MSM Shuns Embarrassing 'The Population Bomb' Anniversary
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the publication of Paul Erlich's bestselling alarmfest, "The Population Bomb". Funny, the MSM isn't quoting Pop Bomb predictions and sniggering (as we all ought to be) about how wrong they were. Nope. They continue to ignore the fact that Erlich was wrong about everything, pretending that he was right in that we need to spay and neuter and abort all those brown and black and yellow people lest they leave the world too cluttered up with themselves for rich White people to get maximum enjoyment out of it.
P.J. O'Rourke summed up the attitude best: "Just enough of me, way too many of you."
Read the entire article. It's brilliant.
Monday, June 30, 2008
1982: Teen mom bleeds to death, doctor charged with manslaughter
Seventeen-year-old Jennifer Suddeth underwent what she believed was a safe and legal abortion performed by Frank Robinson on June 30, 1982. On the drive home, Jennifer bled heavily, alarming her partner, John Fredzess. Fredzess called the clinic repeatedly over the four hours after their return home, but staff would not put the call through to Robinson. One nurse admonished Fredzess to "be realistic" about how severely Jennifer was bleeding. By that time, Jennifer had bled through two pairs of sweat pants, two blankets, and a towel. At last the hysterical young man was able to contact Robinson, who insisted that the bleeding was normal and instructed Fredzess to stop calling.
When Jennifer went into convulsions, Fredzess called an ambulance. Parmedics arrived at the home to find Jennifer already dead. Police interviewed the weeping and hysterical Fredzess, then pressed charges against Robinson for involuntary manslaughter in Jennifer's death. Although Robinson beat the rap, the state of California nevertheless counted Jennifer's death as due to illegal abortion.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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When Jennifer went into convulsions, Fredzess called an ambulance. Parmedics arrived at the home to find Jennifer already dead. Police interviewed the weeping and hysterical Fredzess, then pressed charges against Robinson for involuntary manslaughter in Jennifer's death. Although Robinson beat the rap, the state of California nevertheless counted Jennifer's death as due to illegal abortion.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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1998: Safe, legal abortion leaves two children motherless
Kendra McLeod, mother of two, underwent a safe and legal abortion at a clinic in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on June 12, 1998. She bled heavily after the abortion. The day after her abortion, she sought help at an emergency room. She had fainted three times by the time she got into the ER. Doctors at the hospital transfused Kendra with nine units of blood and performed surgery to try to save her life, to no avail. She died on June 30, at the age of 22.
1987: Baby dies after birth from abortion injuries
Sometimes an initially unwanted baby turns out not to be so unwanted after all. Failure to tell a young mother this prior to proceeding with an abortion led to heartache and anguish.
An underage girl, April S., went to Margaret Sanger Center for laminaria insertion on February 2, 1987, in preparation for an abortion to be performed the following day by Dr. Norman Matthews. Matthews performed a vaccum aspiration abortion procedure February 3.
There were no fetal parts found in the examination of the tissue removed during the abortion, but nobody at Margaret Sanger Center told April that. She was sent home.
Three months later, on May 7, another doctor examined April and noted that she was still pregnant, 22.5 weeks along. April "decided to keep the child due to the emotional trauma experienced by the first abortion procedure and the numerous additional risks to a late stage abortion."
Thus began a time of great anxiety for April. Ultrasounds performed between May 7 and June 29 showed decreasing amniotic fluid. It was on June 29 that April went into premature labor and underwent a c-section. Due to the low levels of amniotic fluid, the baby was born with chorioamnionitis, hypoplastic lungs, and Hyline Membrane Disease. The baby died the following day. (Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Case No. A-8905595)
An underage girl, April S., went to Margaret Sanger Center for laminaria insertion on February 2, 1987, in preparation for an abortion to be performed the following day by Dr. Norman Matthews. Matthews performed a vaccum aspiration abortion procedure February 3.
There were no fetal parts found in the examination of the tissue removed during the abortion, but nobody at Margaret Sanger Center told April that. She was sent home.
Three months later, on May 7, another doctor examined April and noted that she was still pregnant, 22.5 weeks along. April "decided to keep the child due to the emotional trauma experienced by the first abortion procedure and the numerous additional risks to a late stage abortion."
Thus began a time of great anxiety for April. Ultrasounds performed between May 7 and June 29 showed decreasing amniotic fluid. It was on June 29 that April went into premature labor and underwent a c-section. Due to the low levels of amniotic fluid, the baby was born with chorioamnionitis, hypoplastic lungs, and Hyline Membrane Disease. The baby died the following day. (Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Case No. A-8905595)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
1988: embolism kills mom having safe, legal abortion
Dawn Mendoza underwent a safe, legal abortion at the hands of Edward Rubin at Women's Medical Pavilion in Dobbs Ferry, New York, on June 29, 1988.
Rubin did a D&C abortion on Dawn, a 28-year-old mother of two, who then started screaming and gasping for breath. Staff tried unsuccessfully to revive her, but she died without ever being transferred to a hospital.
The medical examiner determined that she had died from amniotic fluid embolism, as evidenced by particles of placenta and amniotic fluid in her lungs.
Rubin did a D&C abortion on Dawn, a 28-year-old mother of two, who then started screaming and gasping for breath. Staff tried unsuccessfully to revive her, but she died without ever being transferred to a hospital.
The medical examiner determined that she had died from amniotic fluid embolism, as evidenced by particles of placenta and amniotic fluid in her lungs.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
I guess we'll be cancelling the next Olympics
We are no longer permitted to reward athletic excellence by showcasing the best, because it might hurt the feelings of the kids that aren't as good. Next step: Eliminating Olympic teams, since having "Olympic" athletes hurts the feelings of those who don't make the team.
Didn't Kilgore Trout write a novel about something like this?
Didn't Kilgore Trout write a novel about something like this?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
1997 Death is News to Me
WAKE-UP has posted state medical board disciplinary documents against Dr. Earl McLeod, regarding the death of an abortion patient on December 21, 1997. WAKE-UP has identified her by name, but do not indicate where they learned her identity. I am therefore still working on verifying her name. But this is what I have learned:
On December 20, 1997, a 27-year-old woman went to Potomac Family Planning for a safe, legal abortion, to be performed by D&C. She was 6 weeks pregnant. She had no significant medical or surgical history, but had undergone a prior abortion performed by McLeod in 1995, under general anesthesia, with no complications.
McLeod's anesthesiologist, identified in records only as Dr. K., started an IV, and the woman was hooked up to a cardiac monitor, blood pressure monitor, and pulse oximeter. Dr. K administered Versed (for sedation and memory impairment), Sublimaze (a short-acting narcotic used for short-duration pain control), Propofol (a sedative for anesthesia), with Lidocaine, a local anesthetic.
The patient breathed on her own during the entire five minutes of the abortion. She was transferred to recovery at 10:10 a.m., still unconscious but breathing on her own. Her blood pressure was charted as 112/60 (normal), but her pulse was 103 (very rapid). A nurse identified only as Nurse W put an oxygen mask on the patient, but she was taken off the cardiac monitor and pulse oximeter when she was moved to recovery.
After the patient's vital signs were documented, another nurse, identified as Nurse H, took the blood pressure cuff off of her and put it on another patient.
Meanwhile, McLeod was in a second procedure room, doing an abortion on another patient.
At around 10:20 a.m., Nurse W noticed that the patient was still unresponsive. She told a nursing assistant to get Zoloft (an antidepressant) from the anesthesiologist, who was still in the second procedure room with McLeod. As the assistant was leaving, Nurse W change the request to one for Zofran (an antiemetic). Then Nurse W went into the procedure room herself to get the Zofran.
Dr. K gave the Zofran to Nurse W without evaluating the patient. There was no record that the patient had suffered any nausea or vomiting to warrant the drug in question. At about 10:25, Nurse W administered Zofran to the patient through her IV. Not surprisingly, administering an antiemetic did nothing to revive her.
Nurse W returned to the procedure room and asked Kr. K for Romazicon, a more appropriate drug, since it is used to reverse the effects of drugs used for anesthesia. Dr. K again provided the drug to Nurse W without examining the patient.
Nurse H went to take the patient's blood pressure, and she realized she couldn't find a pulse, and that the patient's pupils were dilated. She fetched Dr. K to assess the patient immediately. He found her unresponsive, with a blood pressure an alarmingly low 60/40. He stared a second IV and began to perform CPR, using a pediatric-sized bag-valve mask. Nurse H took over ventilating the patient, continuing to use the pediatric-sized bag-valve mask. This device would be unable to pump sufficient air into the lungs of a normal-sized adult.
Meanwhile, McLeod performed two other procedures before finally entering the recovery room and
finding his staff performing inadequate CPR on the patient. He administered additional IV medications, and said that the patient was hooked up to an EKG monitor even though there was no documentation whatsoever of her cardiac rhythm. She was also not hooked up to a pulse oximeter that would tell the staff how much oxygen was in her blood. A pulse oximeter is standard monitoring for post-surgical patients and for patients needing emergency care; failure to use it on this patient was inexplicable. Also, despite the presence of two doctors, two nurses, and at least one nurses' assistant, nobody documented respiration, lung sounds, or any neurological evaluation, all standard for treating an unresponsive patient.
Dr. K told somebody to administer Epinephrine, Ephedrine, and Lidocaine -- all appropriate drugs for treating a patient in cardiac arrest.
Finally, at around 10:42 a.m., McLeod told somebody to call 911 -- something that should have been done as soon as she was found to be unresponsive. Paramedics arrived and found the patient in cardiac arrest. The anesthesiologist could not tell them anything about the patient's heart electrical activity, which he should have been noting on the EKG. They noted the use of a pediatric bag-valve mask, and the fact that nobody had put a breathing tube into the patient to ensure that air was being pumped into her lungs and not her stomach.
The medics immediately began appropriate resuscitation, intubating the patient, ventilating her with an adult-sized bag=valve mask, hooking her up to a cardiac monitor, defibrillating her, and administering appropriate drugs.
The medics transported the patient to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, arriving at 11:09 a.m. The ER physician noted that the patient's pupils were fixed and dilated. After aggressive resuscitative efforts by ER staff, the patient's heart was restored to a stable rhythm, and she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. But despite their best efforts, she died at 4:15 a.m. on December 21.
The appalled paramedics reported McLeod to the medical board, which faulted him with failure to provide adequate and readily-available post-operative monitoring equipment, and failure to provide adequate emergency supplies. The board also required him to get his staff properly certified in CPR.
An interesting note is this: The medical board indicates that McLeod told them that when he first opened his abortion clinic, he contacted the state asking for guidelines for a freestanding abortion clinic. He was told, he said, that there were none.
McLeod also ran the Hillcrest abortion mill in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Kelly Morse had died in 1996 after being inadequately resuscitated. Kelly's husband filed suit, noting, "No respiration rate was recorded, no pulse was checked and no blood pressure was measured. No EKG was applied. No cardiac monitoring was conducted. No pulse oximeter was applied. No intubation or emergency tracheotomy was performed." Evidently McLeod chose not to learn from Kelly's death the lessons that would have saved this Maryland patient's life.
(Maryland State Board of Physician Quality Assurance Case Number 98-0472)
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On December 20, 1997, a 27-year-old woman went to Potomac Family Planning for a safe, legal abortion, to be performed by D&C. She was 6 weeks pregnant. She had no significant medical or surgical history, but had undergone a prior abortion performed by McLeod in 1995, under general anesthesia, with no complications.
McLeod's anesthesiologist, identified in records only as Dr. K., started an IV, and the woman was hooked up to a cardiac monitor, blood pressure monitor, and pulse oximeter. Dr. K administered Versed (for sedation and memory impairment), Sublimaze (a short-acting narcotic used for short-duration pain control), Propofol (a sedative for anesthesia), with Lidocaine, a local anesthetic.
The patient breathed on her own during the entire five minutes of the abortion. She was transferred to recovery at 10:10 a.m., still unconscious but breathing on her own. Her blood pressure was charted as 112/60 (normal), but her pulse was 103 (very rapid). A nurse identified only as Nurse W put an oxygen mask on the patient, but she was taken off the cardiac monitor and pulse oximeter when she was moved to recovery.
After the patient's vital signs were documented, another nurse, identified as Nurse H, took the blood pressure cuff off of her and put it on another patient.
Meanwhile, McLeod was in a second procedure room, doing an abortion on another patient.
At around 10:20 a.m., Nurse W noticed that the patient was still unresponsive. She told a nursing assistant to get Zoloft (an antidepressant) from the anesthesiologist, who was still in the second procedure room with McLeod. As the assistant was leaving, Nurse W change the request to one for Zofran (an antiemetic). Then Nurse W went into the procedure room herself to get the Zofran.
Dr. K gave the Zofran to Nurse W without evaluating the patient. There was no record that the patient had suffered any nausea or vomiting to warrant the drug in question. At about 10:25, Nurse W administered Zofran to the patient through her IV. Not surprisingly, administering an antiemetic did nothing to revive her.
Nurse W returned to the procedure room and asked Kr. K for Romazicon, a more appropriate drug, since it is used to reverse the effects of drugs used for anesthesia. Dr. K again provided the drug to Nurse W without examining the patient.
Nurse H went to take the patient's blood pressure, and she realized she couldn't find a pulse, and that the patient's pupils were dilated. She fetched Dr. K to assess the patient immediately. He found her unresponsive, with a blood pressure an alarmingly low 60/40. He stared a second IV and began to perform CPR, using a pediatric-sized bag-valve mask. Nurse H took over ventilating the patient, continuing to use the pediatric-sized bag-valve mask. This device would be unable to pump sufficient air into the lungs of a normal-sized adult.
Meanwhile, McLeod performed two other procedures before finally entering the recovery room and
finding his staff performing inadequate CPR on the patient. He administered additional IV medications, and said that the patient was hooked up to an EKG monitor even though there was no documentation whatsoever of her cardiac rhythm. She was also not hooked up to a pulse oximeter that would tell the staff how much oxygen was in her blood. A pulse oximeter is standard monitoring for post-surgical patients and for patients needing emergency care; failure to use it on this patient was inexplicable. Also, despite the presence of two doctors, two nurses, and at least one nurses' assistant, nobody documented respiration, lung sounds, or any neurological evaluation, all standard for treating an unresponsive patient.
Dr. K told somebody to administer Epinephrine, Ephedrine, and Lidocaine -- all appropriate drugs for treating a patient in cardiac arrest.
Finally, at around 10:42 a.m., McLeod told somebody to call 911 -- something that should have been done as soon as she was found to be unresponsive. Paramedics arrived and found the patient in cardiac arrest. The anesthesiologist could not tell them anything about the patient's heart electrical activity, which he should have been noting on the EKG. They noted the use of a pediatric bag-valve mask, and the fact that nobody had put a breathing tube into the patient to ensure that air was being pumped into her lungs and not her stomach.
The medics immediately began appropriate resuscitation, intubating the patient, ventilating her with an adult-sized bag=valve mask, hooking her up to a cardiac monitor, defibrillating her, and administering appropriate drugs.
The medics transported the patient to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, arriving at 11:09 a.m. The ER physician noted that the patient's pupils were fixed and dilated. After aggressive resuscitative efforts by ER staff, the patient's heart was restored to a stable rhythm, and she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. But despite their best efforts, she died at 4:15 a.m. on December 21.
The appalled paramedics reported McLeod to the medical board, which faulted him with failure to provide adequate and readily-available post-operative monitoring equipment, and failure to provide adequate emergency supplies. The board also required him to get his staff properly certified in CPR.
An interesting note is this: The medical board indicates that McLeod told them that when he first opened his abortion clinic, he contacted the state asking for guidelines for a freestanding abortion clinic. He was told, he said, that there were none.
McLeod also ran the Hillcrest abortion mill in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Kelly Morse had died in 1996 after being inadequately resuscitated. Kelly's husband filed suit, noting, "No respiration rate was recorded, no pulse was checked and no blood pressure was measured. No EKG was applied. No cardiac monitoring was conducted. No pulse oximeter was applied. No intubation or emergency tracheotomy was performed." Evidently McLeod chose not to learn from Kelly's death the lessons that would have saved this Maryland patient's life.
(Maryland State Board of Physician Quality Assurance Case Number 98-0472)
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Searches: Quacks, fetuses, and ectopics
John Hamilton Oklahoma murder: that would be abortionist John Hamilton, who bludgeoned his wife, Susan, to death in the bathroom of their home on Valentine's Day of 2001.
Chance for tubal pregnancy survival: For the baby, as close to none as makes no odds. For the mom, conservative management has what most folks would probalby consider a surprising survival rate. And -- little-known fact -- the mom's chance of death is actually greater if she seeks an abortion than if she intends to carry to term.
Self abortion: Not a great idea. Also the common perception is way off.
18-week fetus: Before, during, and after the abortion. Somebody also wanted 20-week fetus, and there is really very little difference other than size. Here is information on abortion at 20 weeks. And somebody else wanted 16-week abortion.
how late can you have a abortion in nj: Steve Brigham advertises up to 24 weeks, which I assume is the legal cut-off for elective abortion. Trust him at your own risk.
Dr Delhi Thweat: Performed the fatal abortion on Kelly Morse in 1996
Douglas Karpen: Performed the fatal abortion on 15-year-old Denise Montoya in 1988 at a National Abortion Federation member clinic. And I myself heard a tape of Karpen at a National Abortion Federation meeting complaining that prolifers were interfering with his late-abortion business by helping women who changed their minds get the laminaria removed so they could continue their pregnancies. Instead of suggesting that he improve his counseling techniques so that he wouldn't be initiating abortions on women who were uncertain, his fellows suggested that he have his patients sign papers promising to continue the abortions even if they changed their minds.
Chance for tubal pregnancy survival: For the baby, as close to none as makes no odds. For the mom, conservative management has what most folks would probalby consider a surprising survival rate. And -- little-known fact -- the mom's chance of death is actually greater if she seeks an abortion than if she intends to carry to term.
Self abortion: Not a great idea. Also the common perception is way off.
18-week fetus: Before, during, and after the abortion. Somebody also wanted 20-week fetus, and there is really very little difference other than size. Here is information on abortion at 20 weeks. And somebody else wanted 16-week abortion.
how late can you have a abortion in nj: Steve Brigham advertises up to 24 weeks, which I assume is the legal cut-off for elective abortion. Trust him at your own risk.
Dr Delhi Thweat: Performed the fatal abortion on Kelly Morse in 1996
Douglas Karpen: Performed the fatal abortion on 15-year-old Denise Montoya in 1988 at a National Abortion Federation member clinic. And I myself heard a tape of Karpen at a National Abortion Federation meeting complaining that prolifers were interfering with his late-abortion business by helping women who changed their minds get the laminaria removed so they could continue their pregnancies. Instead of suggesting that he improve his counseling techniques so that he wouldn't be initiating abortions on women who were uncertain, his fellows suggested that he have his patients sign papers promising to continue the abortions even if they changed their minds.
1911: Abortion kills woman, doc indicted, kicked out of medical society
On June 25, 1911, 20-year-old Mrs. Anna L. Mueller died from a criminal abortion performed by Dr. George Lotz. Lotz was arrested July 5. He was indicted for felony murder. There is no record that he served time for the crime, but Leslie Reagan indicates that he was expelled from the Chicago Medical Society after admitting guilt in Anna's death. Anna's abortion was typical of pre-legalization abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
History: "Unwanted" group regains legal protection
Many defenders of abortion simply point out that it's perfectly legal to kill fetuses, and that the law doesn't recognize them as human. Therefore, these folks contend, fetuses aren't human. This is sawing off the limb you sit on, since it asserts that the government can indeed decide who is or isn't human, who is or isn't entitled to protection under the law.
On this date in 1976, full legal protection was restored to a group of people who had been very much unwanted. Unwanted enough that it was made legal to kill them. This unwanted group? Mormons.
On October 27, 1838, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs of Missouri issued an Extermination Order, declaring that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace...." Most Missouri citizens backed the order (although some did question or denounce it). The Mormons were, in the simplest of terms, "unwanted."
On October 30, with the Extermination Order as justification, a band of the Missouri Militia launched an attack on a small Mormon settlement at Haun's Mill, killing 17 Mormons, including a 10-year-old boy who was shot in the head as he cowered under the bellows of the blacksmith shop, and a 78-year-old man who was shot after he had surrendered his musket.
Several years ago, I spoke with a Latter-Day Saints historian, who told me that survivors of the Massacre sued the state of Missouri over the deaths of their loved ones, taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court, he said, backed the state on the grounds that the killings were perfectly legal.
Meanwhile, the Extermination Order remained on the books in Missouri until recinded by executive order of Governor Christopher S. Bond on June 25, 1976. So until June 25, 1976, it was perfectly legal to kill a Mormon in Missouri. Did that make it right?
On this date in 1976, full legal protection was restored to a group of people who had been very much unwanted. Unwanted enough that it was made legal to kill them. This unwanted group? Mormons.
On October 27, 1838, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs of Missouri issued an Extermination Order, declaring that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace...." Most Missouri citizens backed the order (although some did question or denounce it). The Mormons were, in the simplest of terms, "unwanted."
On October 30, with the Extermination Order as justification, a band of the Missouri Militia launched an attack on a small Mormon settlement at Haun's Mill, killing 17 Mormons, including a 10-year-old boy who was shot in the head as he cowered under the bellows of the blacksmith shop, and a 78-year-old man who was shot after he had surrendered his musket.
Several years ago, I spoke with a Latter-Day Saints historian, who told me that survivors of the Massacre sued the state of Missouri over the deaths of their loved ones, taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court, he said, backed the state on the grounds that the killings were perfectly legal.
Meanwhile, the Extermination Order remained on the books in Missouri until recinded by executive order of Governor Christopher S. Bond on June 25, 1976. So until June 25, 1976, it was perfectly legal to kill a Mormon in Missouri. Did that make it right?
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Searches
Scar from abortion: These can be nasty.
18-week fetus: Before, during, and after the abortion. Somebody also wanted 20-week fetus, and there is really very little difference other than size. Here is information on abortion at 20 weeks.
Justin M. Norton: reporter who never bothered to fact-check Barbara Boxer's absurd claims about pre-Roe abortion mortality.
Mary Pena: Mother of five who bled to death during a safe, legal abortion at a National Abortion Federation member facility
Robert Meger: The only one I know of is Robert F. Meger, abortionist.
Lysol douching: Ads for Lysol douching might explain some of the "Lysol abortion" stories the abortion lobby loves to regale us with.
Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge: Well, there's this seedy abortion mill.
Molly Heidemann: One of the folks who signed the deceitful Planned Parenthood petition that created a phony CPC out of whole cloth then pretended it was representative of CPCs in general. Molly added the comment, "Women have the right to accurate information!" Evidently she is either under the impression that women actually get such information at PP, or she knows better and is part of passing on the lies.
18-week fetus: Before, during, and after the abortion. Somebody also wanted 20-week fetus, and there is really very little difference other than size. Here is information on abortion at 20 weeks.
Justin M. Norton: reporter who never bothered to fact-check Barbara Boxer's absurd claims about pre-Roe abortion mortality.
Mary Pena: Mother of five who bled to death during a safe, legal abortion at a National Abortion Federation member facility
Robert Meger: The only one I know of is Robert F. Meger, abortionist.
Lysol douching: Ads for Lysol douching might explain some of the "Lysol abortion" stories the abortion lobby loves to regale us with.
Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge: Well, there's this seedy abortion mill.
Molly Heidemann: One of the folks who signed the deceitful Planned Parenthood petition that created a phony CPC out of whole cloth then pretended it was representative of CPCs in general. Molly added the comment, "Women have the right to accurate information!" Evidently she is either under the impression that women actually get such information at PP, or she knows better and is part of passing on the lies.
1971: Pre-Roe abortion turns deadly for New Jersey mother
"Annie" traveled from New Jersey to New York for a safe, legal first-trimester abortion on June 24, 1971. Shortly after she was given anesthesia, Annie went into cardiac arrest, and attempts to revive her failed. She left behind three children.
Cutting to the chase: Underage pregnancy
When you're supporting secret abortions for underage girls, guys like this -- in real life -- are the winners.
Teenagers who undergo secret abortions are more likely than teens with involved parents to choose cheap, fly-by-night abortion mills that don't follow proper safety measures.
Teenagers who undergo secret abortions are more likely than teens with involved parents to keep complications a secret rather than seek treatment. This increases the risk that an easily-treatable complication will become more serious, increasing the risk of hysterectomy, colostomy, and even death.
Sarah's Law has a provision in it that permits parents to sign, in advance, permission for their own daughters to go ahead and obtain these risky, secret abortions. These parents can exempt their daughters, and the men who get their daughters pregnant, from the law being implemented in their cases. But Sarah's Law also would keep these parents from making that choice for other parents.
If it's about "choice", there's no excuse for anybody -- except sexual predators and people who profit from sexual abuse of underage girls -- to oppose Sarah's Law.
HT: Kyrie Eleison
The definition of insanity
One of the coloquial definitions of insanity is "Doing the same thing and expecting a different result."
Like with the DC gun ban:
Feelings Mixed Over Pending Ruling on DC Handgun Ban
Of the folks interviewed, one person after another supported the 2nd Amendment -- except for DC, where the 32-year experiment in disarming honest, law-abiding citizens has been an unmitigated disaster. They wanted to keep the citizens of DC disarmed, to maintain the city as what it is right now: a huge population of sitting ducks.
If disarming honest, law-abiding citizens turns your city into Murder City, USA, maybe it's time to call the experiment a total failure and do what has actually worked elsewhere to reduce violent crime: Let decent, law-abiding citizens had the right to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors.
Like with the DC gun ban:
Feelings Mixed Over Pending Ruling on DC Handgun Ban
Of the folks interviewed, one person after another supported the 2nd Amendment -- except for DC, where the 32-year experiment in disarming honest, law-abiding citizens has been an unmitigated disaster. They wanted to keep the citizens of DC disarmed, to maintain the city as what it is right now: a huge population of sitting ducks.
If disarming honest, law-abiding citizens turns your city into Murder City, USA, maybe it's time to call the experiment a total failure and do what has actually worked elsewhere to reduce violent crime: Let decent, law-abiding citizens had the right to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors.
Monday, June 23, 2008
1899: Abortion by doctor causes fatal infection
Cora A. Burke was a 20-year-old who had been widowed about five months. She had a four-year-old son and lived in her own home along with her child and her parents. She'd recently become engaged. She'd been in good health up until the events that began to unfold on June 21, 1899.
In May, Cora had told Mrs. Martha Johnson that she was about six weeks pregnant and wanted to find a good doctor to perform an abortion. Mrs. Johnson introduced Cora to Dr. R. J. Alcorn who had been practicing medicine in Kootenai County, Idaho, for a short time. Dr. Alcorn was living in the boarding house Mrs. Johnson operated with Mr. E.J. Abbey. Finding a doctor to perform an illegal abortion was common prior to legalization.
Cora went to Dr. Alcorn's room about two days after they were introduced. Mr. Abbey listened from an adjoining room, and heard Cora say that the instrument Dr. Alcorn was using was hurting her.
On the night of Tuesday, June 21, Dr. Alcorn asked Mr. T.J. Rundell to help him carry a table into his office, which was at the back of a drug store in the town of Harrison. Rundell's curiosity was piqued, and he asked Alcorn if he was going to "dissect a stiff." Alcorn told him no, he was going to perform an operation on somebody from across the river.
Rundell decided to snoop, so he returned at 10:00 PM and saw Cora go through the drug store into Alcorn's office. Rundell then slipped around to the back of the building, where he could peer into Alcorn's office around an ill-hung window blind. The following is what Rundell says he observed.
At about 4 PM the next day, Alcorn was called to tend to Cora, who was in a lot of pain. He examined her and found her uterus to be inflamed and bleeding. He prescribed ergot, to be given one-half teaspoon each half-hour for three doses, then every hour afterward for 18 hours. Cora's mother asked Alcorn about her daughter's condition. Alcorn told her, "She caught a bad cold. She does not flow enough when she has her monthlies. I will give her something to make her flow."
Over the ensuing days, Alcorn visited Cora five times, the last time about two hours before she died on Friday afternoon, June 23. Her feet and hands were cold, her fingers blue, her lips purple. Alcorn told Cora's mother that she was doing well and would be up soon. Alcorn immediately took a train to Washington state, returning about 10:00 on the following Sunday morning. The next day he again left the state, this time going to Montana, where he was arrested and returned to Kootenai county.
While Cora was ill, she passed a lot of blood and clots. Mrs. Knight, who visited Cora during her illness, testified, "I helped dress her after she was dead. Her clothing and bedclothing were saturated with blood. A quilt was doubled up under her four thicknesses, and it was clear through the quilt. It was clots of blood. I observed an odor in connection with it. There was too great a quantity to have come from the ordinary menstruation. Much greater in quantity."
At about 6:00 PM on the 21st, William Ketchum called Alcorn to visit Mrs. Ketchum, but Alcorn told him, "Well, I don't know. I am expecting a miscarriage here any minute. I can go over there, and come back, if it does not make any difference to them." So he went to Ketchum's home to attend to his wife.
Kootenai County sherrif F. H. Bradbury testified, "He told me that he never had anything to do with this girl, Cora Burke; that he began in the daytime an operation on a man for stricture, and did not complete it; and that he took him in the back room of the drug store and completed the operation in the evening. He gave me this statement after I had warned him not to make any statement to me. This was on the train between here and Missoula."
Alcorn testified on is own behalf, saying that Cora had attempted to do an abortion on herself with "a hair dart," which had punctured the wall of her uterus and broken off, leaving about 1 1/2 inches. Rundell said that he'd used a speculum and piston syringe to remove the foreign body from Cora's uterus.
The physicians called as expert witnesses on the case all agreed that Cora died of septicemia or blood poisoning. They also agreed that ergot itself would be enough to cause an abortion.
Alcorn's defense also raised the possibility that Cora hadn't actually been pregnant, but the court concluded that Cora had believed herself to be pregnant, had sought an abortion, and had undergone a procedure intended to cause an abortion, which was enough to demonstrate the intent of the defendant to kill a fetus, especially in the light of Alcorn's statement that he was expecting a patient to miscarry.
Alcorn was charged with murder, and convicted of manslaughter, in Cora's death.
In May, Cora had told Mrs. Martha Johnson that she was about six weeks pregnant and wanted to find a good doctor to perform an abortion. Mrs. Johnson introduced Cora to Dr. R. J. Alcorn who had been practicing medicine in Kootenai County, Idaho, for a short time. Dr. Alcorn was living in the boarding house Mrs. Johnson operated with Mr. E.J. Abbey. Finding a doctor to perform an illegal abortion was common prior to legalization.
Cora went to Dr. Alcorn's room about two days after they were introduced. Mr. Abbey listened from an adjoining room, and heard Cora say that the instrument Dr. Alcorn was using was hurting her.
On the night of Tuesday, June 21, Dr. Alcorn asked Mr. T.J. Rundell to help him carry a table into his office, which was at the back of a drug store in the town of Harrison. Rundell's curiosity was piqued, and he asked Alcorn if he was going to "dissect a stiff." Alcorn told him no, he was going to perform an operation on somebody from across the river.
Rundell decided to snoop, so he returned at 10:00 PM and saw Cora go through the drug store into Alcorn's office. Rundell then slipped around to the back of the building, where he could peer into Alcorn's office around an ill-hung window blind. The following is what Rundell says he observed.
Alcorn stood beside the chair where Cora was sitting, supporting her head with one hand. He had a small vial containing a dark liquid, and was holding a cloth to Cora's face. Cora seemed to fall into a deep sleep, whereupon Alcorn picked her up and lay her on the table.
Alcorn removed Cora's undergarments and positioned her for the surgery. He examined her internally, inserted a speculum, then inserted a probe about a foot long into her body, causing a flow of blood which he blotted up with a cloth. From time to time, Alcorn applied the cloth to Cora's face again. The entire procedure took about an hour and a half.
Cora was awakened, and Alcorn helped her to set her clothing to rights and sent her on her way.
At about 4 PM the next day, Alcorn was called to tend to Cora, who was in a lot of pain. He examined her and found her uterus to be inflamed and bleeding. He prescribed ergot, to be given one-half teaspoon each half-hour for three doses, then every hour afterward for 18 hours. Cora's mother asked Alcorn about her daughter's condition. Alcorn told her, "She caught a bad cold. She does not flow enough when she has her monthlies. I will give her something to make her flow."
Over the ensuing days, Alcorn visited Cora five times, the last time about two hours before she died on Friday afternoon, June 23. Her feet and hands were cold, her fingers blue, her lips purple. Alcorn told Cora's mother that she was doing well and would be up soon. Alcorn immediately took a train to Washington state, returning about 10:00 on the following Sunday morning. The next day he again left the state, this time going to Montana, where he was arrested and returned to Kootenai county.
While Cora was ill, she passed a lot of blood and clots. Mrs. Knight, who visited Cora during her illness, testified, "I helped dress her after she was dead. Her clothing and bedclothing were saturated with blood. A quilt was doubled up under her four thicknesses, and it was clear through the quilt. It was clots of blood. I observed an odor in connection with it. There was too great a quantity to have come from the ordinary menstruation. Much greater in quantity."
At about 6:00 PM on the 21st, William Ketchum called Alcorn to visit Mrs. Ketchum, but Alcorn told him, "Well, I don't know. I am expecting a miscarriage here any minute. I can go over there, and come back, if it does not make any difference to them." So he went to Ketchum's home to attend to his wife.
Kootenai County sherrif F. H. Bradbury testified, "He told me that he never had anything to do with this girl, Cora Burke; that he began in the daytime an operation on a man for stricture, and did not complete it; and that he took him in the back room of the drug store and completed the operation in the evening. He gave me this statement after I had warned him not to make any statement to me. This was on the train between here and Missoula."
Alcorn testified on is own behalf, saying that Cora had attempted to do an abortion on herself with "a hair dart," which had punctured the wall of her uterus and broken off, leaving about 1 1/2 inches. Rundell said that he'd used a speculum and piston syringe to remove the foreign body from Cora's uterus.
The physicians called as expert witnesses on the case all agreed that Cora died of septicemia or blood poisoning. They also agreed that ergot itself would be enough to cause an abortion.
Alcorn's defense also raised the possibility that Cora hadn't actually been pregnant, but the court concluded that Cora had believed herself to be pregnant, had sought an abortion, and had undergone a procedure intended to cause an abortion, which was enough to demonstrate the intent of the defendant to kill a fetus, especially in the light of Alcorn's statement that he was expecting a patient to miscarry.
Alcorn was charged with murder, and convicted of manslaughter, in Cora's death.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
1982: Woman dies in doc's office from back-alley abortion performed there
On June 22, 1928, 31-year-old Rose Hannover died at the office of Dr. Lester I. Ofner from complications of an abortion performed there that day. Ofner was held by the coroner on July 28. On November 28, he was acquitted, for reasons the source does not give.
Rose's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was attributed to -- and clearly involved -- a doctor.
Rose's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was attributed to -- and clearly involved -- a doctor.
1985: After two months in coma, teen dies from abortion complications
Shortly after midnight on June 22, 1985, a hospital staffer went to check on the condition of 17-year-old Deborah Ann Lozinski. Deborah was dead. She had been dead since shortly before midnight.
She had been in a coma since she'd undergone a safe and legal abortion at Medical Care Center in Woodbridge, New Jersey, two months earlier.
Earlier on the day of June 21, Deborah's parents had filed suit against Dr. Scheininger, Dr. Sinha, and other staff for failing to properly screen and examine Deborah prior to her abortion. They also alleged that staff failed to properly monitor their daughter's vital signs during the abortion, failing to quickly detect and properly treat respiratory difficulty. As a result, Deborah suffered the brain damage that had caused her coma and eventually her death.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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She had been in a coma since she'd undergone a safe and legal abortion at Medical Care Center in Woodbridge, New Jersey, two months earlier.
Earlier on the day of June 21, Deborah's parents had filed suit against Dr. Scheininger, Dr. Sinha, and other staff for failing to properly screen and examine Deborah prior to her abortion. They also alleged that staff failed to properly monitor their daughter's vital signs during the abortion, failing to quickly detect and properly treat respiratory difficulty. As a result, Deborah suffered the brain damage that had caused her coma and eventually her death.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Saturday, June 21, 2008
We need to coin a term
The discussion of more and more attempts to identify and destroy babies with Down syndrome has made me think that it's about time we coined a term to describe the kind of fear and bigotry that leads people to think that being different ought to carry a death sentence. This drive for prenatal "screening" to identify and abort babies with dwarfism, Down syndrome, and anything else that makes the Beautiful People uncomfrotable needs to be clearly identified so it can be fought.
Let's go to the Phobia List and see what we find:
There is Anthropophobia- Fear of people or society. But these people aren't afraid of people in general; just of people whose appearance or ways of doing things make them uncomfortable.
There is Apotemnophobia- Fear of persons with amputations. But only some of these prenatal conditions involve missing limbs.
Here we have a possibility: Atelophobia- Fear of imperfection. Granted, these folks act out their own bigotry in terms of trying to eliminate others that they view as "imperfect", but might not there be an underlying fear of their own imperfection that they're projecting onto kids who are different?
Maybe there's an aspect of Cainophobia or Cainotophobia- Fear of newness, novelty. (also Kainolophobia or Kainophobia- Fear of anything new, novelty.) Is it possible that the fact that kids with certain prenatal conditions make the bigoted people fear that new things will be visited upon them?
Maybe this is closely related to Cenophobia or Centophobia- Fear of new things or ideas. (or Metathesiophobia- Fear of changes.) How horrible it might be for these people to entertain the idea that just because other people are different doesn't mean they're wretched.
Dysmorphophobia- Fear of deformity. Perhaps this is a factor. Not all of the congenital conditions that eugenecists want to weed out result in any part of the body being deformed, so this may be a partial explanation but hardly covers the fear of the various trisomies. I'd have to say the same for Teratophobia- Fear of bearing a deformed child or fear of monsters or deformed people. Not all congenital conditions cause any sort of visible deformity of bodily parts, but there is just as much of an impetus to eliminate babies with those conditions as there is to elimate those with more visible syndromes.
Maybe we're dealing with Optophobia- Fear of opening one's eyes. Not literally, of course, but fear of opening one's eyes to the humanity of those who are different.
There's definately an aspect of Panthophobia- Fear of suffering and disease. The eugenecists percieve the child as suffering, and as being afflicted with some disease, and thus fear the child.
Maybe we have a lot of different people with different fears all converging against their common enemy: children whose existence makes them uncomfortable, for whatever reason.
We need to stop acting as if what they propose -- identifying "defective" children through prenatal testing so that they can be weeded out in the womb -- is in any way a decent, humane thing to do. It's acting on one's own fear, making somebody else die because of your own personal issues.
It's mean. It's wrong. And we need to take a stand against it.
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Let's go to the Phobia List and see what we find:
There is Anthropophobia- Fear of people or society. But these people aren't afraid of people in general; just of people whose appearance or ways of doing things make them uncomfortable.
There is Apotemnophobia- Fear of persons with amputations. But only some of these prenatal conditions involve missing limbs.
Here we have a possibility: Atelophobia- Fear of imperfection. Granted, these folks act out their own bigotry in terms of trying to eliminate others that they view as "imperfect", but might not there be an underlying fear of their own imperfection that they're projecting onto kids who are different?
Maybe there's an aspect of Cainophobia or Cainotophobia- Fear of newness, novelty. (also Kainolophobia or Kainophobia- Fear of anything new, novelty.) Is it possible that the fact that kids with certain prenatal conditions make the bigoted people fear that new things will be visited upon them?
Maybe this is closely related to Cenophobia or Centophobia- Fear of new things or ideas. (or Metathesiophobia- Fear of changes.) How horrible it might be for these people to entertain the idea that just because other people are different doesn't mean they're wretched.
Dysmorphophobia- Fear of deformity. Perhaps this is a factor. Not all of the congenital conditions that eugenecists want to weed out result in any part of the body being deformed, so this may be a partial explanation but hardly covers the fear of the various trisomies. I'd have to say the same for Teratophobia- Fear of bearing a deformed child or fear of monsters or deformed people. Not all congenital conditions cause any sort of visible deformity of bodily parts, but there is just as much of an impetus to eliminate babies with those conditions as there is to elimate those with more visible syndromes.
Maybe we're dealing with Optophobia- Fear of opening one's eyes. Not literally, of course, but fear of opening one's eyes to the humanity of those who are different.
There's definately an aspect of Panthophobia- Fear of suffering and disease. The eugenecists percieve the child as suffering, and as being afflicted with some disease, and thus fear the child.
Maybe we have a lot of different people with different fears all converging against their common enemy: children whose existence makes them uncomfortable, for whatever reason.
We need to stop acting as if what they propose -- identifying "defective" children through prenatal testing so that they can be weeded out in the womb -- is in any way a decent, humane thing to do. It's acting on one's own fear, making somebody else die because of your own personal issues.
It's mean. It's wrong. And we need to take a stand against it.
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More genocidal scientists
New Testing of Fetuses for Down's Could Pose Ethical Dilemmas
This is what we've come to, where we're so bigoted as a society that scientists have no qualms about delveoping tests designed purely to try to exterminate people based on their genome.
This is genocide in its purest form -- working to kill off everbody whose freaking GENES you don't approve of!
It's ironic that people with Down syndrome tend to be very loving, accepting, and affectionate, yet they somehow attract such animosity.
Intolerance, bigotry, and hatred are okay, it seems, as long as they're being used to promote abortion or attack children whose only crime is being different.
Love doesn't count chromosomes.
National Down Syndrome Congress
Down Syndrome Education International
Band of Angels
Downi Creations
A test that can detect Down’s syndrome from the blood of pregnant women, which would be the first reliable noninvasive prenatal test for the chromosomal disorder, has raised the prospect of routine screening for the condition for every expectant mother who wants it.
The experimental procedure, developed in Hong Kong, has been shown to diagnose 90 percent of Down’s syndrome cases in a small trial, while also correctly identifying 97 percent of fetuses that do not have the condition.
If its accuracy can be improved and it is validated in larger patient trials, which scientists believe should take three to five years, it would transform prenatal testing for Down’s.
This is what we've come to, where we're so bigoted as a society that scientists have no qualms about delveoping tests designed purely to try to exterminate people based on their genome.
This is genocide in its purest form -- working to kill off everbody whose freaking GENES you don't approve of!
It's ironic that people with Down syndrome tend to be very loving, accepting, and affectionate, yet they somehow attract such animosity.
Intolerance, bigotry, and hatred are okay, it seems, as long as they're being used to promote abortion or attack children whose only crime is being different.
Love doesn't count chromosomes.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Yet another mill shuts down
1 Down ... 5 to Go (in Dallas)
I only have one lawsuit on file against them -- thought that doesn't mean there weren't more:
AARON WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER (TX)
NAF member, 1991 Annual Report
Suit by Penny C. alleged: 1990 abortion of healthy fetus by Enrique Pinkusiewicz and/or Laurie G. Harris at Aaron; Penny and her husband had been led to believe that the fetus "was deformed, ill and would be born handicapped. ...when, in fact, the baby was normal and healthy. If she had known the truth about her baby's condition ... she would not have had the abortion;" severe and possibly permanent suffering and anguish. (Dallas County District Court Cause No. 92-08234)
Late-term abortion center in Dallas to close
Aaron Women's Health Center performed abortions up to 23 weeks. Last day for abortions is reported to be Saturday, June 28th.
Aaron's was the focus of a previous 40 Days for Life Campaign - the 2nd one held in the nation, from December 12, 2004 (Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe) - January 22, 2005 (anniversary of tragic Roe v Wade decision) when it was remodeling to do late-term abortions
Rumored to have been sinking financially
I only have one lawsuit on file against them -- thought that doesn't mean there weren't more:
AARON WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER (TX)
NAF member, 1991 Annual Report
Suit by Penny C. alleged: 1990 abortion of healthy fetus by Enrique Pinkusiewicz and/or Laurie G. Harris at Aaron; Penny and her husband had been led to believe that the fetus "was deformed, ill and would be born handicapped. ...when, in fact, the baby was normal and healthy. If she had known the truth about her baby's condition ... she would not have had the abortion;" severe and possibly permanent suffering and anguish. (Dallas County District Court Cause No. 92-08234)
"Access" answer to everything?
Massachusetts High School Faces Pregnancy Boom
Okay, the problem:
1. Teenage girls getting together and deciding that they want to have babies.
2. Adult males taking advantage of this easy sex from girls too young to have a grasp of what they're doing.
Now, how do you think the school is responding?
A. Getting mental health counselling for teen girls, to address why they would seek early pregnancy.
B. Increased reporting of suspected statutory rape to authorities to prevent not just additional pregnancies but additional sexual abuse.
C. Involving the parents.
D. Agitating to throwing confidential birth control at the kids.
If you guessed D, then you've obviously been paying attention. The answer to everything from statutory rape to unrealistic teen expectations is to pass out condoms and birth control pills to kids who aren't even motivated to use them in the first place.
How is continuing to keep parents in the dark going to stop girls from deliberately getting pregnant to any man willing to pay them a little attention?
These girls want to get pregnant. Increased access to birth control will not address this. But it will fatten the coffers of the Pill-pushers.
Is there anything that these people won't try to turn into an argument for inserting a wedge between vulnerable teenage girls and their parents?
A Massachusetts high school is facing a pregnancy boom with 17 girls entering summer vacation expecting babies in what some have called a pregnancy pact. ....
Officials said that beginning last fall a large group of girls started asking the school clinic for pregnancy tests, the site said.
"Some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," principal Joseph Sullivan told Time.com.
The pregnancy rate ... is four times higher than the previous year, and officials were shocked to learn that men in their 20s had fathered some of the babies, Time.com said.
"We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," Sullivan told Time.com.
Okay, the problem:
1. Teenage girls getting together and deciding that they want to have babies.
2. Adult males taking advantage of this easy sex from girls too young to have a grasp of what they're doing.
Now, how do you think the school is responding?
A. Getting mental health counselling for teen girls, to address why they would seek early pregnancy.
B. Increased reporting of suspected statutory rape to authorities to prevent not just additional pregnancies but additional sexual abuse.
C. Involving the parents.
D. Agitating to throwing confidential birth control at the kids.
If you guessed D, then you've obviously been paying attention. The answer to everything from statutory rape to unrealistic teen expectations is to pass out condoms and birth control pills to kids who aren't even motivated to use them in the first place.
The Gloucester baby boom is forcing this city of 30,000 to grapple with the question of providing easier access to birth control, something this largely Catholic enclave is slow to embrace, the site said.
Nurse practitioner Kim Daly administered 150 pregnancy tests to students by May, prompting her and the clinic's medical director, Dr. Brian Orr, to lobby for the prescription of contraceptives regardless of parental consent.
How is continuing to keep parents in the dark going to stop girls from deliberately getting pregnant to any man willing to pay them a little attention?
These girls want to get pregnant. Increased access to birth control will not address this. But it will fatten the coffers of the Pill-pushers.
Is there anything that these people won't try to turn into an argument for inserting a wedge between vulnerable teenage girls and their parents?
1929: woman dies from abortion performed in hospital by midwife
On June 20, 1929, 28-yaer-old Jennie Kuba died at Chicago hospital from an abortion performed there that day by midwife Mary Zwieniczak. Zwienczak was arrested July 13. The coroner also recommended the arrest of Dr. Joseph Mienczak, who assisted Zwieniczak, as an accessory. The involvement of a physician, and another trained but non-physician medical professional, was common for criminal abortions.
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, June 19, 2008
NY abortion business closes its doors
New York Pro-Life Advocates Celebrate Closing of New City Abortion Center
Local pro-life advocates will hold a celebratory mass at St. Augustine Church today to mark the closing of a local abortion center. Abortion practitioner Jae-Hak Choe has closed his abortion facility located on 200 E. Eckerson Road and he appears to have retired rather than sold it to someone else.
As LifeNews.com reported in April, the Abortion Services facility was one of 50 abortion businesses across the nation that were the site of prayer vigils and pro-life advocates during the 40 Days for Life campaign.
Abortion ship runs aground
Abortion Ship Heads to Ecuador But Literally Runs Aground, Endangers Women
Now, I don't fault them for running aground in a storm. But I do fault them for their plan to take women into international waters, give them abortion pills, then send them home to deal with complications on their own.
Ah, Jill, but you don't understand. The medical records aboard ship will show no complications, since they'll have sailed off to someplace else by the time the woman develops sepsis or hemorrhage. They'll have a nice (albeit bogus) safety record to show potential donors. What more do they really need?
Folks, if you want to donate to a ship that provides real medical care, check out Mercy Ships. In addition to the life-changing and life-saving surgery to address tumors and cataracts, women are provided with desperately needed fistula surgery. And Mercy Ships also provide agricultural training to prevent the malnutrition that is the biggest cause of the obstructed labor that causes obstetric fistulas.
Now, I don't fault them for running aground in a storm. But I do fault them for their plan to take women into international waters, give them abortion pills, then send them home to deal with complications on their own.
Jill Stanek, a pro-life blogger, brought the ironic situation to the attention of LifeNews.com and noted how the pro-abortion group is putting women's lives at risk.
"WoW is now promoting self-administered RU-486 abortions in countries where abortion is illegal. WoW always was about medical, not surgical abortions, which explained the small size of its 'ship,'" Stanek explained.
Stanek pointed out a comment in a WOW press release saying "in order to be able to sail to international waters to allow women to swallow the abortion pill, one does not need a huge ship with a hospital on board. There is no risk at all that a medical problem associated with the medication can happen at high sees [sic]."
Ah, Jill, but you don't understand. The medical records aboard ship will show no complications, since they'll have sailed off to someplace else by the time the woman develops sepsis or hemorrhage. They'll have a nice (albeit bogus) safety record to show potential donors. What more do they really need?
Folks, if you want to donate to a ship that provides real medical care, check out Mercy Ships. In addition to the life-changing and life-saving surgery to address tumors and cataracts, women are provided with desperately needed fistula surgery. And Mercy Ships also provide agricultural training to prevent the malnutrition that is the biggest cause of the obstructed labor that causes obstetric fistulas.
1928: Dies after abortion in doc's office
On June 18, 1928, 20-year-old Anna Mae Smith underwent an abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. George F. Slater. The next day, Anna died there from complications. Dr. Slater, upon learning of Anna Mae's death, committed suicide at his home by taking poison. Anna Mae's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
CA prolifers rally against tax-funded abortions
California Pro-Life Advocates Rally at Capitol Against Tax-Funded Abortions
Not to mention how these tax-funded abortions destroyed the lives of Sharon Hamplton (pictured, left, with son) and her family.
And the lives of Diana Lopez (pictured, right, with her children) and her family.
And these are just the deaths where coverage mentioned that the abortion was taxpayer-funded. Since public-pay patients suffer a higher rate of complications than private-pay, I have no doubt that there are plenty of others where the state has bought death for a woman at taxpayer expense, all to fill the cofferes of seedy abortionists.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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California pro-life advocates participated in a rally today at the state capitol to protest state taxpayer funding of abortions. The state spends more than $33 million to pay for the abortions of poor women even though main abortion business Planned Parenthood brought in $1 billion in revenue last year.
The Coalition for Women and Children was one of several groups to help organize the event and it said California shouldn't be funding abortions in the middle of a budget crisis.
....
"The women and children of our state need services, not abortions," the group continued. "Abortions hurt the women who have them and deprive us of the children who are our legacy."
Twenty-five other groups participated in the rally, including the California Prolife Council, California Right to Life, the Capitol Research Institute, Catholics for the Common Good, Concerned Women for America, Democrats for Life of California, Latinos 4Life, Lutherans for Life and many others.
....
Sympathetic legislators followed with their pledges to do what they could to halt the funding and two post-abortive women shared how their abortions destroyed their lives.....
Not to mention how these tax-funded abortions destroyed the lives of Sharon Hamplton (pictured, left, with son) and her family.And the lives of Diana Lopez (pictured, right, with her children) and her family.
And these are just the deaths where coverage mentioned that the abortion was taxpayer-funded. Since public-pay patients suffer a higher rate of complications than private-pay, I have no doubt that there are plenty of others where the state has bought death for a woman at taxpayer expense, all to fill the cofferes of seedy abortionists.For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Kentucky abortion mill shuts down
Abortion Practitioner's License Suspended in Kentucky, Shuts Down Center
A Kentucky abortion practitioner engaged in such shoddy practices that state officials have temporarily suspended his medical license. The action comes after Hamid Hussain Sheikh pleaded not guilty in November to charges that he wrongly billed the state for abortions at his business.
Sheikh was arrested after Attorney General Greg Stumbo conducted an investigation and found he erroneously reported abortions as ultrasounds in Medicaid billing records.
He was indicted on four counts of billing Medicaid for abortions and could face 20 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
....
The television station reported that one woman complained Sheikh told her to "shut up" after experiencing pain during the abortion so other patients in the waiting room wouldn't hear her screams.
The board's inspection of the Lexington abortion business found medications that had expired and bio-hazardous waste that has not been properly disposed in over 12 weeks. ....
LA Times features PP's teen Shill for Sex
Smart talk from South L.A.'s 'sex ed girl'
And how does she work to change a life?
Yup -- Let's push the transition from merely curious to actually experimenting. All the cool kids are experimenting with sex! They can get free health exams, birth control, STD testing! Why be the odd one out? Everybody else is down at PP, availaing themselves of these ever-so-grownup services. Being treated like an adult. Being independent. Isn't it cooler to go to PP all by yourself than to be taken to the pediatrician by your mother? Do you want to be the sole immature baby who isn't hip like "Sex Ed Girl?"
PP understands peer pressure. And they're working it.
HT: Newsbusters
Andreina Cordova has a 15-minute window to change a life, just a few moments between the dismissal of classes and the beginning of soccer practice.
And how does she work to change a life?
She mentioned the services available -- health exams, birth control, STD testing, free condoms -- and the location.
She paused, then effortlessly asked the 16-year-old: "Do you want some condoms?"
He smirked and replied, "Yeah, sure."
Yup -- Let's push the transition from merely curious to actually experimenting. All the cool kids are experimenting with sex! They can get free health exams, birth control, STD testing! Why be the odd one out? Everybody else is down at PP, availaing themselves of these ever-so-grownup services. Being treated like an adult. Being independent. Isn't it cooler to go to PP all by yourself than to be taken to the pediatrician by your mother? Do you want to be the sole immature baby who isn't hip like "Sex Ed Girl?"
PP understands peer pressure. And they're working it.
HT: Newsbusters
1973: Erstwhile back-alley butcher kills patient in safe, legal abortion
On June 18, 1973, 28-year-old Linda Padfield dies of massive infection in a South Dakota hospital. She had undergone a safe and legal abortion on June 15 at the newly decriminalized abortion facility of Dr. Benjamin Munson.
A pathologist found the remains of a five-month fetus in Linda's uterus, missing a leg, arm, part of its skull and part of its torso. The retained fetus caused the massive infection that had killed Linda. Munson was charged with manslaughter in Linda's death. He sued to enjoin prosecution, but the case went to court nevertheless.
The prosecution focused on the fact that infection will inevitably result from that much retained tissue. The Attorney General commented, "You take a three-inch leg off something, you have to know that there's more in there than just the leg."
The defense, however, argued that infection is an accepted risk of abortion, and that the state couldn't prove that Munson meant to harm Linda. The jury bought it, and Munson was aquitted. He later became a member of the National Abortion Federation (NAF). In 1985, he sent a teenage patient, Yvonne Mesteth, home with retained tissue. She, like Linda Padfield, died of infection. Again Munson was prosecuted for manslaughter, and again he beat the rap.
Munson is the third former criminal abortionist I've learned of who had a clean record -- no patient deaths -- as a "back alley butcher", only to go on to kill two patients in his legal practice. The others are Milan Vuitch (Georgianna English and Wilma Harris) and Jesse Ketchum (Margaret Smith and Carole Schaner).
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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A pathologist found the remains of a five-month fetus in Linda's uterus, missing a leg, arm, part of its skull and part of its torso. The retained fetus caused the massive infection that had killed Linda. Munson was charged with manslaughter in Linda's death. He sued to enjoin prosecution, but the case went to court nevertheless.
The prosecution focused on the fact that infection will inevitably result from that much retained tissue. The Attorney General commented, "You take a three-inch leg off something, you have to know that there's more in there than just the leg."
The defense, however, argued that infection is an accepted risk of abortion, and that the state couldn't prove that Munson meant to harm Linda. The jury bought it, and Munson was aquitted. He later became a member of the National Abortion Federation (NAF). In 1985, he sent a teenage patient, Yvonne Mesteth, home with retained tissue. She, like Linda Padfield, died of infection. Again Munson was prosecuted for manslaughter, and again he beat the rap.
Munson is the third former criminal abortionist I've learned of who had a clean record -- no patient deaths -- as a "back alley butcher", only to go on to kill two patients in his legal practice. The others are Milan Vuitch (Georgianna English and Wilma Harris) and Jesse Ketchum (Margaret Smith and Carole Schaner).
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Tuesday, June 17, 2008
A Sad Passing: Harriet McBryde Johnson
Not Dead Yet Member Dies:
Harriet McBryde Johson on the Terri Schiavo case.
Alas, a Blog has a marvelous collection of links
Here is a beautiful tribute page
Read her lengthy account of going head-to-head with Peter Singer, the man who has devoted his academic life to the proposition that people like Harriet have lives that are simply not worth living.
Harriet was an atheist, but as a Christian I can't really feel worried about the state of her soul.
From the 25th chapter of the Book of Matthew:
I imagine Jesus greeting Harriet: "Come, you who are blessed by my father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry... and you made them put my feeding tube back."
Harriet McBryde Johnson died this past week. Despite being significantly disabled, Ms. Johnson had the gumption to debate infanticide and euthanasia enthusiast Peter Singer.
Harriet McBryde Johson on the Terri Schiavo case.
Alas, a Blog has a marvelous collection of links
Here is a beautiful tribute page
Read her lengthy account of going head-to-head with Peter Singer, the man who has devoted his academic life to the proposition that people like Harriet have lives that are simply not worth living.
Harriet was an atheist, but as a Christian I can't really feel worried about the state of her soul.
From the 25th chapter of the Book of Matthew:
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
I imagine Jesus greeting Harriet: "Come, you who are blessed by my father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry... and you made them put my feeding tube back."
Doesn't sound "confined" to me
Quadriplegic woman to sail around Britain using only her breath
This woman is a real go-getter. I love the story -- until I get to this line:
Does this woman seem confined to you? Do these guys seem confined to you?
A wheelchair is a mobility device. It makes no more sense to say that a quadriplegic is "confined to a wheelchair" than it does to say that a driver is "confined to a car" or an equestrian is "confined to a horse".
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Hilary Lister, 36, who is only able to move her head, eyes and mouth, will spend the next three months sailing round the British Isles in a specially adapted boat she controls using a 'sip-and-puff' system of straws.
This woman is a real go-getter. I love the story -- until I get to this line:
Mrs Lister was a sporty child who captained her school's hockey swimming and netball team, but by the time she was 15 she was confined to a wheelchair.
Does this woman seem confined to you? Do these guys seem confined to you?
A wheelchair is a mobility device. It makes no more sense to say that a quadriplegic is "confined to a wheelchair" than it does to say that a driver is "confined to a car" or an equestrian is "confined to a horse".
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1972: Fatal infection from abortion in New York
"Sara" underwent a safe, legal second trimester abortion in New York City in May of 1972. She was 18 weeks pregnant. She had problems with retained tissue, so three weeks after the abortion she had a D&C to remove the tissue. Sara had developed infection from the retained tissue, and on June 18, 1972, the infection took her life. She left one child motherless.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Virgin Mobile SCAM
When I got back to the US, my daughter had a Virgin Mobile phone she wasn't using it, so I activated it. When I ran out of minutes I got a message that I needed to "top up". So I went to their web site and priced minutes and decided to go for their 1000 minutes for $50.
The next day I get an email telling me I have to pay a $24.99 monthly fee and that MY MINUTES WILL BE BILLED AT TWENTY CENTS A MINUTE! They scammed me out of fifty bucks!
So, who can reccommend HONEST cell phone service? I am demanding a refund of my fifty bucks and I can't get free of Virgin Mobile RIPOFF SCAM COMPANY fast enough.
The next day I get an email telling me I have to pay a $24.99 monthly fee and that MY MINUTES WILL BE BILLED AT TWENTY CENTS A MINUTE! They scammed me out of fifty bucks!
So, who can reccommend HONEST cell phone service? I am demanding a refund of my fifty bucks and I can't get free of Virgin Mobile RIPOFF SCAM COMPANY fast enough.
1989: Sought aftercare in vain from clinic
Margaret Paula Clodfelter was 19 years old when she had an abortion at Richmond Medical Center For Women on June 2, 1989. The safe, legal abortion was performed by William Fitzhugh. After she was discharged from the clinic, Margaret had pain and bleeding. She called the facility to consult with them, but they did not tell her that she needed any further care. On June 4, she sought treatment at a hospital, where she was diagnosed with retained fetal tissue and a perforated uterus. She underwent a D&C.
She developed infection, so doctors performed a hysterectomy. Their efforts were in vain. Margaret died on June 16, 1989. She left behind a husband and a one-year-old son.
She developed infection, so doctors performed a hysterectomy. Their efforts were in vain. Margaret died on June 16, 1989. She left behind a husband and a one-year-old son.
1993: New Jersey mom bleeds to death, leaves toddler motherless
A 20-year-old Newark college student, identified in prolife sources as "Jane Doe of Newark," underwent a safe and legal abortion by Dr. Steven Berkman at Metropolitan Medical Associates on June 16, 1993. She was in the second trimester of pregnancy.
Jane reportedly felt dizzy in recovery. Berkman examined her, noted that she had a perforated uterus, and had her taken to a hospital by ambulance. She died in surgery, leaving her four-year-old son motherless.
"We are intensely investigating this matter," said an attorney for Jane's family. "We know something occurred that shouldn't have. We had a healthy 20-year-old go into that clinic and not come out. And I think a delay had something to do with it." Her medical chart showed the injury occurring at 10 a.m., but the ambulance wasn't summoned until two hours later.
Berkman said that there was no delay in transporting Jane to the hospital. He also said he did not believe she died from blood loss. The Bergen County Medical Examiner found that Jane had died from hemorrhage from a perforated uterus. He ruled the death accidental.
Jane reportedly felt dizzy in recovery. Berkman examined her, noted that she had a perforated uterus, and had her taken to a hospital by ambulance. She died in surgery, leaving her four-year-old son motherless.
"We are intensely investigating this matter," said an attorney for Jane's family. "We know something occurred that shouldn't have. We had a healthy 20-year-old go into that clinic and not come out. And I think a delay had something to do with it." Her medical chart showed the injury occurring at 10 a.m., but the ambulance wasn't summoned until two hours later.
Berkman said that there was no delay in transporting Jane to the hospital. He also said he did not believe she died from blood loss. The Bergen County Medical Examiner found that Jane had died from hemorrhage from a perforated uterus. He ruled the death accidental.
1984: Mom finds teen dead on bathroom floor
On June 14, 1984, 14-year-old Germaine Newman had a second-trimester abortion performed by Dr. E. Wyman Garrett in Newark, New Jersey. She was 22 weeks pregnant. After her safe and legal abortion, Germaine began vomiting and suffered from abdominal pain and a high fever. The next morning, June 15, Germaine's mother found her lying dead on the bathroom floor.
An autopsy found that Germaine's abdomen was full of pus and adhesions. The cause of death was abdominal infection and perforation of the uterus.
When the New Jersey medical board investigated Dr. Garrett, they noted that he had illegally altered Germaine's medical records.
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An autopsy found that Germaine's abdomen was full of pus and adhesions. The cause of death was abdominal infection and perforation of the uterus.
When the New Jersey medical board investigated Dr. Garrett, they noted that he had illegally altered Germaine's medical records.
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Saturday, June 14, 2008
2005: Medical abortion fatal for California attorney
Oriane Shevin, age 34, died of infection following off-label use of RU-486 for a safe and abortion in California in 2005. Oriane got the drugs at the Eve Surgical Center in West Los Angeles. She took the mifeprestone on June 9 and vaginally inserted the misoprostol on June 10. The coroner's office was not able to deterime if a physician saw or examined her at the abortion facility. Both Christopher Dotson, M.D. and Josepha Seletz, M.D. are associated with the facility.
Oriane was an attorney with two young children, ages 3 and 4. She had sickened three days after taking the drugs. She was suffering from severe pain and havy bleeding, and was rushed by ambulance to Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center, where she died on June 14 from severe metabolic acidosis and sepsis.
Dotson has a spotted history. At the time of Oriane's abortion, Dotson had not yet completed eight years medical board probation for gross negligence and incompetence in causing the death of a patient identified as "RJI" on February 3, 1992. The board said that Dotson "was grossly negligent in the care and treatment of RJI." He failed to take an adequate exam, failed to classify her as a high risk pregnancy, failed to heed the risk of severe bleeding, failed to have appropriate equipment for monitoring, and failed to transfuse her in a timely way, having left the room while she was still bleeding. Dotson had also been investigated in 1993 after Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital of Los Angeles had reported him for being negligent in the treatment of six women.
Dotson had also worked at San Vicente Hospital, a notorious abortion mill that was bought out by Family Planning Associates Medical Group. San Vicente was where Sara Lint, Natalie Meyers, Joyce Ortenzio, Laniece Dorsey, and Mary Pena underwent their fatal abortions.
Margaret Davis died of sickle cell crisis after an abortion performed by Dotson on July 25, 1971.
Despite his appalling record, Dotson, through his Eve Surgical Center, is practicing under the auspices of the National Abortion Federation.
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Oriane was an attorney with two young children, ages 3 and 4. She had sickened three days after taking the drugs. She was suffering from severe pain and havy bleeding, and was rushed by ambulance to Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center, where she died on June 14 from severe metabolic acidosis and sepsis.
Dotson has a spotted history. At the time of Oriane's abortion, Dotson had not yet completed eight years medical board probation for gross negligence and incompetence in causing the death of a patient identified as "RJI" on February 3, 1992. The board said that Dotson "was grossly negligent in the care and treatment of RJI." He failed to take an adequate exam, failed to classify her as a high risk pregnancy, failed to heed the risk of severe bleeding, failed to have appropriate equipment for monitoring, and failed to transfuse her in a timely way, having left the room while she was still bleeding. Dotson had also been investigated in 1993 after Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital of Los Angeles had reported him for being negligent in the treatment of six women.
Dotson had also worked at San Vicente Hospital, a notorious abortion mill that was bought out by Family Planning Associates Medical Group. San Vicente was where Sara Lint, Natalie Meyers, Joyce Ortenzio, Laniece Dorsey, and Mary Pena underwent their fatal abortions.
Margaret Davis died of sickle cell crisis after an abortion performed by Dotson on July 25, 1971.
Despite his appalling record, Dotson, through his Eve Surgical Center, is practicing under the auspices of the National Abortion Federation.
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1991: "We need the money"
Angela Hall, a 27-year-old mother of five, called to arrange a safe, legal abortion at Thomas Tucker's office in Alabama. One of Tucker's employees, Joy Davis, screened Angela and felt that she had risk factors that made abortion in an office setting unsafe. Joy got on the phone with Tucker and indicated that she felt that Angela should be referred to a hospital. Tucker told Davis that "we need the money" and ordered her to prep Angela, who was in the second trimester of pregnancy.
Angela underwent the abortion on June 11, 1991, and started having difficulty breathing. Her blood pressure fell, setting off an alarm on a piece of monitoring equipment. Tucker told Davis to turn the alarm off because other patients could hear it. Angela was sent to a recovery room where she bled so heavily that Davis became alarmed and called an ambulance. Tucker swore at Davis when he learned of this, and he had her cancel the ambulance because they'd already sent a patient to the hospital that day. Angela continued to hemorrhage, and Davis continued to plead with Tucker to take action. Finally Tucker cursed at Davis, telling her to call the ambulance, and he left the building, leaving the untrained woman to cope alone with the critically injured patient.
Angela was taken to the hospital, where she suffered respiratory failure, clotting, and sepsis. She died just before midnight June 14. The autopsy found numerous tears and lesions in the pelvic area, and congestive necrosis in Angela's liver and spleen. The doctors concluded that amniotic fluid embolism had caused clotting problems resulting in necrosis, septic shock, and cardiac arrest. When Alabama authorities subpoenaed Angela's records, Tucker ordered Davis to destroy some and falsify others. Davis tore up the records, but then taped them back together and provided the authorities with photocopies.
It is interesting to note that in the publicity surrounding the lawsuit filed by Angela's family, Ron Fitzsimmons of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, among other prochoice groups, balked at efforts to close Tucker down, on the grounds that he was Alabama's only abortionist, and that even he was better than no abortionist at all.
Angela underwent the abortion on June 11, 1991, and started having difficulty breathing. Her blood pressure fell, setting off an alarm on a piece of monitoring equipment. Tucker told Davis to turn the alarm off because other patients could hear it. Angela was sent to a recovery room where she bled so heavily that Davis became alarmed and called an ambulance. Tucker swore at Davis when he learned of this, and he had her cancel the ambulance because they'd already sent a patient to the hospital that day. Angela continued to hemorrhage, and Davis continued to plead with Tucker to take action. Finally Tucker cursed at Davis, telling her to call the ambulance, and he left the building, leaving the untrained woman to cope alone with the critically injured patient.
Angela was taken to the hospital, where she suffered respiratory failure, clotting, and sepsis. She died just before midnight June 14. The autopsy found numerous tears and lesions in the pelvic area, and congestive necrosis in Angela's liver and spleen. The doctors concluded that amniotic fluid embolism had caused clotting problems resulting in necrosis, septic shock, and cardiac arrest. When Alabama authorities subpoenaed Angela's records, Tucker ordered Davis to destroy some and falsify others. Davis tore up the records, but then taped them back together and provided the authorities with photocopies.
It is interesting to note that in the publicity surrounding the lawsuit filed by Angela's family, Ron Fitzsimmons of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, among other prochoice groups, balked at efforts to close Tucker down, on the grounds that he was Alabama's only abortionist, and that even he was better than no abortionist at all.
1930: Abortion in midwife's home proves fatal for Chicago woman
On June 14, 1930, 27-year-old Grace Iorio died in her home from complications of an illegal abortion performed June 7 in the Chicago home of midwife Stepina Pazkiewicz.
1983: Hospital abortion fatal
A lawsuit filed by Eduardo Bermeo alleged that his wife, Rosario Bermeo, age 30, died following a safe and legal abortion performed by Dr. Joseph B. Shapse at Prospect Hospital in New York June 14, 1983.
Shapse contended he had no responsibility for actions of the certified nurse anesthetist, and no responsibility to monitor and evaluate Rosario's condition during and immediately after the abortion. Therefore, he said, he was not to blame for her death from respiratory and cardiac arrest.
Shapse contended he had no responsibility for actions of the certified nurse anesthetist, and no responsibility to monitor and evaluate Rosario's condition during and immediately after the abortion. Therefore, he said, he was not to blame for her death from respiratory and cardiac arrest.
1977: First known National Abortion Federation death
Eighteen-year-old newlywed Barbaralee Davis called a local women's group for a safe and legal abortion referral. They sent her to a member of the newly founded National Abortion Federation, Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois.
After the abortion, performed June 14, 1977 by Hope Medical Director Hector Zavalos, Barbaralee attended a post-abortion counseling session, during which she was pale and reporting lower abdominal cramping. She was kept for observation an additional two hours, but the CDC noted that Barbaralee's vital signs were last noted 45 minutes after the abortion. Barbaralee then reportedly told staff that she felt better and asked to be sent home, so they discharged her even though she was still showing, according to the CDC's investigators, symtoms "suggestive of internal hemorrhage." Barbaralee was not given a discharge examination before being sent home.
Her sister helped her, pale and bleeding, to the car. Barbaralee slept in the back seat the whole way home, approximately a two-hour trip. Her sister helped her to bed.
When Barbaralee's sister checked on her several hours later, she was unresponsive. She was rushed to the Pickneyville hospital, where an emergency hysterectomy was attempted to save her life. Barbaralee died during the surgery, leaving one child motherless. The autopsy found the face and spinal column of Barbaralee's baby embedded in a hole in her uterus. There were two quarts of blood in her abdomen. Barbaralee had bled to death.
Hope Clinic for Women was not only permitted to remain in operation, it was allowed to remain a member in good standing of the National Abortion Federation.
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After the abortion, performed June 14, 1977 by Hope Medical Director Hector Zavalos, Barbaralee attended a post-abortion counseling session, during which she was pale and reporting lower abdominal cramping. She was kept for observation an additional two hours, but the CDC noted that Barbaralee's vital signs were last noted 45 minutes after the abortion. Barbaralee then reportedly told staff that she felt better and asked to be sent home, so they discharged her even though she was still showing, according to the CDC's investigators, symtoms "suggestive of internal hemorrhage." Barbaralee was not given a discharge examination before being sent home.
Her sister helped her, pale and bleeding, to the car. Barbaralee slept in the back seat the whole way home, approximately a two-hour trip. Her sister helped her to bed.
When Barbaralee's sister checked on her several hours later, she was unresponsive. She was rushed to the Pickneyville hospital, where an emergency hysterectomy was attempted to save her life. Barbaralee died during the surgery, leaving one child motherless. The autopsy found the face and spinal column of Barbaralee's baby embedded in a hole in her uterus. There were two quarts of blood in her abdomen. Barbaralee had bled to death.
Hope Clinic for Women was not only permitted to remain in operation, it was allowed to remain a member in good standing of the National Abortion Federation.
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Friday, June 13, 2008
Trying to make up lost revenues
Pennsylvania Abortion Center Turns to "Pledge a Protester" Fundraiser
Yeah, when somebody offers women real help, they turn away and the abortion clinic loses.
But ya know, maybe there's something in this. What if tax funding for "prevention" services hinged on the services actually working? That, say, if Planned Parenthood wanted money to pass out contraceptives, they'd only get the money if teen pregnancy rates and abortion rates fell in their cachement area?
The Allentown Women's Center abortion business in Pennsylvania is tired of the constant presence of pro-life advocates outside its facility. In a passive aggressive effort to intimidate the protesters and compel them to stop, the abortion center is resorting to the old "Pledge a Protester" campaign.
The abortion business hopes to raise money from supporters for every minute pro-life advocates appear outside the center to help women find abortion alternatives.
"We're trying to get a no-lose situation," an AWC director Jennifer Boulanger told WFMZ-TV. She said the funds will go to pro-abortion groups.
Yeah, when somebody offers women real help, they turn away and the abortion clinic loses.
But ya know, maybe there's something in this. What if tax funding for "prevention" services hinged on the services actually working? That, say, if Planned Parenthood wanted money to pass out contraceptives, they'd only get the money if teen pregnancy rates and abortion rates fell in their cachement area?
1925: Fatal abortion in doctor's office
On June 13, 1925, 24-year-old Betty Fisher died in the Chicago office of doctors August Goetz and Henry Gautsen from an abortion performed that day. The doctors were acquitted on October 16, but the source does not indicate on what grounds.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
1922: Woman dies after abortion by Chicago midwife
On June 12, 1922, Mrs. Louise Huse, age 30, died at Chicago's Mid West Hospital from a criminal abortion performed there that day. On June 16, midwife Agnes Tholl was arrested on the recommendation of the coroner.
1902: Died from abortion at doctor's home
In June of 1902, Irene Wengel traveled to Tampa, Florida, where she was met by her cousin, J. Carl Christian. Christian had arranged for her to stay at the home of Dr. Frederick N. Weightnovel for an abortion. Christian visited Irene many times during her stay at Weightnovel‘s home. Two days after her arrival, Irene asked Christian to telegraph to Waycross for her trunk.
Testimony about days and dates is evidently jumbled. The abortion was reportedly performed June 6, which was a Friday. But Irene‘s cousin reported that he visited her on a Wednesday, about a week before her death, and she‘d told him that Weightnovel had performed the abortion the previous night, and that she‘d be ready to go home the following Tuesday. The only date we can perhaps rely upon is the date of Irene's death: June 12.
Dr. B. G. Abernathy was called in to attend to Irene after the abortion. Abernathy testified that Irene told him she‘d come to Weightnovel about two weeks earlier, that she did well the first day or two after the abortion, but that she became very sick and rapidly declined.
Abernathy diagnosed her Irene suffering from blood poisoning caused by retained placenta. Abernathy asked Weightnovel for a curette so that he could perform a D&C, and Weightnovel provided one. Abernathy also returned to his own house to get some other instruments. At some point Weightnovel asked Abernathy to send a telegram to Irene‘s parents.
State‘s witness Frank Middaugh testified that on the night Irene died, he‘d heard the cries of a girl calling, "Doctor, doctor," from Weightnovel‘s house. Middaugh also testified that he saw Weightnovel sitting in a lighted window, fanning himself.
An undertaker testified that he‘d been summoned to remove Irene‘s body, and was asked to do so quietly and discreetly to keep the news of Irene‘s death secret.
Officer Carter, who arrested Weightnovel, testified that when he made the arrest, Weightnovel picked up a bundle of women‘s clothing, which he rolled up and tried to toss under a table. Carter saw that the clothing was stained and took the clothing into evidence.
Weightnovel was convicted of manslaughter in Irene‘s death.
Irene's abortion was typical of pre-legalization abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Testimony about days and dates is evidently jumbled. The abortion was reportedly performed June 6, which was a Friday. But Irene‘s cousin reported that he visited her on a Wednesday, about a week before her death, and she‘d told him that Weightnovel had performed the abortion the previous night, and that she‘d be ready to go home the following Tuesday. The only date we can perhaps rely upon is the date of Irene's death: June 12.
Dr. B. G. Abernathy was called in to attend to Irene after the abortion. Abernathy testified that Irene told him she‘d come to Weightnovel about two weeks earlier, that she did well the first day or two after the abortion, but that she became very sick and rapidly declined.
Abernathy diagnosed her Irene suffering from blood poisoning caused by retained placenta. Abernathy asked Weightnovel for a curette so that he could perform a D&C, and Weightnovel provided one. Abernathy also returned to his own house to get some other instruments. At some point Weightnovel asked Abernathy to send a telegram to Irene‘s parents.
State‘s witness Frank Middaugh testified that on the night Irene died, he‘d heard the cries of a girl calling, "Doctor, doctor," from Weightnovel‘s house. Middaugh also testified that he saw Weightnovel sitting in a lighted window, fanning himself.
An undertaker testified that he‘d been summoned to remove Irene‘s body, and was asked to do so quietly and discreetly to keep the news of Irene‘s death secret.
Officer Carter, who arrested Weightnovel, testified that when he made the arrest, Weightnovel picked up a bundle of women‘s clothing, which he rolled up and tried to toss under a table. Carter saw that the clothing was stained and took the clothing into evidence.
Weightnovel was convicted of manslaughter in Irene‘s death.
Irene's abortion was typical of pre-legalization abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
1979: First of two injured teens dies
On June 2 of 1979, National Abortion Federation member Atlanta Women's Pavillion had risen to new levels of incompetence when staff there managed to fatally injure two teenage abortion patients in less than an hour.
It all began when 19-year-old Angela Scott stopped breathing in the recovery room. A nurse-anesthetist was administering anesthesia to 14-year-old Deloris Smith while Dr. Jacob Adams was performing her abortion. The nurse-anesthetist ran to assist in efforts to revive Angela, leaving Deloris unattended with her anesthesia drip still running.
After staff had resuscitated Angela and loaded her into an ambulance, they returned their attention to Deloris, who had gone into cardio-respiratory arrest. Adams had accompanied Angela to the Grady Memorial Hospital, and staff refused to release Deloris to an ambulance until the physician had returned to discharge her. This resulted in a 30-minute delay, during which the ambulance crew was unable to attend to Deloris or begin transporting her.
Angela lingered for a week in a coma before dying on June 11. Deloris never regained consciousness and eventually was admitted to a nursing home, where she died of adult respiratory distress syndrome on October 24, 1979, some time after her fifteenth birthday.
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It all began when 19-year-old Angela Scott stopped breathing in the recovery room. A nurse-anesthetist was administering anesthesia to 14-year-old Deloris Smith while Dr. Jacob Adams was performing her abortion. The nurse-anesthetist ran to assist in efforts to revive Angela, leaving Deloris unattended with her anesthesia drip still running.
After staff had resuscitated Angela and loaded her into an ambulance, they returned their attention to Deloris, who had gone into cardio-respiratory arrest. Adams had accompanied Angela to the Grady Memorial Hospital, and staff refused to release Deloris to an ambulance until the physician had returned to discharge her. This resulted in a 30-minute delay, during which the ambulance crew was unable to attend to Deloris or begin transporting her.
Angela lingered for a week in a coma before dying on June 11. Deloris never regained consciousness and eventually was admitted to a nursing home, where she died of adult respiratory distress syndrome on October 24, 1979, some time after her fifteenth birthday.
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Finally taking it seriously
Georgia Woman Acting as Girl's Mom in Secret Abortion Case Gets Prison
A woman who pretended to be the mother of her son's pregnant girlfriend in order to procure a secret abortion is going to prision for a year. God willing this will set a precedent, and people will start to think twice about pulling a stunt like this.
A woman who pretended to be the mother of her son's pregnant girlfriend in order to procure a secret abortion is going to prision for a year. God willing this will set a precedent, and people will start to think twice about pulling a stunt like this.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Who needs hope when you have these guys?
Late-Term Abortion: The Human Side of the Tragedy
Posts like this make my blood boil. Let's brush aside for now the fact that it's a total lie that late abortions are done for compelling fetal indications. Anybody who does even rudimentary research learns quickly that most late abortions are done for the very same reasons as earlier abortions. Let's brush that aside for now, and just look at those cases where there is a grave prenatal diagnosis.
What abortion does is close off all possible hope. And that's "the human side". Oh, yeah, let's embrace despair. Off to the abortion ward, ASAP, while Mom's head is still reeling, while she's still in shock, while she's too stunned and devastated to resist. It's the compassionate thing to do.
Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want any misdiagnosed fetuses who are actually healthy to slip through and be born alive and live a normal life! Sure, Mom will be happy, but when that happens, it undermines "choice"!
Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want the baby to have even the brief opportunity to know love. We wouldn't want people to have a chance to get attached to him. We wouldn't want any love or joy in with the grief! We wouldn't want any conversions to the idea that even a short life can be worth living. Mom might have precious memories to treasure, but that would undermine "choice"!
Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want the trouble and expense of surgery that gives the kid a life. Not only would this undermine "choice", it's so much more expensive than just administering a lethal injection and being shed of the trouble. Mom might think it's worth it, but why should we have to foot the bill for her sick baby, right?
Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want to risk the most horrible possible outcome of all -- One of them nasty disabled kids being foisted off on the world. Yeah, sure, Mom would love the kid, but not only would this undermine "choice", it would make the rest of us tolerate the sight of those horrible disabled kids!
Let's embrace abortion, by all means. It's so much easier for the rest of us than perinatal hospice, than providing the long-term love and support that gets a woman through a pregnancy after a difficult prenatal diagnosis, than pretending that killing the baby somehow erases the mother's grief. Yeah, it's over for the doctor, it's over for the neighbors, it's over for the friends. It's never over for the mother. But we can pretend it is. We can avoid our own pain if we just shunt her off to the abortion clinic and have her get rid of the painful reminder that life isn't always happy or fair.
Maybe the prognosis is right. Maybe the baby will only have a tragically short life. But as Sojourner Truth said, "If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little halfmeasure full?"
Abortion takes away that little halfmeasure in the cases where the grave diagnosis is actually right. And it takes away an entire healthy lifetime in far too many cases where the diagnosis is wrong. And maybe it will even take Mom's life, too. It makes absolutely sure that there will be at least one untimely death.
Explain to me how this is any way to show love or compassion. Maybe I'm just too freaking clueless to see it.
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Posts like this make my blood boil. Let's brush aside for now the fact that it's a total lie that late abortions are done for compelling fetal indications. Anybody who does even rudimentary research learns quickly that most late abortions are done for the very same reasons as earlier abortions. Let's brush that aside for now, and just look at those cases where there is a grave prenatal diagnosis.
What abortion does is close off all possible hope. And that's "the human side". Oh, yeah, let's embrace despair. Off to the abortion ward, ASAP, while Mom's head is still reeling, while she's still in shock, while she's too stunned and devastated to resist. It's the compassionate thing to do.
Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want any misdiagnosed fetuses who are actually healthy to slip through and be born alive and live a normal life! Sure, Mom will be happy, but when that happens, it undermines "choice"!
Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want the baby to have even the brief opportunity to know love. We wouldn't want people to have a chance to get attached to him. We wouldn't want any love or joy in with the grief! We wouldn't want any conversions to the idea that even a short life can be worth living. Mom might have precious memories to treasure, but that would undermine "choice"!
Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want the trouble and expense of surgery that gives the kid a life. Not only would this undermine "choice", it's so much more expensive than just administering a lethal injection and being shed of the trouble. Mom might think it's worth it, but why should we have to foot the bill for her sick baby, right?
Let's facilitate an abortion. We wouldn't want to risk the most horrible possible outcome of all -- One of them nasty disabled kids being foisted off on the world. Yeah, sure, Mom would love the kid, but not only would this undermine "choice", it would make the rest of us tolerate the sight of those horrible disabled kids!
Let's embrace abortion, by all means. It's so much easier for the rest of us than perinatal hospice, than providing the long-term love and support that gets a woman through a pregnancy after a difficult prenatal diagnosis, than pretending that killing the baby somehow erases the mother's grief. Yeah, it's over for the doctor, it's over for the neighbors, it's over for the friends. It's never over for the mother. But we can pretend it is. We can avoid our own pain if we just shunt her off to the abortion clinic and have her get rid of the painful reminder that life isn't always happy or fair.
Maybe the prognosis is right. Maybe the baby will only have a tragically short life. But as Sojourner Truth said, "If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little halfmeasure full?"
Abortion takes away that little halfmeasure in the cases where the grave diagnosis is actually right. And it takes away an entire healthy lifetime in far too many cases where the diagnosis is wrong. And maybe it will even take Mom's life, too. It makes absolutely sure that there will be at least one untimely death.
Explain to me how this is any way to show love or compassion. Maybe I'm just too freaking clueless to see it.
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More gas in the tank, less money to Iraq
The politics of oil shale
HT: Chuck Norris. (CHUCK NORRIS?!) Courtesy of Fark.
You'd think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.
HT: Chuck Norris. (CHUCK NORRIS?!) Courtesy of Fark.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
1988: Yet another death at NAF member FPA
The survivors of 32-year-old Joyce Ortenzio filed suit against Edward Allred, his Family Planning Associates Medical Group (FPA), the San Vicente Hospital FPA facility, and abortionist Ruben Marmet. Joyce had gone to San Vicente for laminaria insertion by Marmet on June 7, 1988. Later, Marmet performed a safe and legal abortion, but did not remove all of the fetal parts from Joyce's uterus.
The next day, June 8, Joyce was found dead in her home.
The cause of death was an overdose of the drug amitriptyline, infection from fetal parts that were not removed during the abortion, and septic shock.
Joyce left three children motherless.
Joyce is one of many women to die at this NAF facility after the National Abortion Federation was founded. Others known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include:
I suspect that the reason the deaths appear in clusters is because those are years that researchers checked for lawsuits, rather than that these are all the women and girls who died at Allred facilities. Anybody with the time and resources to do so could probably uncover other deaths Allred and his staff have managed to sweep under the carpet.
The next day, June 8, Joyce was found dead in her home.
The cause of death was an overdose of the drug amitriptyline, infection from fetal parts that were not removed during the abortion, and septic shock.
Joyce left three children motherless.
Joyce is one of many women to die at this NAF facility after the National Abortion Federation was founded. Others known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include:
- Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
- Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
- Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
- Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
- Lanice Dorsey, age 17, 1986
- 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
I suspect that the reason the deaths appear in clusters is because those are years that researchers checked for lawsuits, rather than that these are all the women and girls who died at Allred facilities. Anybody with the time and resources to do so could probably uncover other deaths Allred and his staff have managed to sweep under the carpet.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Tilting at progesterone windmills
So many people are jumping on the "Protest the Pill" bandwagon that I have to speak out.
Years ago, it was taken as a given that the Pill's tertiary effect of thinning the endometrium would prevent implantation of a newly-concieved embryo in cases of breakthrough ovulation. But this tertiary effect only happens in cycles in which the Pill successfully prevents ovulation. The doses in modern birth-control pills are so low that the woman's ovary easily overcomes the effects if there is breakthrough ovulation, especially if there is a conception. How else could there be such a high failure rate?
Again, what I've seen and read most recently is that in cases when there is break-through ovulation, the corpus leuteum in the ovary produces enough hormones to offset the impact of the Pill on the uterus. In other words, the Pill almost certainly does not cause early abortions. Which is GOOD news.
"The proponents of the “hostile endometrium theory” argue that OCs are abortifacient based upon the third mechanism of action. The medical literature clearly supports the claim that the uterus becomes thinner and less glandular as a result of the OCs, however, the medical literature comes to this conclusion from non-ovulatory pill cycles. It is assumed that this finding in non-ovulatory pill cycles would prevent implantation of the embryo conceived in an ovulatory pill cycle, but this presumption is false. If a woman on OCs ovulates and conceives, everything changes: through the HCG’s affect on the corpus luteum, and the corpus luteum’s release of high levels of estrogen and progesterone, the uterus is able to nourish its new guest very well."
I'm no great fan of birth control pills. The whole idea is to treat a woman's normally-functioning body as if it's diseased, which I find misogynist and distasteful. And the contraceptive mindset that sex and reproduction are totally unrelated is emotionally, personally, and societally damaging. But it's not something that is causing innocent deaths, unless you count the long-term increase in cervical cancer and other health risks inherent in promiscuous sexual behavior.
I'd rather see the prolife movement go after the deliberate routine destruction of deliberately concieved embryos in IVF clinics than go tilting at progesterone windmills trying to rescue inadvertently created embryos who most likely are in no danger unless the mother chooses to seek an abortion.
Yes, it was the Pill-pushers' own poor research that put out that the Pill was abortifacient rather than merely contraceptive. But they were wrong. We were mistaken when we believed them. Now let's move on.
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Years ago, it was taken as a given that the Pill's tertiary effect of thinning the endometrium would prevent implantation of a newly-concieved embryo in cases of breakthrough ovulation. But this tertiary effect only happens in cycles in which the Pill successfully prevents ovulation. The doses in modern birth-control pills are so low that the woman's ovary easily overcomes the effects if there is breakthrough ovulation, especially if there is a conception. How else could there be such a high failure rate?
Again, what I've seen and read most recently is that in cases when there is break-through ovulation, the corpus leuteum in the ovary produces enough hormones to offset the impact of the Pill on the uterus. In other words, the Pill almost certainly does not cause early abortions. Which is GOOD news.
"The proponents of the “hostile endometrium theory” argue that OCs are abortifacient based upon the third mechanism of action. The medical literature clearly supports the claim that the uterus becomes thinner and less glandular as a result of the OCs, however, the medical literature comes to this conclusion from non-ovulatory pill cycles. It is assumed that this finding in non-ovulatory pill cycles would prevent implantation of the embryo conceived in an ovulatory pill cycle, but this presumption is false. If a woman on OCs ovulates and conceives, everything changes: through the HCG’s affect on the corpus luteum, and the corpus luteum’s release of high levels of estrogen and progesterone, the uterus is able to nourish its new guest very well."
I'm no great fan of birth control pills. The whole idea is to treat a woman's normally-functioning body as if it's diseased, which I find misogynist and distasteful. And the contraceptive mindset that sex and reproduction are totally unrelated is emotionally, personally, and societally damaging. But it's not something that is causing innocent deaths, unless you count the long-term increase in cervical cancer and other health risks inherent in promiscuous sexual behavior.
I'd rather see the prolife movement go after the deliberate routine destruction of deliberately concieved embryos in IVF clinics than go tilting at progesterone windmills trying to rescue inadvertently created embryos who most likely are in no danger unless the mother chooses to seek an abortion.
Yes, it was the Pill-pushers' own poor research that put out that the Pill was abortifacient rather than merely contraceptive. But they were wrong. We were mistaken when we believed them. Now let's move on.
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Please don't bring back the gas crisis
No profits, no oil
When I was a kid, we lived across the street from a gas station. During the embargo, one of the tasks that fell to us kids was to tell Mom when we saw the gasoline truck pull up. She'd drop whatever she was doing so she could be first in line to buy gas. Funny how it just became another thing we did, like keeping an eye peeled for when the wild blackberries were ripe and rushing to pick them. Or, more to the point, like when I lived in West Germany in the mid-1980s and checking the car for bombs after parking in public was just a routine part of being a military wife. Human beings have an incredible ability to just get used to things that upon later reflection you just shouldn't have ever needed to get used to.
I don't want to get used to gas rationing again. It's bad enough that the prices are so high that the free passes my friend can get me to Six Flags are going unused because I can't afford the gas to take advantage of them.
How will tacking on additional taxes bring prices down? Are key logic circuits missing in these people's brains?
Or is this just government greed?
When I was a kid, we lived across the street from a gas station. During the embargo, one of the tasks that fell to us kids was to tell Mom when we saw the gasoline truck pull up. She'd drop whatever she was doing so she could be first in line to buy gas. Funny how it just became another thing we did, like keeping an eye peeled for when the wild blackberries were ripe and rushing to pick them. Or, more to the point, like when I lived in West Germany in the mid-1980s and checking the car for bombs after parking in public was just a routine part of being a military wife. Human beings have an incredible ability to just get used to things that upon later reflection you just shouldn't have ever needed to get used to.
I don't want to get used to gas rationing again. It's bad enough that the prices are so high that the free passes my friend can get me to Six Flags are going unused because I can't afford the gas to take advantage of them.
How will tacking on additional taxes bring prices down? Are key logic circuits missing in these people's brains?
Or is this just government greed?
Over-compensating?
Japan's 'monster' parents take centre stage
Every little girl in the play was Snow White. Why? Because of "monster parents" -- who can't stand the idea that their precious snowflake isn't the center of absolutely everybody's universe.
I saw this when I was teaching in Korea -- schools trying to juggle the conflicting and unreasonable demands of parents. If their kid is a bit slow, they want the teacher to ignore the other kids so their kid catches up. If their kid is bright, they want him to get extra attention to nurture his giftedness. And the fact that a teacher can't pay exclusive attention to one kid in a classroom full of kids doesn't get factored in.
And we see it in the US, too. Parents whose kids break the rules, but when they suffer consequences, Mom and Dad want the rules abolished so that there is no disappointment for their precious little snowflake.
And I wonder -- is this over-compensating for something?
Is the fact that Mom aborted several babies waiting for the "perfect" time to have this one a factor? Or that she aborted several babies after this one so she could focus on him or her?
I'd love to see a study of whether or not there's a relationship between mom's history of abortions and the "helicopter parent" phenomenon. I'd be willing to bet that the link is there. Especially when the worst offenders seem to live in countries, or parts of this country, where abortion is considered normative, used to focus the family's resources -- emotional, financial, and logistical.
Parents who are willing to kill the child's siblings so they can focus their own energy on him can't view it as too unreasonable to ask that other people's kids get ignored or trampled on his behalf. It probably seems a small price in comparison.
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Every little girl in the play was Snow White. Why? Because of "monster parents" -- who can't stand the idea that their precious snowflake isn't the center of absolutely everybody's universe.
I saw this when I was teaching in Korea -- schools trying to juggle the conflicting and unreasonable demands of parents. If their kid is a bit slow, they want the teacher to ignore the other kids so their kid catches up. If their kid is bright, they want him to get extra attention to nurture his giftedness. And the fact that a teacher can't pay exclusive attention to one kid in a classroom full of kids doesn't get factored in.
And we see it in the US, too. Parents whose kids break the rules, but when they suffer consequences, Mom and Dad want the rules abolished so that there is no disappointment for their precious little snowflake.
And I wonder -- is this over-compensating for something?
Is the fact that Mom aborted several babies waiting for the "perfect" time to have this one a factor? Or that she aborted several babies after this one so she could focus on him or her?
I'd love to see a study of whether or not there's a relationship between mom's history of abortions and the "helicopter parent" phenomenon. I'd be willing to bet that the link is there. Especially when the worst offenders seem to live in countries, or parts of this country, where abortion is considered normative, used to focus the family's resources -- emotional, financial, and logistical.
Parents who are willing to kill the child's siblings so they can focus their own energy on him can't view it as too unreasonable to ask that other people's kids get ignored or trampled on his behalf. It probably seems a small price in comparison.
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Two criminal anniversaries
On June 7, 1924, 27-year-old Anna Strazynski died at her Chicago home from an illegal abortion performed that day. The perpetrator was never identified.
On June 7, 1929, 20-year-old Viola Koepping died at the office of Dr. Albert West of Chicago, from an abortion evidently performed there that day. West was held by the coroner on June 21, and indicted by a grand jury for felony murder on April 21, 1930. Viola's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
On June 7, 1929, 20-year-old Viola Koepping died at the office of Dr. Albert West of Chicago, from an abortion evidently performed there that day. West was held by the coroner on June 21, and indicted by a grand jury for felony murder on April 21, 1930. Viola's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Failed abortion
The blogosphere is abuzz about Jodie Percival, the British mom whose third child survived an 8-week abortion attempt.
This sort of thing isn't all that unusual. This study found that 46 babies survived the 65,045 abortions performed. That's about one in every 1,400 abortions. With 1.2 million abortions done every year in the US, that's about 849 babies every year that survive a first-trimester abortion attempt.
The Washington State Department of Health noted that reported failed abortions are at .1%, which if extrapolated for the entire US would be roughly 1,200 babies surving first-trimester abortion attempts annually.
A study at a Planned Parenthood 17 babies survived out of 1,155 they attempted to kill by abortion -- a 1.5% failed abortion rate. Extrapolated to the entire US, this would mean roughly 18,000 babies surviving first trimester abortions.
This site cites a Planned Parenthood study. The failure rate for chemical abortion raged from 1% to 9%, and suction abortions had a failure rate of .2%.
I'm guessing that different facilities have different rates of failed abortion, just as they have different rates of other complications. But clealry, somewhere between aout 850 and 1,800 babies are surviving first-trimester attepts to kill them.
I've not been able to find any studies on what percent of mothers have somebody finish the kid off, and what percent let the child continue to gestate unmolested. But odds are pretty solid that about 1,000 American women every year get a second chance at motherhood after making an initial choice of death for their child. The fact that many of them do choose life after having initially choosing abortion casts some doubt over claims that abortion is so "necessary". After all, if having that baby would utterly ruin her life, it will still utterly ruin her life even if it's gestated a couple of extra weeks. If the fact that the baby is a bit bigger and older is enough to change the woman's mind, she never had that compelling a reason in the first place, did she?
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This sort of thing isn't all that unusual. This study found that 46 babies survived the 65,045 abortions performed. That's about one in every 1,400 abortions. With 1.2 million abortions done every year in the US, that's about 849 babies every year that survive a first-trimester abortion attempt.
The Washington State Department of Health noted that reported failed abortions are at .1%, which if extrapolated for the entire US would be roughly 1,200 babies surving first-trimester abortion attempts annually.
A study at a Planned Parenthood 17 babies survived out of 1,155 they attempted to kill by abortion -- a 1.5% failed abortion rate. Extrapolated to the entire US, this would mean roughly 18,000 babies surviving first trimester abortions.
This site cites a Planned Parenthood study. The failure rate for chemical abortion raged from 1% to 9%, and suction abortions had a failure rate of .2%.
I'm guessing that different facilities have different rates of failed abortion, just as they have different rates of other complications. But clealry, somewhere between aout 850 and 1,800 babies are surviving first-trimester attepts to kill them.
I've not been able to find any studies on what percent of mothers have somebody finish the kid off, and what percent let the child continue to gestate unmolested. But odds are pretty solid that about 1,000 American women every year get a second chance at motherhood after making an initial choice of death for their child. The fact that many of them do choose life after having initially choosing abortion casts some doubt over claims that abortion is so "necessary". After all, if having that baby would utterly ruin her life, it will still utterly ruin her life even if it's gestated a couple of extra weeks. If the fact that the baby is a bit bigger and older is enough to change the woman's mind, she never had that compelling a reason in the first place, did she?
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1984: First of two known patient deaths at Delta
A chronic ashtma patient, 27-year-old Sheila Hebert went to Delta Women's Clinic in Baton Rouge for a safe and legal abortion on June 6, 1984. Shortly after the abortion, Sheila complained of chest pains and difficulty breathing. She lost consciousness, and staff injected her with adrenaline, but were unable to revive her. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she died. The coroner attributed the death to "cardiorespiratory arrest due to acute ashtmatic bronchitis" after "surgical termination of pregnancy.
A suit filed anonymously against Richardson Glidden and Delta Women's Clinic raised these issues in the death of a patient in 1984. The suit and news article therefore probably describe the same case.
In 1990, Ingar Weber died after an abortion at Delta.
Delta's abortionist, James Whitmore III, lost his license to practice medicine in 2002. The board had found Whitmore guilty of disregarding basic santitation, being rude to patients, and failing to provide proper care to a woman whose uterus he had perforated during an abortion. The woman ended up needing a hysterectomy. The board found that Whitmore used improperly sterilized equipment, reused single-use items, and let tissue float in the sterilizing solution. Whitmore had previously been on probation for three years beginning in 1992, after his actions led to the death of one post-term infant and the permanent injury of a pre-term infant.
To learn more about this fairly seedy abortion mill -- excuse me, provider of vital women's reproductive health care services -- read this.
A suit filed anonymously against Richardson Glidden and Delta Women's Clinic raised these issues in the death of a patient in 1984. The suit and news article therefore probably describe the same case.
In 1990, Ingar Weber died after an abortion at Delta.
Delta's abortionist, James Whitmore III, lost his license to practice medicine in 2002. The board had found Whitmore guilty of disregarding basic santitation, being rude to patients, and failing to provide proper care to a woman whose uterus he had perforated during an abortion. The woman ended up needing a hysterectomy. The board found that Whitmore used improperly sterilized equipment, reused single-use items, and let tissue float in the sterilizing solution. Whitmore had previously been on probation for three years beginning in 1992, after his actions led to the death of one post-term infant and the permanent injury of a pre-term infant.
To learn more about this fairly seedy abortion mill -- excuse me, provider of vital women's reproductive health care services -- read this.
Does anybody have more info on Nicey Washington?
Nicey Washington was 26 years old when she underwent a safe and legal abortion at Ambulatory Surgery Center in Brooklyn, New York, on June 6, 2000. Her heart stopped after the abortion. She was rushed to Lutheran Hospital at about 11 a.m. Attempts to revive her failed, and she was declared dead at around noon.
As of the time of the last article I could find on Nicey's death, the Medical Examiner's office hadn't determined the exact cause of death, but suspected a botched abortion. The state health department would not provide information due to confidentiality concerns, but added, "We are actively investigating this particular case."
As of the time of the last article I could find on Nicey's death, the Medical Examiner's office hadn't determined the exact cause of death, but suspected a botched abortion. The state health department would not provide information due to confidentiality concerns, but added, "We are actively investigating this particular case."
Thursday, June 05, 2008
A pervert abortionist and a fatal tubal ligation
The family of Gwendolyn L. Ray-Yarbour sued when she died of anesthesia complications pending surgery by George Elliot Kabacy at Lovejoy Surgi-Center in Portland, Oregon. Gwen, age 30, was to undergo a tubal ligation on June 5, 1992. A nurse-anesthetist adminstered the medications. Gwen was transported by ambulance to the hospital, where she was believed to be already "brain-dead", but was monitored overnight. She died during the night. The suit alleged that Kabacy and Lovejoy committed multiple acts of negligence leading to Gwen's death. She was survived by four children, a 4-year-old girl, and boys ages 10, 11, and 12. (Multnomah County Circuit Court, Autopsy Report No. AG-92-00040, death certificate).
Kabacy made headlines much more recently when he pleaded guilty in late 2007 to possessing more than 8,000 images of child pornograophy at his hom in Lacey, Washington. The FBI began investigating Kabacy in September of 2006 after another child pornography suspect, this one in Georgia, gave Kabacy's email address as the source of his material. The Georgia suspect permitted agents to assume his identity to pursue the investigation.
FBI Special Agent Ryan Bruett wrote in an affidavit, "Dr. Kabacy asked me what would happen to him. I responded that if we found any child pornography, he would be placed under arrest."
Kabacy was indicted on charges of possession and advertising child pornography in January of 2007. Prosecutors were pushing for a sentence of five to ten years in prison for the 68-year-old abortionist. Kabacy pleaded guilty to the possession charnge in exchange for dropping a charge of advertising it. In the plea agreement Kabacy admitted that he possessed more than 8,000 digital still images and additional video footage, which court documents say were stored on a laptop computer and 36 compact discs. "Defendant further admits that some of said images depicted sadomasochistic conduct, including bondage or bestiality involving minors. "Defendant further admits that some of said images depicted pre- pubescent minors and/or minors under the age of 12 years," according to court papers.
Kabacy's attorney, Neil Fox, issued a written statement that Kabacy regretted and apologized for his conduct, and elected not to contest the charges "because of his deep remorse and shame for the dishonor that he has brought upon himself and his family."
Kabacy worked at Lovejoy Surgi-Center and Planned Parenthood of the Columbia- Willamette in Oregon (both National Abortion Federation members), and, up until his arrest, at Sound Choice Health Center in Olympia, Washington. ("Former Olympia gynecologist pleads guilty in child pornography case", Christian Hill, The Olympian, December 1, 2007)
Kabacy was sued for one other patient death. The family of Tamara L. Willis alleged that Kabacy failed to send tissue to a pathology lab on March 21, 1988, resulting in the failure to diagnose her malignant melanoma. Tamara was hospitalized September 8 through October 25 for chemotherapy, multiple bone marrow aspirations, and repeated x-rays and scans. She was hospitalized again on Christmas of that yar, and suffered blindness, headache, weaknes, vomiting, pain, and finally coma before finally dying on January 28, 1989. (Multnomah Circuit Court Case No. A8908-04425)
Kabacy made headlines much more recently when he pleaded guilty in late 2007 to possessing more than 8,000 images of child pornograophy at his hom in Lacey, Washington. The FBI began investigating Kabacy in September of 2006 after another child pornography suspect, this one in Georgia, gave Kabacy's email address as the source of his material. The Georgia suspect permitted agents to assume his identity to pursue the investigation.
FBI Special Agent Ryan Bruett wrote in an affidavit, "Dr. Kabacy asked me what would happen to him. I responded that if we found any child pornography, he would be placed under arrest."
Kabacy was indicted on charges of possession and advertising child pornography in January of 2007. Prosecutors were pushing for a sentence of five to ten years in prison for the 68-year-old abortionist. Kabacy pleaded guilty to the possession charnge in exchange for dropping a charge of advertising it. In the plea agreement Kabacy admitted that he possessed more than 8,000 digital still images and additional video footage, which court documents say were stored on a laptop computer and 36 compact discs. "Defendant further admits that some of said images depicted sadomasochistic conduct, including bondage or bestiality involving minors. "Defendant further admits that some of said images depicted pre- pubescent minors and/or minors under the age of 12 years," according to court papers.
Kabacy's attorney, Neil Fox, issued a written statement that Kabacy regretted and apologized for his conduct, and elected not to contest the charges "because of his deep remorse and shame for the dishonor that he has brought upon himself and his family."
Kabacy worked at Lovejoy Surgi-Center and Planned Parenthood of the Columbia- Willamette in Oregon (both National Abortion Federation members), and, up until his arrest, at Sound Choice Health Center in Olympia, Washington. ("Former Olympia gynecologist pleads guilty in child pornography case", Christian Hill, The Olympian, December 1, 2007)
Kabacy was sued for one other patient death. The family of Tamara L. Willis alleged that Kabacy failed to send tissue to a pathology lab on March 21, 1988, resulting in the failure to diagnose her malignant melanoma. Tamara was hospitalized September 8 through October 25 for chemotherapy, multiple bone marrow aspirations, and repeated x-rays and scans. She was hospitalized again on Christmas of that yar, and suffered blindness, headache, weaknes, vomiting, pain, and finally coma before finally dying on January 28, 1989. (Multnomah Circuit Court Case No. A8908-04425)
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
High on the Hog for Poverty Pimps
Leaders feast on Italian fare during hunger summit
Okay, just because other people are starving doesn't mean you have to eat Unimix and drink boiled creek water. But it's sickening when people figure out that they can live like kings on the backs of the poorest of the poor. And the most glaring example of this is when you look at the menu served up at a typical hunger summit. Pig out while pontificating about starvation. How about sending out for pizza and giving the money you save to Feed the Children, you swine?
It's hard to imagine a lifeform more loathsome than a poverty pimp.
For presidents and premiers at summits, delicacies washed down by fine wines are all part of the agenda.
But the puff pastries with corn and mozzarella, pasta with pumpkin and shrimp, and rolls of thinly sliced veal served up Tuesday at a U.N. conference on fighting hunger were a contrast to bleak accounts of starving people around the world.
Okay, just because other people are starving doesn't mean you have to eat Unimix and drink boiled creek water. But it's sickening when people figure out that they can live like kings on the backs of the poorest of the poor. And the most glaring example of this is when you look at the menu served up at a typical hunger summit. Pig out while pontificating about starvation. How about sending out for pizza and giving the money you save to Feed the Children, you swine?
It's hard to imagine a lifeform more loathsome than a poverty pimp.
Mark Driscoll on birth control
He gets a bit confused between RU-486 and the MAP, but otherwise nails it.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Crocodile tears in the NYT
Repairing the Damage, Before Roe is an opinion piece lamenting how horrible, just horrible things were before Roe was handed down and a new era of enlightenment and joy settled on the landscape.
Well, allow me to extract some quotes, with links provided to the improvements we've seen since these bad old days.
Let's start, shall we, with Raymond Showery, who performed the fatal abortion on Mickey Apodaca while out on bail appealing a murder conviction. Another patient, "Ida," age 25, told the El Paso Times that she submitted to an abortion by Showery in January of 1978. She found out he'd failed to kill the fetus and returned to Showery on April 20 to complain. Showery refused to complete the abortion for free as follow-up, telling Ida "he wasn't Sears. He didn't have to guarantee his work." Ida paid her money, and Showery performed an exam so painful Ida described it as "like he just put his whole fist up there, just jammed it." Showery told Ida and her boyfriend he would have to charge more due to the complicated procedure necessary. "He showed us the diagram and how he'd have to section off the fetus," Ida said, imitating slicing movements Showery had made with his hands." Ida said Showery told her, "you ... whores just get in trouble all the time." Showery performed the second abortion, and Ida awoke in a hospial bed, "in a pool of blood." One week later, she expelled 6 inches of umbilical cord and "a small, bloody four-fingered hand." Ida told the reporter that she dreamed "about chopped-up children," and woke up crying many nights, afraid to be alone. The same report says Rape Crisis and MH-MR Crisis Line stopped referring to Showery's hospital due to complaints. (El Paso Times 4-5-81)
Surely Showery was a total fluke! Well. How about these cases: 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; and Lawson Akpolonu was raping patients in his filthy clinic -- something Diane Sawyer considered "a non-story" when we tipped her off.
As compared to what? The woman who goes to a modern abortion facility and if she's injured she has to have her attorney file suit against every doctor who works there because they won't tell her the name of her abortionist? Some guy in a mask who doesn't even introduce himself walks in, spend three minutes shoving things into your uterus, and walks out.
Then our lamentatious doctor goes into a litany of the things they pulled out of women: "darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off." There's a word for sticking things like that into your body, and it's not abortion. It's deliberate self-harm, and it's a symptom of mental illness. Legalizing abortion, last I checked, wasn't a mental health treatment for anybody with a mental illness that leads to deliberate self-harm.
Disemboweled patient? How about Scott Barret's patient. He pulled out her innards through her vagina then sent her to the hospital in a friend's car.
How about Andre Nehorayoff's patient "Brandy" -- Nehorayoff pulled a loop of Brandy's bowel through her cervix through a 2.5 cm tear he'd made in the back of her uterus. Instead of stopping the procedure and transferring Brandy to a hospital, Nehorayoff just pushed the loop of bowel back through the hole and continued with the abortion. Only after the abortion did he hospitalize Brandy. Surgeons there found "a 6.5 segment of devascularized bowel" which they had to remove.
And Saihb Sinuhe Halil bent his forceps pulling on a patient's pelvic organs and finally tried to finish the abortion with a desk scissors -- Halil pulled out Thelma's right ovary and fallopian tube, severed her left fallopian tube, and caused a large uterine rupture, left about four feet of her small intestine lacerated and necrotic.
This wasn't the only patient Halil mangled. Vivian Q. underwent an abortion by Halil. "[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. (Los Angeles Times 7-6-93; California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576)
How about patient Marcia -- First the abortionist perforated her uterus and intestines and "shoved the aspirator in more" after she screamed and begged him to stop. She was hospitalized and her abortion completed by another doctor, who then discharged Marcia despite persisting pain and vomiting. Marcia suspected that she was suffering from a perforated uterus and stomach, but Rand diagnosed indigestion. Marcia refused to go home. A barium enema showed intestinal blockage, but Rand discharged Marcia anyway. Three days later Marcia returned and she saw different doctor. Marcia underwent immediate and subsequent surgery which removed 2 1/2 feet of intestine. She required the insertion of a 35-foot tube from her throat to her anus, and was hospitalized for 60 days. She also was left infertile. (San Diego Superior Court Case No. 640957)
Steve Brigham's patient Anne. Brigham removed a fetal arm and part of the placenta, then detected a perforation. Although he was reaching for bony parts of the fetus and instead grasping soft tissues, he continued to grasp and pull with his instruments. Brigham admitted that he did not know what he was grasping with forceps, "the ultrasound picture was not consistent with what he felt," but he "opened his forceps wider and grasped again, with force." This caused an 8-10 cm uterine laceration. Brigham perforated Anne's sigmoid colon, and caused extensive cutting of the connective tissues of the colon. Anne required a colostomy, and the removal of a 16 cm segment of her colon.
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)
These patients got off easy compared to Magdalena Rodriguez, whose safe and legal abortion mangled her uterus, vagina, bladder and colon so horribly that the surgeons couldn't save her. Her abortionist admitted that he knew he'd "screwed up" when he pulled out her bowel instead of featl parts, but he left her unattended anyway for half an hour while he performed other abortions. Yeah, he was a huge improvement on the uncaring pre-Roe abortionists!
And let's pull out the violins for the nauseating final paragraph:
Did you hear that, ladies? The only way you can be a first-class citizen is to have a man stick sharp things into your uterus and kill your baby. Until you experience an abortion, you are NOT a "first-class citizen". Mothers of live babies, women who have never been pregnant, women who have lost children to accident or illness, are not "first-class citizens".
And if what those quacks and others like them do to women is treating women as "first-class citizens", I want no part of it. I want my babies alive and my internal organs unmolested.
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Well, allow me to extract some quotes, with links provided to the improvements we've seen since these bad old days.
There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring.
Let's start, shall we, with Raymond Showery, who performed the fatal abortion on Mickey Apodaca while out on bail appealing a murder conviction. Another patient, "Ida," age 25, told the El Paso Times that she submitted to an abortion by Showery in January of 1978. She found out he'd failed to kill the fetus and returned to Showery on April 20 to complain. Showery refused to complete the abortion for free as follow-up, telling Ida "he wasn't Sears. He didn't have to guarantee his work." Ida paid her money, and Showery performed an exam so painful Ida described it as "like he just put his whole fist up there, just jammed it." Showery told Ida and her boyfriend he would have to charge more due to the complicated procedure necessary. "He showed us the diagram and how he'd have to section off the fetus," Ida said, imitating slicing movements Showery had made with his hands." Ida said Showery told her, "you ... whores just get in trouble all the time." Showery performed the second abortion, and Ida awoke in a hospial bed, "in a pool of blood." One week later, she expelled 6 inches of umbilical cord and "a small, bloody four-fingered hand." Ida told the reporter that she dreamed "about chopped-up children," and woke up crying many nights, afraid to be alone. The same report says Rape Crisis and MH-MR Crisis Line stopped referring to Showery's hospital due to complaints. (El Paso Times 4-5-81)
Surely Showery was a total fluke! Well. How about these cases: 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; and Lawson Akpolonu was raping patients in his filthy clinic -- something Diane Sawyer considered "a non-story" when we tipped her off.
Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed.
As compared to what? The woman who goes to a modern abortion facility and if she's injured she has to have her attorney file suit against every doctor who works there because they won't tell her the name of her abortionist? Some guy in a mask who doesn't even introduce himself walks in, spend three minutes shoving things into your uterus, and walks out.
Then our lamentatious doctor goes into a litany of the things they pulled out of women: "darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off." There's a word for sticking things like that into your body, and it's not abortion. It's deliberate self-harm, and it's a symptom of mental illness. Legalizing abortion, last I checked, wasn't a mental health treatment for anybody with a mental illness that leads to deliberate self-harm.
The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.
Disemboweled patient? How about Scott Barret's patient. He pulled out her innards through her vagina then sent her to the hospital in a friend's car.
How about Andre Nehorayoff's patient "Brandy" -- Nehorayoff pulled a loop of Brandy's bowel through her cervix through a 2.5 cm tear he'd made in the back of her uterus. Instead of stopping the procedure and transferring Brandy to a hospital, Nehorayoff just pushed the loop of bowel back through the hole and continued with the abortion. Only after the abortion did he hospitalize Brandy. Surgeons there found "a 6.5 segment of devascularized bowel" which they had to remove.
And Saihb Sinuhe Halil bent his forceps pulling on a patient's pelvic organs and finally tried to finish the abortion with a desk scissors -- Halil pulled out Thelma's right ovary and fallopian tube, severed her left fallopian tube, and caused a large uterine rupture, left about four feet of her small intestine lacerated and necrotic.
This wasn't the only patient Halil mangled. Vivian Q. underwent an abortion by Halil. "[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. (Los Angeles Times 7-6-93; California medical board Case No. D-5193, OAH Case No. L-60576)
How about patient Marcia -- First the abortionist perforated her uterus and intestines and "shoved the aspirator in more" after she screamed and begged him to stop. She was hospitalized and her abortion completed by another doctor, who then discharged Marcia despite persisting pain and vomiting. Marcia suspected that she was suffering from a perforated uterus and stomach, but Rand diagnosed indigestion. Marcia refused to go home. A barium enema showed intestinal blockage, but Rand discharged Marcia anyway. Three days later Marcia returned and she saw different doctor. Marcia underwent immediate and subsequent surgery which removed 2 1/2 feet of intestine. She required the insertion of a 35-foot tube from her throat to her anus, and was hospitalized for 60 days. She also was left infertile. (San Diego Superior Court Case No. 640957)
Steve Brigham's patient Anne. Brigham removed a fetal arm and part of the placenta, then detected a perforation. Although he was reaching for bony parts of the fetus and instead grasping soft tissues, he continued to grasp and pull with his instruments. Brigham admitted that he did not know what he was grasping with forceps, "the ultrasound picture was not consistent with what he felt," but he "opened his forceps wider and grasped again, with force." This caused an 8-10 cm uterine laceration. Brigham perforated Anne's sigmoid colon, and caused extensive cutting of the connective tissues of the colon. Anne required a colostomy, and the removal of a 16 cm segment of her colon.
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)
These patients got off easy compared to Magdalena Rodriguez, whose safe and legal abortion mangled her uterus, vagina, bladder and colon so horribly that the surgeons couldn't save her. Her abortionist admitted that he knew he'd "screwed up" when he pulled out her bowel instead of featl parts, but he left her unattended anyway for half an hour while he performed other abortions. Yeah, he was a huge improvement on the uncaring pre-Roe abortionists!
And let's pull out the violins for the nauseating final paragraph:
What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.
Did you hear that, ladies? The only way you can be a first-class citizen is to have a man stick sharp things into your uterus and kill your baby. Until you experience an abortion, you are NOT a "first-class citizen". Mothers of live babies, women who have never been pregnant, women who have lost children to accident or illness, are not "first-class citizens".
And if what those quacks and others like them do to women is treating women as "first-class citizens", I want no part of it. I want my babies alive and my internal organs unmolested.
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Aussie Broadcasting to kids: Die, you swine!
Oz TV advises CO2-emitting children to die early
I plugged in answers on behalf of my 3-year-old granddaughter, and they were gracious enough to say that she could live to age 19.2. Presumably if she doesn't stray far from home or spend too much time with her non-vegetarian mother.
When I plugged in my answers, they wanted me to have died at age 9.9.
Take the quiz and let me know if they wish you or your children dead.
(As if their enthusiasm for abortion wasn't already enough to prove that Greens hate kids.)
Carbon Cult sickos are under fire for an interactive website that tells children they should die because they emit CO2.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Planet Slayer" site invites young children to take a "greenhouse gas quiz", asking them "how big a pig are you?". At the end of the quiz, the pig explodes, and ABC tells children at "what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your fair share of Earth’s resources!"
It's one of a number of interactive features that "Get the dirt on greenhouse without the guilt trips. No lectures. No multinational-bashing (well, maybe a little...). Just fun and games and the answers to all your enviro-dilemas," ABC claims.
The site is aimed at 9-year olds. However even a "virtuous" rating (e.g. not owning a car and recycling) is outweighed by eating meat, or spending an average Aussie income - with the result that many 9-year olds are being told they've already outstayed their environmentally-compliant stay on the planet.
I plugged in answers on behalf of my 3-year-old granddaughter, and they were gracious enough to say that she could live to age 19.2. Presumably if she doesn't stray far from home or spend too much time with her non-vegetarian mother.
When I plugged in my answers, they wanted me to have died at age 9.9.
Take the quiz and let me know if they wish you or your children dead.
(As if their enthusiasm for abortion wasn't already enough to prove that Greens hate kids.)
1962: The macabre end of Barbara Lofrumento
Like the Jacqueline Smith case in the previous decade, the strange events surrounding the death of 19-year-old Barbara Lofrumento have become almost an urban legend. But the tale of Barbara's tragic death and its aftermath is all too true.
Barbara, a 19-year-old college student, informed her parents that she was pregnant. Mr. and Mrs. Lofrumento cast about for a reputable abortionist and were referred by an acquaintance to Dr. Harvey Lothringer. Lothringer, a Princeton graduate, examined Barbara on June 2, 1962, and assured the parents that although Barbara's pregnancy was 5 months advanced, there was no danger. He arranged to pick up Barbara and her mother, Rose, and took them to his office, which was in his home in a wealthy section of Queens.
This was typical of the "back alley abortion" -- a reputable physician would make sneaky arrangements to do abortions at the site of their legitimate practices, taking the woman in "through the back alley" rather than the front door. In fact, by far the bulk of criminal abortion were performed by doctors.
They arrived just after 3 AM on the 3rd. While Mrs. Lofrumento waited, Lothringer sent Barbara into a room where she removed her underwear and reported feeling unwell from the injection Lothringer had given her. Lothringer then took Barbara into his office and left Mrs. Lofrumento in his waiting room.
At about 5 AM, Lothringer told Mrs. Lofrumento that Barbara was all right, but that she needed some oxygen. Sources disagree as to what happened next. Milton Helpern, who was then Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, wrote that at 7 AM, Lothringer told Rose that Barbara was resting quietly, and that she should go home and get some rest. The New York Times wrote that Lothringer told Rose that he was going to hospitalize Barbara for a minor complication. Both sources indicated that Lothringer instructed Rose to return later to get her daughter.
Lothringer sent Mrs. Lofrumento to Grand Central Station, where he had arranged for her husband to pick her up and take her home. Instead, the couple went straight to Lothringer's home, where they found no sign of Lothringer or their daughter. They went home and repeatedly called Lothringer, getting no answer. The next morning they returned to Lothringer's home, where they found several patients waiting outside. No one had seen Lothringer. Mr. Lofrumento waited for several hours, then went home, and contacted the police to report Barbara missing.
Sources diverge again on what happened next.
According to Milton Helpern, later that day, Lothringer called a policeman who was a friend of his, telling him that he was away on business and asking him to call Roto-Rooter about the stopped-up toilet and to let them into the house. The New York Times, on the other hand, said that Lothringer's father discovered that the drains were clogged, and called somebody to come attend to them. Whoever called the worker in, the man found the toilet backed up, partially flooding the bathroom, and more water in the basement. Investigating the main house drain, the worker found the source of the problem -- pieces of bone and flesh. Somebody called the police, and an investigator took the tissue to be examined.
Soon the authorities had workers digging up the sewer lines from Lothringer's house. They found pieces of Barbara, her clothing, and her baby. The largest fragments were only a few inches long. Barbara had been dismembered and flushed down the garbage disposal and the toilet. Barbara's parents identified the clothing fragments, and Barbara's orthodontist identified a section of jaw with the teeth still in it along with several isolated teeth.
Lothringer, who had already been under surveillance for suspected abortion activities, appeared to have fled the country, accompanied by a Cuban-born former stewardess who was serving as his receptionist. Lothringer was well-to-do, with reports circulating that he kept as much as a million dollars cash in safe deposit boxes. An international manhunt was launched, with Lothringer first being traced to the area of his family's hunting lodge about 60 miles from Montreal. Eventually he was extradited from Andorra, where he was discovered in 1962.
Lothringer told police that Barbara had developed an air embolism. He had tried to dispose of her body, he said, to keep his receptionist from being implicated. He plead guilty to second-degree manslaughter in Barbara's death and was sentenced to 2 to 8 years. Barbara's mother reportedly screamed and fainted when she heard of what she considered a light sentence; Barbara's father called it "discount justice." But Lothringer's lawyer reported receiving numerous calls from Lothringer's woman patients, in support of the doctor -- a foretaste of the abortion-enamored women who it seems will rush out of the woodwork to defend anybody as long as the person in question is willing to kill fetuses.
Barbara, a 19-year-old college student, informed her parents that she was pregnant. Mr. and Mrs. Lofrumento cast about for a reputable abortionist and were referred by an acquaintance to Dr. Harvey Lothringer. Lothringer, a Princeton graduate, examined Barbara on June 2, 1962, and assured the parents that although Barbara's pregnancy was 5 months advanced, there was no danger. He arranged to pick up Barbara and her mother, Rose, and took them to his office, which was in his home in a wealthy section of Queens.
This was typical of the "back alley abortion" -- a reputable physician would make sneaky arrangements to do abortions at the site of their legitimate practices, taking the woman in "through the back alley" rather than the front door. In fact, by far the bulk of criminal abortion were performed by doctors.
They arrived just after 3 AM on the 3rd. While Mrs. Lofrumento waited, Lothringer sent Barbara into a room where she removed her underwear and reported feeling unwell from the injection Lothringer had given her. Lothringer then took Barbara into his office and left Mrs. Lofrumento in his waiting room.
At about 5 AM, Lothringer told Mrs. Lofrumento that Barbara was all right, but that she needed some oxygen. Sources disagree as to what happened next. Milton Helpern, who was then Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, wrote that at 7 AM, Lothringer told Rose that Barbara was resting quietly, and that she should go home and get some rest. The New York Times wrote that Lothringer told Rose that he was going to hospitalize Barbara for a minor complication. Both sources indicated that Lothringer instructed Rose to return later to get her daughter.
Lothringer sent Mrs. Lofrumento to Grand Central Station, where he had arranged for her husband to pick her up and take her home. Instead, the couple went straight to Lothringer's home, where they found no sign of Lothringer or their daughter. They went home and repeatedly called Lothringer, getting no answer. The next morning they returned to Lothringer's home, where they found several patients waiting outside. No one had seen Lothringer. Mr. Lofrumento waited for several hours, then went home, and contacted the police to report Barbara missing.
Sources diverge again on what happened next.
According to Milton Helpern, later that day, Lothringer called a policeman who was a friend of his, telling him that he was away on business and asking him to call Roto-Rooter about the stopped-up toilet and to let them into the house. The New York Times, on the other hand, said that Lothringer's father discovered that the drains were clogged, and called somebody to come attend to them. Whoever called the worker in, the man found the toilet backed up, partially flooding the bathroom, and more water in the basement. Investigating the main house drain, the worker found the source of the problem -- pieces of bone and flesh. Somebody called the police, and an investigator took the tissue to be examined.
Soon the authorities had workers digging up the sewer lines from Lothringer's house. They found pieces of Barbara, her clothing, and her baby. The largest fragments were only a few inches long. Barbara had been dismembered and flushed down the garbage disposal and the toilet. Barbara's parents identified the clothing fragments, and Barbara's orthodontist identified a section of jaw with the teeth still in it along with several isolated teeth.
Lothringer, who had already been under surveillance for suspected abortion activities, appeared to have fled the country, accompanied by a Cuban-born former stewardess who was serving as his receptionist. Lothringer was well-to-do, with reports circulating that he kept as much as a million dollars cash in safe deposit boxes. An international manhunt was launched, with Lothringer first being traced to the area of his family's hunting lodge about 60 miles from Montreal. Eventually he was extradited from Andorra, where he was discovered in 1962.
Lothringer told police that Barbara had developed an air embolism. He had tried to dispose of her body, he said, to keep his receptionist from being implicated. He plead guilty to second-degree manslaughter in Barbara's death and was sentenced to 2 to 8 years. Barbara's mother reportedly screamed and fainted when she heard of what she considered a light sentence; Barbara's father called it "discount justice." But Lothringer's lawyer reported receiving numerous calls from Lothringer's woman patients, in support of the doctor -- a foretaste of the abortion-enamored women who it seems will rush out of the woodwork to defend anybody as long as the person in question is willing to kill fetuses.
1975: Chicago abortion kills mother of four
Sandra Chmiel was a pretty young mother of four when she went to Biogenetics Ltd. in Chicago for an abortion on June 3, 1975. (NOTE: The current Biogenetics company in Chicago is not affiliated with any abortion facility and was in no way associated with Sandra's death.) Even though 35-year-old Sandra was more than 12 weeks pregnant, the Biogenetics doctor chose to ignore the Illinois law that required abortions after 12 weeks to be performed in hospitals.
Within hours of her abortion, Sandra had bled to death from a punctured uterus.
Biogenetics (which had been the target of at least 30 malpractice suits) claimed that their doctor was only repairing damage Sandra had done to herself in an attempted self-induced abortion. However, Biogenetics settled the case with Sandra's survivors for $75,000.
Brenda Benton and Synthia Dennard also died after abortions at Biogenetics.
Biogenetics's owner Kenneth Yellin was gunned down outside his facility in an apparent gangland slaying in 1979.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Within hours of her abortion, Sandra had bled to death from a punctured uterus.
Biogenetics (which had been the target of at least 30 malpractice suits) claimed that their doctor was only repairing damage Sandra had done to herself in an attempted self-induced abortion. However, Biogenetics settled the case with Sandra's survivors for $75,000.
Brenda Benton and Synthia Dennard also died after abortions at Biogenetics.
Biogenetics's owner Kenneth Yellin was gunned down outside his facility in an apparent gangland slaying in 1979.
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
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Monday, June 02, 2008
Has anybody seen this bogus claim?
Asymmetrical Information has this post, Department of Awful Statistics, commenting on this quote:
Let's apply Logic 101 just to see if this passes basic muster. Let's start with the idea that illegal abortionists were putting fully a third of their patients in the hospital. Not just a trip to the ER, mind you, but an admission. Illegal abortions were illegal. They were crimes. They were investigated by the police. Could any abortionist have stayed in business long if he or she was calling that much attention to the practice? This seems unlikely.
And we're told that abortion was just as common then as it is now, which would have meant 1.2 million abortions a year and 400,000 women admitted to the hospital annually for abortion complications, and those 400,000 women would be 42% of emergency admissions.
Now, the only data I could readily find were for 1997, but it gives us a general idea. They go by discharge data rather than admission data, but again, it's all I can find:
Diagnosis - Thousands of discharges - % of ER-admitted discharges
1. Pneumonia - 756 - 5.8
2. Congestive heart failure - 652 - 5.0
3. Hardening of the arteries of the heart - 587 - 4.5
4. Heart attack - 450 - 3.5
5. Stroke - 434 - 3.4
6. Nonspecific chest pain - 396 - 3.1
7. Chronic obstructive lung disease - 350 - 2.7
8. Irregular heartbeat - 312 - 2.4
9. Asthma - 282 - 2.2
10. Blood infection (septicemia) - 271 - 2.1
If we imagine a similar distribution of causes of emergency hospitalization, this would place abortion someplace between nonspecific chest pain and stroke, and would have put abortion in the top ten reasons for admission -- but it would still only account for about 3.2 percent of admissions, not 42% as claimed.
In order for abortion to account for 42% of emergency admissions, it would have had to be not only the #1 cause of hospital admissions, but it would have to outstrip the next most common cause of admission by a factor of seven! The next nine causes of admission would account for only about 20% of admissions! (They's be 37% of the remaining 58% of admissions.) And we're not even getting near mental health admissions, car crashes, farm and industrial accidents, and violence. And, if abortions were accounting for 42% of hospital admissions, there'd be nearly 5.5 million abortion-related hospital admission -- 4.6 times more admissions for complications than there were abortions to begin with. So instead of 1/3 of aborting women being admitted, we'd have an average of 4.6 hospital admissions to treat the complications of each abortion performed.
Admittedly these aren't admissions data for the 1950s or 1960s, but the math still shows that the numbers just can't mesh. In order for 400,000 hospital admissions to be 42% of total admissions, there would have had to be 952,380 total emergency admissions -- compared to over 13 million in 1997. That would mean that there were only about 7% as many people being admitted to the hospital on an emergency basis then as compared to post-legalization, or more than thirteen times more emergency hospitalizations a year now than pre-legalization.
In the late 1950's, 1/8 of Americans was admitted -- emergency and non-emergency combined -- to a hospital annually. In 1959, for example, the US population was 177,829,628. That would mean nearly 15 million total hospital admissions. There were about 35 million total hospital admissions in 1997 -- only a little more than twice as many admissions as in the late 1950s, not thirteen times as many.
Again, it doesn't hold water.
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"Furthermore, apparently one out of every three illegal operations had serious enough consequences to require a stay in hospital: in 1960, forty-two percent of all emergency admissions into hospitals were due to illegal abortions." H. Morgentaler, Abortion and Contraception (1982) pp. 110-11.
Let's apply Logic 101 just to see if this passes basic muster. Let's start with the idea that illegal abortionists were putting fully a third of their patients in the hospital. Not just a trip to the ER, mind you, but an admission. Illegal abortions were illegal. They were crimes. They were investigated by the police. Could any abortionist have stayed in business long if he or she was calling that much attention to the practice? This seems unlikely.
And we're told that abortion was just as common then as it is now, which would have meant 1.2 million abortions a year and 400,000 women admitted to the hospital annually for abortion complications, and those 400,000 women would be 42% of emergency admissions.
Now, the only data I could readily find were for 1997, but it gives us a general idea. They go by discharge data rather than admission data, but again, it's all I can find:
Diagnosis - Thousands of discharges - % of ER-admitted discharges
1. Pneumonia - 756 - 5.8
2. Congestive heart failure - 652 - 5.0
3. Hardening of the arteries of the heart - 587 - 4.5
4. Heart attack - 450 - 3.5
5. Stroke - 434 - 3.4
6. Nonspecific chest pain - 396 - 3.1
7. Chronic obstructive lung disease - 350 - 2.7
8. Irregular heartbeat - 312 - 2.4
9. Asthma - 282 - 2.2
10. Blood infection (septicemia) - 271 - 2.1
If we imagine a similar distribution of causes of emergency hospitalization, this would place abortion someplace between nonspecific chest pain and stroke, and would have put abortion in the top ten reasons for admission -- but it would still only account for about 3.2 percent of admissions, not 42% as claimed.
In order for abortion to account for 42% of emergency admissions, it would have had to be not only the #1 cause of hospital admissions, but it would have to outstrip the next most common cause of admission by a factor of seven! The next nine causes of admission would account for only about 20% of admissions! (They's be 37% of the remaining 58% of admissions.) And we're not even getting near mental health admissions, car crashes, farm and industrial accidents, and violence. And, if abortions were accounting for 42% of hospital admissions, there'd be nearly 5.5 million abortion-related hospital admission -- 4.6 times more admissions for complications than there were abortions to begin with. So instead of 1/3 of aborting women being admitted, we'd have an average of 4.6 hospital admissions to treat the complications of each abortion performed.
Admittedly these aren't admissions data for the 1950s or 1960s, but the math still shows that the numbers just can't mesh. In order for 400,000 hospital admissions to be 42% of total admissions, there would have had to be 952,380 total emergency admissions -- compared to over 13 million in 1997. That would mean that there were only about 7% as many people being admitted to the hospital on an emergency basis then as compared to post-legalization, or more than thirteen times more emergency hospitalizations a year now than pre-legalization.
In the late 1950's, 1/8 of Americans was admitted -- emergency and non-emergency combined -- to a hospital annually. In 1959, for example, the US population was 177,829,628. That would mean nearly 15 million total hospital admissions. There were about 35 million total hospital admissions in 1997 -- only a little more than twice as many admissions as in the late 1950s, not thirteen times as many.
Again, it doesn't hold water.
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OT: More Money Than Taste
One thing I love about Hollywood awards shows is the opportunity to yuk it up over the bizarre things those folks -- most often the women -- will wear in order to .... um.... I'm not quite sure why anybody would voluntarily dress like this in public, much less shell out big bucks for the privilege:
Here we have an ensemble topped with what appears to be one of Madonna's old training bras.
Remember in "Gone With the Wind", how Scarlett made a dress out of the curtains? Well, move over, draperies, it's time to cannibalize the naughide armchair.
Who knew you could cut the bottom out of a pink laundry bag, belt it, and wear it as a dress?
This costume was evidently stolen from the wardrobe of "Amazon Women on the Moon."
"Remember, Daddy, if anybody asks, I didn't dress you."
Johnny Depp evidently is feeling nostalgic for his Edward Scissorhands days, and finds comfort in the odd-placed buckle.
This guy is refreshing, because of all of them, he's the only one who is clearly *trying* to be funny.
Here we have an ensemble topped with what appears to be one of Madonna's old training bras.
Remember in "Gone With the Wind", how Scarlett made a dress out of the curtains? Well, move over, draperies, it's time to cannibalize the naughide armchair.
Who knew you could cut the bottom out of a pink laundry bag, belt it, and wear it as a dress?
This costume was evidently stolen from the wardrobe of "Amazon Women on the Moon."
"Remember, Daddy, if anybody asks, I didn't dress you."
Johnny Depp evidently is feeling nostalgic for his Edward Scissorhands days, and finds comfort in the odd-placed buckle.
This guy is refreshing, because of all of them, he's the only one who is clearly *trying* to be funny.
Parents: Choose your risk
“Not an either/or, all-or-nothing situation” - California Catholic Daily (links mine):
Call me cynical, but I seriously doubt that this will stop the naysayers -- who are largely in the business of selling supportive services to sexual predators or encouraging premature sexual experimentation with peers -- because for them it's all about facilitating abortions, not about the well-being of the women (and young girls) undergoing the abortions in question. The biggest triumph of this newly re-written bill is that it will force its opponents to backpedal. But, if passed, it would permit parents to choose which risks they want to protect their daughters from. And that seems a good thing.
Sarah’s Law – What’s different?
“Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way, expecting a different result.” -- Chinese proverb
The proponents of Sarah’s Law, a new family member notification initiative that will appear on the November ballot, are not insane. They are committed to protecting young girls from the dangers of secret abortions. These dangers include not only the medical risks of surgery kept hidden from parents, as tragically illustrated by the death of Sarah, but also the physical and emotional risks to girls victimized by sexual predators who use secret abortions to cover up their crimes.
In furtherance of their goal, the proponents have willingly amended their proposed initiative to address concerns raised about its scope or possible unintended consequences. For example, in the campaign against Proposition 73, opponents purported to speak for parents who did not want to be notified. “If she can’t come to me, I just want her to be safe,” was their slogan. They also claimed that the definition of abortion threatened abortion rights. Some even claimed that the proposition’s reporting requirements put judges in danger.
Proposition 85 addressed all of these concerns. It allowed parents to opt out of being notified by providing their daughters with waivers at whatever age they thought appropriate. (In effect, though I'm sure not in intent, a sort of permission slip for perverts to abuse the girls. But at least it would stop the state from uniformly siding with abusers. -- ed.) The definition of abortion was amended to comport with California’s own Reproductive Privacy Act. The provision about reporting by individual judges was deleted.
In response, opponents then focused their arguments on the issue of abusive parents. They claimed the judicial bypass, the standard process for dealing with these unfortunate situations, was a completely unworkable solution, despite the fact that, in many other states, minors can and do use the procedure. Voters were urged to “think outside the bubble” of their own family and focus on the abusive family next door.
Sarah’s Law addresses that concern head on. It provides that, if a girl informs the doctor that she fears physical, sexual, or severe emotional from either parent, because she has previously been the victim of such abuse by either parent, the doctor may instead notify another adult family member, such as an aunt, grandparent, or sibling. (Which may be informing the girl's abusive uncle or cousin of something he's complicit in anyway, but that was the case with possible paternal incest victims anyway; this just broadens the scope of which incestuously abusive family members can be "notified". And it leaves open the possibility of an Erica Richardson type scenario where a family is torn apart when an aunt sneaks a girl off for an abortion that leaves her dead. Still, it's better than nothing and provides protection to the majority of girls, who are pregnant by abusers outside their families. -- ed.) With the girl’s knowledge, the physician would also report the abusive situation to the appropriate child welfare authorities, in keeping with child abuse reporting laws. (It's about time abortionists were being made to follow the laws regarding reporting suspected child abuse. -- ed.)
“Most Californians, including doctors, nurses, teachers, and parents, know that children are safer if a parent or some other adult family member is aware of their medical situation,” says Grace Dulaney, spokeswoman for Friends of Sarah. “At the same time, it is not unreasonable to be concerned about the effect of parental notification requirements on girls from abusive homes. Sarah’s Law shows that this is not an either/or, all-or-nothing situation. It protects girls from the danger of secret abortions while also ensuring their safety at home.”
Call me cynical, but I seriously doubt that this will stop the naysayers -- who are largely in the business of selling supportive services to sexual predators or encouraging premature sexual experimentation with peers -- because for them it's all about facilitating abortions, not about the well-being of the women (and young girls) undergoing the abortions in question. The biggest triumph of this newly re-written bill is that it will force its opponents to backpedal. But, if passed, it would permit parents to choose which risks they want to protect their daughters from. And that seems a good thing.
1979: National Abortion Federation's quality care fatally injures two teens almost simultaneously
On June 2 of 1979, National Abortion Federation member Atlanta Women's Pavillion rose to new levels of incompetence when staff there managed to fatally injure two teenage abortion patients in less than an hour.
It all began when 19-year-old Angela Scott stopped breathing in the recovery room. A nurse-anesthetist was administering anesthesia to 14-year-old Deloris Smith while Dr. Jacob Adams was performing her abortion. The nurse-anesthetist ran to assist in efforts to revive Angela, leaving Deloris unattended with her anesthesia drip still running.
After staff had resuscitated Angela and loaded her into an ambulance, they returned their attention to Deloris, who had gone into cardio-respiratory arrest. Adams had accompanied Angela to the Grady Memorial Hospital, and staff refused to release Deloris to an ambulance until the physician had returned to discharge her. This resulted in a 30-minute delay, during which the ambulance crew was unable to attend to Deloris or begin transporting her.
Angela lingered for a week in a coma before dying on June 11. Deloris never regained consciousness and eventually was admitted to a nursing home, where she died of adult respiratory distress syndrome on October 24, 1979, some time after her fifteenth birthday.
It all began when 19-year-old Angela Scott stopped breathing in the recovery room. A nurse-anesthetist was administering anesthesia to 14-year-old Deloris Smith while Dr. Jacob Adams was performing her abortion. The nurse-anesthetist ran to assist in efforts to revive Angela, leaving Deloris unattended with her anesthesia drip still running.
After staff had resuscitated Angela and loaded her into an ambulance, they returned their attention to Deloris, who had gone into cardio-respiratory arrest. Adams had accompanied Angela to the Grady Memorial Hospital, and staff refused to release Deloris to an ambulance until the physician had returned to discharge her. This resulted in a 30-minute delay, during which the ambulance crew was unable to attend to Deloris or begin transporting her.
Angela lingered for a week in a coma before dying on June 11. Deloris never regained consciousness and eventually was admitted to a nursing home, where she died of adult respiratory distress syndrome on October 24, 1979, some time after her fifteenth birthday.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Abortion advocates: Put up or shut up
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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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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1925: Abortion by midwife proves fatal
On May 1, 1925, 26-year-old Mary Sayers died at a Chicago residence from a criminal abortion performed on her that day. Midwife Edna Marie Dietrich was arrested the following day.
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