I'm not speaking to the 16% who are "consistently pro-choice." They're pretty much settled in their opinions and not likely to change unless something jolts them so much that it makes them totally re-examine everything they've taken to be true. I don't think that there's anything here new enough to do that.
The "personally-opposed pro-choice" is another group I'm not likely to reach. My personal experience with them is that they're as firmly set as the consistently pro-choice, but for different reasons. They're not enamored of abortion per se; they're devoted to what they perceive as The Sisterhood, and they'll stand by it through thick and thin. And to them, The Sisterhood is the consistently pro-choice. Now, if their idea of The Sisterhood changes to women in general, then they might be motivated to address abortion industry abuses, or to at least check out the safety record of a particular facility before they take a friend there. So while I can hope that they'll at least become uneasy about, say, just trusting a NAF clinic without further investigation, I doubt that they'll find anything of interest here.
The "reticent prochoice" are my main target audience. These are people who are uneasy with the idea of abortion. They see it as the lesser of two evils, but not as anything that really can be held up as a positive good. These are the ones most likely to come away uneasy about trusting abortion facilities and prochoice groups to really be looking after women's well-being. My goal is to make skeptics out of them, and, if possible, give them the wherewithal to start holding prochoice organizations and abortion facilities accountable. I see them as the potential backbone for a third movement -- a truly prochoice movement, that doesn't want any woman to get on the abortion table unless she's 100% sure that this is what is best for her. A truly pro woman movement that does not tolerate seedy Main Street Maimers or consumer fraud. They're only seven percent of the general population, but they're fully a quarter of the prochoice movement and I think that if they stood their ground they'd drive out those for whom abortion has become an end in itself.
It's recently been revealed that it was an abortion clinic in Maryland that referred Karnamaya Mongar to Kermit Gosnell's filthy Philadelphia abortion mill.
As cynical as I am about abortionists, I know that they're not all quacks. Curtis Boyd and Warren Hern, for example, seem to really care about their patients and to want to see them safely through their abortions. Surely there are more than just two abortionists in the United States who keep their facilities clean and sanitary, and staff them with adequately trained staff, and have all the medications and equipment they need. Could this Maryland clinic not find one within driving distance for Karnamaya?
It really doesn't seem like I'm asking something out of step with prochoice values to ask them to do a docket search, check the medical board for disciplinary actions, and check with the health department before referring women to an abortion practitioner. If the main priority really is women's safety and well-being, the people at that clinic shouldn't need prolifers smacking them upside the head to motivate them to do this.
13 comments:
Sure, there are different degrees of opinions, but.....most people aren't activists. Most people, even those with strong opinions, only have two circumstances in which they can have any direct influence: 1) when they actually face a situation in which they or someone they know is in the position to have an abortion, or 2) when they vote.
I think there are plenty of die-hard "keep-abortion-legal" pro-aborts who are disgusted by medical malpractice and incomptency in general, whether it's in the practice of medicine or in something stupid and frivolous like....vajazzling.
How are Curtis Boyd and Warren Hern not quacks, and how can you say they seem to really care about their patients? They MURDER one of their patients (unborn child) and scars the other one (mother) for life.
Brendan, what they do is horrific, but they do try to provide the best care possible for the woman.
That's more than the other abortionists can say. The differences between Carhart and Hern are remarkable. They both kill babies, but at least Hern takes great care not to kill the mother too.
L., I wouldn't fault a well-meaning friend or relative who believed a woman would truly benefit from an abortion, and in helping her to arrange one inadvertently brought her to a quack. My beef is with two levels of abortion supporters -- rank and file activists (people who attend rallies, belong to their local chapter of a prochoice organization, etc.), and professional activists/abortion workers. They have a bit more of a responsibility to be knowledgeable. Especially the professionals -- clinic workers and paid activists.
Even somebody calling a hotline can get reassured that a quack is "a very good doctor". And it's the responsibility of the people who make it their business to provide referrals to vet the facilities they refer to.
Clearly, the people who referred that woman to Gosnell either didn't vet him at all, or didn't care. Either way they were in the wrong, as far as I'm concerned.
If you're making a referral, you have some responsibility to send the person to somebody you know something about, or to at least tell them out don't know and they should investigate.
In fact the large majority of abortion docs, just like the large majority of docs generally, are good, competent doctors.
Your blog just focuses on the bad apples. You could do that with any speciality! You could post "Realophthalmology.com" about the ophthalmologists who get caught doing bad stuff, and get disciplined or shut down.
Brendan, Hern and Boyd don't see the babies as patients. They see them as a disease. Almost like cancer. Given that mindset -- that an unborn baby is a disease -- they really are doing what they think is best for their patients. It makes no sense to somebody who recognizes the humanity of the unborn baby, but that's just how it is.
OC, if the vast majority of abortionists are paragons of medicine, then vetting them should be no problem. Docket searches, checking with the medical board, and checking with the health department should reveal nothing untoward except for the ever so rare cases. But given the cost of referring somebody to a quack -- the injury, trauma, possible loss of future fertility, risk of death -- it seems pretty reasonable to do a check, doesn't it?
Then go ahead and do it, GG! I'm too busy.
Not necessarily "paragons" of medicine, just decent, competent docs.
Yeah, OC, you're far too busy haunting prolife blogs to do anything as trivial as alert unsuspecting women to dangerous abortion mills. It's caveat emptor and a pat on the head, from you as well as from the abortion lobby.
Here's some food for thought:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/02/15/its-illegal-37-states-for-a-pregnant-woman-fall-down-stairs
I think both pro-life and pro-abortion folks alike can agree that what this woman needed was not being turned over to the police, but direction to pregnancy help/resources.
I'm gonna turn that into a link, L, look at it, and be right back.
Yeah, L, I gotta agree with you, that the nurse ought to have referred that woman to help. She ought to be disciplined for breaching confidentiality, since she had no reason to believe that the woman was going to commit an act of violence.
That said, the RH "Reality Check" analysis is mind-numbingly off base. But I'm hardly surprised by that.
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