Fast-forward 51 years. Maria Lira, age 19, was a college student when she went to Riveria Hospital on October 14, 1974, to undergo an abortion. After she'd been discharged, Maria had problems and returned. Staff perfromed a D&C, then discharged her again. That night, she went to the emergency room due to excessive bleeding. She was sent to Torrance Memorial Hospital for treatment. Maria died at Torrance Memorial on October 16. The autopsy found a decomposing fetus in her uterus, which had caused infection and DIC (disseminated intravacsular coagulopahty). The DIC prevented clotting, causing the hemorrhage that killed Maria.
We need to ask: Who benefitted from the legalization of abortion? Maria Lira? Or her doctor, who didn't have to fear going to prison?
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13 comments:
Didn't we already go through this? When abortion was illegal, it was nearly impossible to catch someone doing abortions. So if there were an incompetent, dangerous person doing abortions, he would likely go undetected until he had killed or injured many women.
Today when abortion is legal, when a woman suffers complications from an abortion, we can identify the doc and investigate if an investigation is appropriate.
Just look at Stephen Brigham, who just had his licence yanked. If abortion were still illegal, we most likely would never identify him as a bad practicioner. There would be no way to stop him or get him to change his practice.
You mean the way Moshe Hachamovitch was quickly shut down before he was able to kill Tanya Williamson, Luz Rodriguez, and Christina Goesswein? The way they investigated the clinics he owned and shut them down before his quacks were able to kill Jammie Garcia, Lisa Bardsley, and Lou Anne Herron?
And I think your idea of quickly shutting an abortionist down is unique, to say the least. Brigham's been doing what he's doing for over twenty years. And we don't know that he's never killed a patient; we just know that nobody ever went screaming to the authorities about any patient he might have killed. Not every family wants the publicity of a lawsuit. And since Brigham doesn't put the clinic name or address on his paperwork, it'd be pretty tough for the family to know who to sue if he did kill a patient who was keeping her abortion a secret -- say, a teenage girl.
Sure, you can list bad examples, anecdotes of cases in which oversight failed even when abortion was legal, but the bottom line is it's still easier to catch a bad practicioner if he leaves a paper trail. When abortion was illegal, there were no paper trails, no oversight.
And what's the point of "catching" them if all you can do is tell them, "You're so naughty! You need to have adult supervision for a while!" And then they go about their business.
I think putting them in PRISON makes them a bit less able to pick up the curette and ram it through the back of somebody else's uterus.
But that's not all they do when they catch a bad practicioner. They can suspend his licence, or press criminal charges--which can result in prison time--if the death was due to criminal negligence.
Yeah, they CAN. The question is WILL THEY? Fat chance. I can't figure out why all of a sudden everybody's got their knickers in such a twist about Brigham, because he's nothing spectacular. Yeah, he's been doing dangerous and inexcusable things, but that hardly sets him apart from the crowd of his fellow abortionists. He didn't do something really beyond the pale, like when Abu Hayat (who, may I remind you, was a National Abortion Federation member) drew so much unwanted media attention in the early 1990s by ripping the arm off that baby then the mom gave birth and the baby survived. (And the only thing that made THAT little debacle noteworthy is that the baby lived and the drive-by media took hold of the story.)
You don't know what you're talking about. The large majority of abortion docs are good at their jobs, do not malpractice, and only rarely have patients die (one patient death per hundred thousand abortions). Just like the majority of doctors generally!
You need to realize that the bad practicioners your blog features are rare exceptions.
Got any stats to back your claim?
Even National Abortion Federation members -- supposedly the cream of the crop -- can be appalling quacks. Let's look at a few, shall we?
Hanan Rotem had his untrained receptionist administering general anesthesia.
Abu Hayat, "The Butcher of Avenue A", who killed Sophie McCoy, was a NAF member
Atlanta Women's Pavilion managed to fatally injure two teenage abortion patients simultaneously.
Midtown Hospital was closed down by a judge because it was so filthy and dangerous.
And these are the best. What are the worst like?
Those are anecdotes. You need numbers, dear, numbers. I have a number: abortions in USA cause only one patient death per hundred thousand procedures. That is all ye know, and all ye need to know, as the poet said.
You keep repeating the same horror stories about the same small handful of bad practicioners. You could do that with any speciality--you could list bad orthopedic surgeons and the patients they have harmed or killed, and call the site "realorthopedics.com". The fact would still remain: the very large majority of orthopedic surgeons are good at their jobs and do not malpractice. Those who do malpractice are subject to oversight, because they leave paper trails, because their work is legal. If it were illegal, there would be no paper trails and virtually no oversight.
New York City health officials noted 30 abortion deaths in New York City alone from 1981-1984, while the CDC noted only 42 abortion deaths during that period for the entire United States.
In the CDC's 1981 Abortion Surveillance Summary, they note that 101,880 of the nation's 1,300,760 reported abortions were performed in New York City. That means that if the CDC really was counting all abortion deaths, 71% of the entire nation's abortion deaths happened in New York City, where only 7.8% of abortions took place. Are we to believe that abortion is 10 times more likely to be fatal in New York City than elsewhere in the country?
A memo from the New York Commissioner of Health identified another 146 abortion-related deaths for that same time period outside of New York. Combined with the 30 deaths in New York City, that is 176 abortion-related deaths in all--419 percent higher than was reported in the official CDC numbers.
If we trust New York City data -- that there really were 30 abortion deaths during 1981 - 1984 -- and the New York City abortion mortality rate was the same as the mortality rate in the rest of the country, that would mean that there were 385 abortion deaths in the US during 1981 - 1984, rather than the 42 the CDC counted. That would mean the CDC is counting only about 11% of abortion deaths -- roughly the number we'd expect them to find if Clarisse Green and the state vital records offices are to be believed, and the CDC is getting abortion mortality data from a sampling of 10% of the nation's death certificates, then assuming that this sample represents all abortion deaths and that all abortion deaths are coded on death certificates in such a way that the NCHS computers notice them and forward them to the CDC.
If we look at the total deaths noted by New York city and state health officials -- 176 deaths out of the 12% of US abortions that take place in New York -- New York deaths ought to be about 12% of US abortion deaths. In that case, there would have been 1,467 abortion deaths in the US during 1981 - 1984, in which case the CDC would be counting only 3% of abortion deaths. This would be the accuracy we'd expect if Clarisse Green and the state vital records offices are to be believed, and also only about 30% of abortion deaths are coded on death certificates in such a way that the NCHS computers notice them.
In short we don't know the real mortality rate because the foxes are in charge of the hen house.
We ought not to base either public policy or life and death personal decisions on something as bogus as CDC abortion mortality data. You might just as well use a Magic 8-Ball.
You made your NYC numbers up. There's no way it could be that high. Source your numbers please, with a reliable link.
If NYC had that many abortion deaths, it would be a national scandal, in the headlines everywhere.
New York City, June 5, 1987 letter by Stephen C. Joseph, New York City's Commissioner of Health. Will look for a copy. It was entitled "Anesthesia Alert" and addressed to
"Gynecologists, Anesthesiologists,
Administrators, and Others Concerned With the Provision of Abortion Services."
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