he's a circuit-rider, or if she travelled to get the abortion.
If the clinic is telling you there's nothing to worry about, they're probably right.
Tell that to Brenda Vise, Jennifer Suddeth, and all the other women who are dead because they couldn't get the clinic to take their condition seriously.
What do you think, they wanna keep you from getting followup care if you need it??? They want their patients to die?
I have no clue what their motives are. All I know is that women have died after being reassured -- sometimes multiple times -- that their symptoms were perfectly normal.
OK, suppose I'm uninsured and facing medical problems after an abortion and for some reason there's no way to recover any of the costs from the doc who did the abortion--...
Or maybe the medical bills are worrying her NOW? Is a time when she's in danger of going septic the time to educate her about how personal-injury attorneys work? What she needs to know is that there is no good reason to let fear of not being able to pay the medical bills to keep her from getting care.
And there are a LOT of reasons she might not be able to recover her expenses. Odds are she'll have whatever ambulance-chaser she sees on TV saying, "There's never a fee unless we get money for you!" Whereas he'll have an experienced ab/mal defense attorney, the National Abortion Federation, the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, and his insurance company's attorney. Good luck with the lawsuit!
Realistically, what portion of my bills would you expect them to pay? How much would you advise me to count on getting, based on (say) averages?
The idea is to get her to the doctor NOW, and sort out the bills later. I've not done an extensive study of what percentage of CPC budgets go to paying for post-abortion care. I just know that they've done it, as have sidewalk counselors.
The CPCs do have an agenda: to interfere with abortion docs as much as they can.
Well it's a little late to interfere with her abortion if she's already suffering an infection afterward. What are you afraid they're gonna do -- somehow retroactively un-kill the fetus which is probably rotting in her abdominal cavity?
THAT'S why they want to talk to women with abortion complications.
Yeah, it's always a boon to business to end up trying to pull together the money to pay somebody's hospital bills.
I realize you'd rather the woman go back to the guy who injured her in the first place -- but all I care about is that she gets care. If the guy who hurt her provides it, that's great. If he doesn't, there's still the ER or somebody the CPC can refer her to.
SoMG,
You said, "You should be thinking about getting real medical care right away." So, the abortion that injured her was not real medical care, I guess. And the reality of abortion mills is that there is no doctor-patient relationship -- in many instances, the only time the doctor meets the patient is when she's already knocked out and prepped for the surgery. The woman had someone who was willing to suction or scrape out her uterus for a fee; probably the person at the clinic that tells the women there's nothing to worry about is not someone with the required medical training to determine the severity of the complaint.
Precisely what percentage of abortionists have been "shot to death by a right-to-lifer"?
But if a woman is needing medical care and is turned away by the clinic that caused her problems, she is thinking about having to pay bills the next day, not being able to sue the doctor and perhaps collect some money to pay the bills next year or next decade.
GG, In reply to my writing : "She already has a doctor. One who specializes in handling problems after abortions.", you wrote: "Yeah -- one who has already injured her."
So if you have, say a heart operation, and you have a complication, are you gonna switch docs, rather than getting follow up care to the one who injured you, and knows better than anyone else what happened during the procedure and what the problem might be? If yer gonna switch docs because the old one injured you, then you're pretty dumb. Every doc injures SOME patients. Being a doc means knowing how to manage complications as well as how to avoid them.
You wrote:"Not to mention he might be off in another city if he's a circuit-rider, or if she travelled to get the abortion."
I agree with you, we should work to make sure no regions need to rely on circuit riders, and no women need to travel, for abortions. I knew you'd clue in eventually!
I wrote: "If the clinic is telling you there's nothing to worry about, they're probably right." And you wrote: "Tell that to Brenda Vise, Jennifer Suddeth, and all the other women who are dead because they couldn't get the clinic to take their condition seriously."
I said "probably", not "certainly". And Brenda Vise and Jennifer Studdeth and all the others would have had an even GREATER risk of death if they had chosen childbirth instead of their abortions. About eleven times greater.
Once again, you don't seem to understand that everything has risks--doing something has risks, and NOT doing it has risks--and a list of victims of those risks means absolutely nothing. Show numbers. The reason you keep listing victims instead of showing numbers is, you know the numbers are against you. Eleven-fold.
You wrote: "What she needs to know is that there is no good reason to let fear of not being able to pay the medical bills to keep her from getting care. "
Oh yeah, she doesn't have to worry about her medical bills, because she can turn to CPC for help! They'll take care of everything. Suuure. And by the way I didn't ask as you say what proportion of their budgets CPCs spend on providing abortion aftercare--I asked what proportion of MY abortion aftercare bills I should realistically expect CPC to cover if I need them. (I'm waiting for you to admit the answer is zero.)
I wrote: "The CPCs do have an agenda: to interfere with abortion docs as much as they can." and you wrote: "Well it's a little late to interfere with her abortion if she's already suffering an infection afterward."
I meant interfere with the abortion doc's work GENERALLY.
You wrote: "What are you afraid they're gonna do -- somehow retroactively un-kill the fetus which is probably rotting in her abdominal cavity?"
The abdominal cavity? You mean the uterus gets punctured AND the fetus gets pushed through the puncture into the abdomen? That would be a case worth writing up and publishing in the ANNALS.
You ask, what am I afraid CPC will do? I'm afraid they'll wrongly claim the problem was the doc's fault rather than one of the problems that inevitably happen to EVERYONE some of the time (it's just a question of how often and when), and encourage the patient file an unjustified lawsuit. Maybe help her pay for it. And maybe bolster the lawsuit with false testimony about her condition after the abortion. Not to help her but to tar the abortion doc. Oh, and maybe convince her later that her memories of the problem are causing "post-abortion syndrome" and encourage her to medicalize those feelings, again, not in order to help her but in order to artificially increase the statistics on "post abortion syndrome". Or, they might take advantage of her vulnerability to try to convert her to a cult or religion different from hers. Remember, no fee and no licence means they can do whatever they want. They have no legal obligation to consider the patient's interests AT ALL.
Kathy, you wrote: "... the reality of abortion mills is that there is no doctor-patient relationship..."
Yeah, like any procedure-specialist. What kind of doctor-patient relationship do you have with the anaesthesiologist who puts you out for say a hernia repair operation? How about with the surgeon? How about with whoever was on duty at the derm clinic last time you had a wart removed?
You wrote: " -- in many instances, the only time the doctor meets the patient is when she's already knocked out and prepped for the surgery."
It's quite unusual to get a procedure without at least shaking hands with the doc these days. Any procedure. These days they want you to meet the whole team. Supposedly better for customer relations and reducing litigiousness. You end up meeting so many people you don't remember anyone's name which is pretty much the desired outcome anyway.
You wrote: "...probably the person at the clinic that tells the women there's nothing to worry about is not someone with the required medical training to determine the severity of the complaint."
You've said some dumb things but this one takes the biscuit. What kind of clinic would allow untrained personnel to give medical advice to current patients who might need emergency followup??? Sure, you can probably find some--there's no limit to how bad individual cases can get, in any field--I knew of an obgyn who got so tired of a patient complaining repeatedly about her infertility that he took out her ovaries just to make her feel he'd "done something"--but you have no reason whatsoever for suggesting that this sort of egregious malpractice is any more common in abortion than in any other field with similar requirements. And by the way, if you or GG start listing names of women it's happened to, I will not read your lists. If you can't show me numbers, give your fingers a rest. And in order to merit my attention, the numbers must show that abortion is worse than other fields in this regard. Not just that it's however good or bad it is.
Dear Visitor,
Since things are heading towards debate here, I've addressed your concerns regarding post-abortion infection in a medically honest manner here
Can we trust free pregnancy test
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