Patel Shows: Abortion Practice Hasn't Changed, Abortion Journalism Has

Naresh Patel

I've blogged recently about Narash Patel, the rapey Oklahoma abortionist who got caught selling abortions to women who weren't actually pregnant. Patel is hardly a ground-breaker in that field, though.

Investigative Journalism

While I was looking for something specific about abortionist Ulrich Klopfer, who is in trouble now for failing to report the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl, I went digging through the Chicago Sun-Times series, "The Abortion Profiteers." This series ran from November 12 through November 28, 1978.

Assisted by members of the Chicago Better Government Association, Sun-Times reporters Pamela Zekman, Pamela Warrick, and Ellen Warren completed a five-month investigation into Chicago abortion businesses. Volunteers went under cover, getting jobs at the clinics and telling the journalists what they saw.

I was looking, as I said, for something specific about Klopfer. I'll blog that later when I find it. What I did find quickly was an article I'd forgotten had even been in the series: "Pregnant or not, women given abortions," published on November 22.

I'll quote just a few key passages; you can read the whole thing for yourself on PDF if you follow the link above.

[W]orking undercover at the Water Tower Reproductive Center, ... BGA investigator Minda Trossman counted 81 abortion procedures performed on women with negative pregnancy test results. That was 12 per cent of all the women who received abortions during the two months Trossman worked there.

The article then goes on to report on Biogenetics, Ltd.:
During a five-month investigation ... we witnessed some of these painfully needless abortions and saw the aftermath. Women innocently underwent abortions they didn't need and, as a result, suffered massive infections, bruises, wrenching cramps, severe bleeding.

Observing Dr. Arnold Bickham:

Trossman watched once as Bickham turned what was supposed to be a simple examination into a fast abortion on a woman with no apparent signs of pregnancy. ....

"Am I pregnant?" the patient asked.

Bickham ignored her question. Let me examine you," he said. After a brief examination, Bickham turned on the suction machine and started the abortion.

Only then did he answer. "Yes," said Bickham, "definitely pregnant. Definitely pregnant ... but not any more."

The report then goes into a then-popular procedure for doing very early abortions called "menstrual extraction." The method fell out of favor because the embryo is so small very early in the pregnancy that the abortion is often unsuccessful and the woman needs to go through a second, later procedure if she still wants to abort the pregnancy.

Most women who undergo extractions aren't pregnant in the first place. Unless patients are carefully screened, as many as 80 per cent of the women who undergo extractions do so needlessly. .... Many doctors consulted by the Sun Times said they would not even consider performing a menstrual extraction on a woman with a negative pregnancy test. Yet, at the Water Tower and Biogenetics clinics, it's the women with the negative tests who are most often sold the extractions.

Same Old Same Old

Selling abortions to women who only believe they are pregnant isn't something that vanished after "The Abortion Profiteers" and then resurfaced recently with Patel. In March of 1995, I was at Life Dynamics and we were  working on Lime 5, a book about abortion malpractice and its enablers. We got a call from one of Diane Sawyer's assistants. Ms. Sawyer, we were told, had heard rumors that some abortion facilities were selling abortions to women who were not, in fact, pregnant; they just thought they were.

We told Ms. Sawyer's assistant that this was a slow news day kind of story that local journalists would often do: send female reporters to abortion clinic with male reporter's urine specimens, and then document being told that they were pregnant and the attempts to sell them abortions.

We supplied the assistant with what he asked for -- a list of abortionists who were still practicing even after having been caught selling abortions to women who were not pregnant.

Lawson Akpulonu

Though selling abortions to women who weren't pregnant was still a thriving practice, journalism wasn't. Ms. Sawyer's assistant said that she'd reviewed the information we'd sent her (along with additional information we'd sent her about appalling quacks who were still practicing, including a scoop on a California abortionist who was raping patients) and decided the whole thing was "a non-story."

Abortion practice hasn't changed, but abortion-related journalism has. Gone are the days of reporters investigating abortion clinics and informing the public about dangerous or fraudulent practitioners in their midst.

Why Has Journalism Changed?

Why has this changed? The attitudes of the journalists toward abortion hasn't changed. When Ms. Zekman,  Ms. Warrick, and Ms. Warren wrote "The Abortion Profiteers," they weren't anti-abortion reporters seeking to besmirch abortion providers. They were staunchly pro-choice reporters seeking to protect women from unscrupulous and dangerous practitioners. But when we provided Ms. Sawyer with a rogues gallery of Gosnellesque quackery, alerting women to unscrupulous and dangerous practitioners was no longer a priority. And as we saw with the media coverage of Kermit Gosnell and other deplorable abortion practitioners since he was exposed, alerting women to unscrupulous and dangerous practitioners remains a non-priority, just as Ms. Sawyer considered those practitioners to be a non-story.

I think what has happened is that journalists have been developing a deepening sense of unease about what goes on behind the doors of America's abortion facilities. Nobody likes to get bad news about people they respect and trust. We want to continue to think the best of them. And pro-choice journalists, being human, want to be able to respect and trust the abortion-rights organizations they depend upon for nearly everything they write about abortion. Nobody wants to learn that they've been duped, lied to, and used.

The unquestioned presumption that "safe and legal" is the status-quo can not stand under the weight of too much evidence of appalling wrongdoing inside American abortion practices. That evidence must be avoided at all costs, even if it involves averting one's eyes from the Gosnells and the Patels at the cost of women's well-being and even their lives.

Diane Sawyer and the Non-Story of Lawson Akpulonu

With Diane Sawyer in the news about leaving the news, I thought it was timely to share the story I think of whenever I hear her name. It's the story what she considered worth reporting -- or rather, not worth reporting. It turned out to be the story of a serial rapist.

Tentative Curiosity

In March of 1995, I was at Life Dynamics and we were  working on Lime 5, a book about abortion malpractice and its enablers. We got a call from one of Diane Sawyer's assistants. Ms. Sawyer, we were told, had heard rumors that some abortion facilities were selling abortions to women who were not, in fact, pregnant; they just thought they were.

We told Ms. Sawyer's assistant that this was a slow news day kind of story that local news stations would often do: send female reporters to abortion clinic with male reporter's urine specimens, and then document being told that they were pregnant and the attempts to sell them abortions.

We supplied the assistant with what he asked for -- a list of abortionists who were still practicing even after having been caught selling abortions to women who were not pregnant. But we also included a list of abortionists who were a serious public health threat and were still practicing, suggesting that these fellows might make a more news worthy project than rehashing something local news organizations across the country had been doing for over twenty years.

The Big Tip

While I was compiling documentation and verifying that certain quacks were still in practice, we got a call from a nurse in California. She told us, "I'd always thought that the stories of seedy abortion mills were just a bunch of bogus stories made up by right to lifers. But I just quit a job at one of those seedy mills, and I want to report this guy before something terrible happens."

Dr. Lawson Akpulonu

This nurse told us that she had answered a help wanted ad placed by Dr. Lawson Akpulonu, and had been hired on the spot on January 14, 1995. After just four hours, she was so appalled that she quit. After wondering what to do, she saw an advertisement for Life Dynamics' abortion malpractice litigation program, and decided that we were the right people to call.

Akpulonu, she told us, had the filthiest clinic she'd ever seen. She saw life-threatening conditions including:

• rusty metal speculums and forceps
  
• instruments cleaned with dishwashing liquid
  
• lack of lifesaving equipment or  apparatus for administering anesthesia
  
• cockroaches in the operating room
  
• rancid blood smell in rooms
  
• used needles left on tables in the operating room
  
• improper handling of fetal materials

Scott helped her to prepare a complaint for the California medical board. In her complaint, she reiterated what she'd told Scott, and warned the medical board:

"When Akpulonu began the abortion procedures, he did not allow anyone else in the room with him. There was no nurse or assistant with him.... I truly believe that someone will become seriously injured if something is not done immediately."

We also asked her if she would be willing to talk to Diane Sawyer about what she'd seen. She said absolutely, that she wanted this guy exposed for what he was before something terrible happened to any of his patients. We contacted Diane Sawyer's assistant and faxed him a copy of the complaint the nurse was about to file. Diane Sawyer had, in her hot little hands, the entire story, before it had even been handed off to the medical board.

Averting Her Eyes 

The next day, Diane Sawyer's assistant called us back, told us that Miss Sawyer had reviewed all the material we'd sent her, and had decided that seedy abortion facilities in general and Lawson Akpulonu in particular were "a non-story."

A few days later all hell broke loose.

The medical board in California went public with a complaint from a patient they identified as "A. A." While under anesthesia for an abortion by Akpulonu at his Midland Medical Center on January 28, 1995:

"A.A. awoke to find respondent raping her; he had penetrated her vagina with his penis. Respondent gave patient A.A. a shot and she went back to sleep. When patient A.A. woke up a second time, she saw respondent next to her. She saw his erect penis out of his pants. She tried to push him away. ... Respondent then gave her another shot and she went back to sleep. When patient A.A. awoke for a third time, she found her sweater had been removed and her bra partially pulled down exposing her right breast. Respondent was caressing patient A.A.'s body. ...when patient A.A. tried to scream, respondent placed his hand over her mouth. Respondent told patient A.A. she had a beautiful body. He said she was a very nice girl and a very sexy girl while he continued rubbing her inside her blouse and bra. He kissed her right breast. He then placed his business card inside her bra and said she could call him anytime"

What Diane Sawyer had dismissed it as "a non-story" turned out to be quite a bombshell. More reports of similar abuse started pouring in from other patients once A.A. had the courage go come forward.

An Alarming History

If Diane Sawyer had turned over a few rocks, she would have found an even greater scandal. Just like the Gosnell case in Pennsylvania, California authorities had long known that Akpulonu was a danger to women and had failed to shut him down. Another former employee had told the Medical Board that Akpulonu did not sterilize instruments, used untrained assistants in surgery, and flushed fetal remains down the toilet. She also reported being hired with no medical training or experience, and being required to assist in surgery. She quit after three weeks.

Unlike those in Pennsylvania, California authorities actually did poke their noses inside abortion clinics. Inspections of Akpulonu's clinic dating from 1991 through 1994 had found deplorable conditions including:

• Filthy rest room with no toilet paper
• Unsterile instruments being used in operating room
• No registered nurse at the facility
• Akpulonu performing abortions alone, with no assistant
• Employees trained to clean hoses used in medical procedures in running cold water by working the hoses manually to flush out all blood and tissue
• A stench of rotting tissues
• A surgery room splattered with blood and other rooms were filled with dust
• Rat droppings were found in the surgery room and hallway
• Akpulonu had brought his entire staff into the examination room to observe a patient who had a severe case of genital warts.
• No on-site equipment for handling emergencies
• Fetal remains up to 24 weeks flushed down the garbage disposal or toilets
• Staff re-using single use equipment
• A dirty autoclave containing rusty, dirty, tissue-encrusted instruments
• No soap, antiseptic, or towels at hand-washing facilities
  

So at the time we contacted Diane Sawyer's assistant and sent her the nurse's complaint, Akpulonu already had a four-year history of dangerous behavior posing a threat to women's health and lives. Ms. Sawyer would have quickly uncovered this situation, as did we, with a single fax to the California medical board. But she and her staff either did not bother to investigate, or had investigated and reviewed this four year string of disgusting inspections and had still dismissed it as "a non-story."

 The Sawyer-Akpulonu Legacy

Kermit Gosnell

After the allegations of patient A.A. became public, a warrant was issued for Akpulonu's arrest on charges of rape. He fled. His whereabouts are still unknown. He and his facility remain "a non-story," very much like the way the "house of horrors" Kermit Gosnell was running in Pennsylvania was dismissed by Sawyer-caliber journalists as just "a local story" and not worth a second glance on their part.

Diane Sawyer, if she'd had a shred of journalistic integrity, would have skulked off in vile disgrace after the Akpulonu story broke no thanks to her. Instead, she continued to pick and choose what the public should know about for decades. Her departure from the newsroom is a long overdue good riddance to bad rubbish.