Business Insider's Priorities: Women's Lives Aren't Even on the Radar

When I asked Grok for more information on the death of Tanya Williamson, or the involved parties, I was given a link to a typical hagiographic piece the mainstream news loves to do about abortionists, regardless of what sort of actual care they provide to their patients. To abortion supporters, Dr. Moshe Hachamovitch wasn't a dangerous quack. He was a crucial lifeline.

"A crucial abortion access lifeline is hanging by a thread," by Trisha Mukherjee, Business Insider, March 3, 2024 describes the prolifers offering options other than an abortion at the hands of a man with Hachamovitch's record are painted as disruptive, in contrast to the selfless and dedicated escorts who brave the weather to make sure the facility doesn't lose a sale.

The author had a serious passion for the abortion clinic where three women were fatally injured and inspectors found appalling conditions. The facility was run by a doctor who lost his license in two states because of the shoddy conditions of the clinics he owned there. But these realities did nothing to dampen Mukherjee's enthusiasm for Moshe Hachamovitch and his supporters.

Lest you think I'm exaggerating the praises lavished on Hachamovitch's minions, read this: 

Bronx Abortion was established in 1969, around the time New York State legalized the procedure. The red stucco corner building on Eastchester Road became a place people could go for safe abortions even before the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

Managed by a small staff, the independent clinic provided between one and two thousand abortions per year to mostly Black and Latinx patients. Clinic escorts said it was deeply loved by those who saw it as a pillar of reproductive justice.

Oh, those stalwart providers of vital reproductive healthcare services!

But then trouble arose: "Over the decades, employees came and went. Laws changed. But the clinic never stopped providing abortions to the patients who arrived at its doors — until last year, when one woman's sudden death brought Bronx Abortion to its knees."

The piece skips directly from this ominous note to tell us what a stand-up guy Hachamovitch is: 

The clinic's owner, Moshe Hachamovitch, founded Bronx Abortion while he was a trainee at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "Whenever I went to the emergency room," he recalled, "it was cluttered with patients who had illegal abortions and were actually dying."

In its first few years, the clinic saw hundreds of patients. Eventually it grew, and Hachamovitch expanded and established abortion clinics across the country, from Long Island to Arizona to Texas.

Mukherjee then jumps into praise of the facility's director, Irene Sylvor. She's just a magnificent human being in every way, judging from how Mukherjee paints her. She's "sharp, funny, and generous." 

The piece goes on:

When Sylvor saw a job opening at Bronx Abortion, she applied without hesitation. A firm believer in a woman's right to choose, she had her work cut out for her. When Sylvor began working at the clinic about four decades ago, she became the "organizer, the leader, the mother of the clinic," said Destiney Kirby, a clinic escort. Hachamovitch described her as a "force." According to Sarah McNeilly, another clinic escort, Sylvor took on a workload proportional to multiple employees "to keep the lights on."

Four decades ago. Since roughly 1984. Sylvor was there for all those dead patients. In spite of how Hachamovitch treated his patients, Irene Sylvor remained dedicated to keeping him in business. No broken bag-valve mask, no lack of properly trained staff in the recovery room, could dampen her enthusiasm. She remained dedicated to, as Mukherjee puts it, keeping abortion "easy, fast, and affordable." Sometimes even free -- though Mukherjee didn't explore how the facility achieved this. Were these patients charitable cases, tax write-offs, or were Hachamovitch and the indomitable Ms. Sylvor tapping into abortion funds? The article laments that the Hyde Amendment forbade Hachamovitch forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for abortions in his substandard clinic.

Mukherjee notes that patients could call Sylvor any time day or night. Sylvor's daughter said that her mother kept a note pad by her bed to scribble notes. 

Now we get to the woman whose death was so devastating to the facility: It wasn't Luz Rodriguez, who died in January of 1986 after an incomplete abortion perpetrated at the clinic. It wasn't Christina Goesswein, who died in October of 1990 while Hachamovitch was doing emergency post-abortion surgery in his office rather than in a hospital. It wasn't Tanya Williamson, who died at the clinic from an anesthesia screw-up. 

It was Irene Sylvor, the woman who had kept the mill grinding through all the malpractice.

Hachamovitch, in his early 80s, preferred retirement to finding somebody else who could keep the doors open the way Irene could. He sold the property to commercial developers. 

Mukherjee laments the way the building, once bustling with business, now sits empty. The entire article makes no mention of the dead women at this Bronx location, or the others at other Hachamovitch-run clinics. No mention of Jammie Garcia, who died of sepsis in March of 1994 after an abortion performed at a Hachamovitch clinic in Texas. No mention of  Lisa Bardsley, who was sent home to bleed to death in February of 1995 after an abortion at a Hachamovitch clinic in Arizona. No mention of  Lou Ann Herron, who bled to death in a that same clinic under circumstances so appalling that both the abortionist and the nurse are convicted of manslaughter.

Those women's deaths are invisible and insignificant as far as  Mukherjee and Business Insider are concerned. The only woman whose death matters to them is the woman who kept Hachamovitch's doors open when women weren't safe. 

In closing, Mukherjee quotes Chelsea, one of the escorts: "Even in places that we think are safe havens for abortion, we can't take for granted that providers are secure."

Safe havens for abortion. Not for women. Because that's what Hachamovitch's clinic was. A haven where abortion practice was safe, even when the women weren't.

Watch Holy Hachamovitch -- or -- Access Trumps Women's Lives on YouTube.