Lime 5: Speak No Evil, the Dark Legacy

Crutcher points out what I've been pointing out in my blog and on my channel: For the abortion lobby, legal is non-negotiable but safe is optional. Lime 5 starts with the story of what I've since dubbed "The Compton-Carr Effect." 

In 1989, an investigation by the Miami Herald revealed that Dadeland Family Planning was reusing disposable instruments, that the doctors were leaving the facility while patients were still in recovery, that there were no nurses on staff, and that "Patient recovery was monitored by employees with no formal health-care training." The stirrups on the procedure tables were covered with blood. The oxygen mask had lipstick on it from the previous patient. Abortions were being sold to women who weren't actually pregnant.

But that wasn't the worst. A dying woman was given little more than tea and sympathy. They scraped her out, handed her some oral antibiotics, and sent her home to die of raging peritonitis.

Janis Compton-Carr, head of the Florida Abortion Council, led the fight to halt any state oversight of abortion facilities in the wake of the Dadeland scandal. She summed it all up to the Miami Herald:

"In my gut, I am completely aghast at what goes on at that place. But I staunchly oppose anything that would correct this situation in law."

Instillation Abortions

The next topic is instillation abortions, especially those using hypertonic saline. 

In 1939, a Rumanian abortionist named Eugen Abruel first got the idea of taking out amniotic fluid and replacing it with something to kill the fetus and/or induce premature labor. Although different substances were tried, with varying success and varying complications, hypertonic saline (a strong salt solution) became the most popular.

Instillation abortions spread into nations where abortion was legal, and saline quickly became the favored abortifacient, although other substances, including glucose, were tried. Glucose was quickly abandoned because it fed infection rather than killing the fetus.

Saline abortions became very popular in Japan following WWII. Within the Japanese medical community, however, word quickly spread: this method was unsatisfactory. Too many women were being injured and killed. Over 70 papers were published in the Japanese medical community reporting hazards of saline abortions, including at least 60 maternal deaths. The Japanese Obstetrical and Gynecological Society condemned the technique, and it was quickly abandoned. But the Japanese abortionists kept news of the trouble among themselves -- until Western nations discovered instillation abortions and embraced them with great enthusiasm (Manabe, "Artificial Abortion at Midpregnancy by Mechanical Stimulation of the Uterus," Am. Journ. Ob Gyn 9/1/68)

Two Japanese doctors, Takashi Wagatsuma and Yukio Manabe, broke the silence. Wagatsuma wrote, "It is, I think, worthwhile to report its rather disastrous consequences which we experienced in Japan." Manabe wrote, "It is now known that any solution placed within the uterus can be absorbed rather rapidly into the general circulation through the vascular system of the uterus and placenta. Thus any solution used in the uterus for abortion must be absolutely safe even if given by direct intravenous injection. ... A solution deadly to the fetus may be equally toxic and dangerous to the mother. ... In spite of the accumulating undesirable reports, the use of hypertonic saline for abortion is still advocated and used ... in the United States and Great Britain. I would like to call attention to the danger of the method and would predict the further occurrence of deaths until this method is entirely forgotten in these countries." (Wagatsuma, "Intraamniotic Injection of Saline for Therapeutic Abortion," Am. Journ. Ob Gyn 11/1/65; Manabe, "Danger of Hypertonic Saline Induced Abortion," JAMA 12/15/69)

As western abortionists gained experience with saline abortions, other grim reports arose. A British study published in 1966 found that the saline would enter the mother's bloodstream and cause brain damage. Swedish researchers noticed an unacceptably high rate of complications and deaths. Sweden and the Soviet Union abandoned saline abortion as too dangerous for women in the late 1960s. (Cameron, "Association of Brain Damage with Therapeutic Abortion Induced by Amniotic Fluid Replacement: Report of Two Cases," British Medical Journal, 4/23/66 )

Crutcher then notes what we believed to be the first saline abortion death in the United States, a 27-year-old California woman who suffered the very predictable cerebral edema and electrolyte imbalances Manabe and Wagatsuma had warned about, dying an agonizing death in a Sacramento hospital in 1965. (California death certificate No. 65-077063)

Crutcher goes on to note the continued saline deaths in spite of  a few American doctors starting to catch on that indeed the Japanese -- and the Soviets and the Swedes -- were right to abandon the technique. One warned in the July 3, 1972 Journal of the American Medical Association, "Saline amniocentesis abortion has the highest fatality rate of any elective surgical procedure, second only to cardiac transplantation. The ethical, sensible answer to this problem would be to place a moratorium on saline abortions...." 

Saline abortions were highly dangerous even when performed in a hospital, leading to the deaths of Carmen Rodriguez, "Barbara," Twila Coulter, "Nancy," Natalie Meyers, Gwendolyn Drummer, "Wendy,"  Katherine Morse, and "Roseann."

New York doctors also performed these abortions on an outpatient basis, merely injecting the saline then sending the women home with no medical supervision whatsoever. That these abortions often turned deadly should come as no surprise. "Anita," "Vicki," Kimberly," April," and "Beth."

In 1973, the same year the Supreme Court handed down Roe vs. Wade, pretty much granting cart blanche to a cadre of doctors who had already shown themselves to be untrustworthy, an article in the February 1, 1973 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology noting a 50% complication rate with saline abortions.

Women continued to die, including Beverly Agnes and "Eleanor" in 1973, Cheryl Tubbs and "Sherri" in 1975,  Jacqueline Bailey in 1977, Elizabeth Tsuji in 1978, Lynn McNair in 1979, Angel Dardie in 1982, Christella Forte in 1986, "Melissa" in 1992, and Linda Boom in 1995. Then there was the unfortunate Shelby Moran, who was left incapacitated in 1978 and lingered in a nursing home until her death in 1999.

Crutcher notes how telling it is that it's a live birth, and not deaths like these, that were dubbed "the dreaded complication." 

Saline abortions slowly faded away in favor of the D&E abortion method of dismembering the fetus with forceps and with a quick lethal injection with digoxin. However, in a 1987 issue of their Technical Bulletin, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists described how to perform these abortions with only tepid warnings of the risks. Abortion guru Warren Hern even described how to perform them in his 1991 edition of Abortion Practice, comparing the perceived benefits and drawbacks of variations on instillation abortions but never mentioning that Sweden, Japan, and the Soviet Union had all abandoned the technique. Dr. Don Sloan wrote a book for the layperson, Abortion: A Doctor's Perspective/A Woman's Dilemma in which "the blandly describes the saline technique as 'biochemically simple, sound and effective -- the fetus and placenta are destroyed and nature then takes over with an expulsion by labor.' He notes that this method carries 'a distinct advantage for the abortionist, who doesn't have to be around when the fetus, macerated and lifeless, is expelled.' He does admit that the saline experience is emotionally hard on the woman, but makes no mention whatsoever of the terrible risks to her life, health, and bodily integrity."

"The point is, to this day -- 42 years after saline abortions were abandoned in Japan, 30 years after Wagatsuma and Manabe warned us of their terrible dangers, 22 years after an American Medical Association article called for a moratorium on saline abortions, and 14 years after the Centers for Disease Control finally recognized that the technique was dangerous and should be abandoned -- many U. S. abortionists have yet to acknowledge the dangers of instillation abortions."

The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics published a webpage in 2006 presenting the method as safe. The 2020 CDC Abortion Surveillance Summary notes that 189 instillation abortions (not further broken down by the chemical used) were reported that year. Clearly, the technique still has not been utterly abandoned.

Watch Speak No Evil: The Dark Legacy on YouTube.