Who Benefits from Abortion-Rights Efforts?

Abortion rights activists are fighting tooth and nail against laws and regulations that hold abortion clinics to the same standards as other outpatient surgical facilities. They assert that it is for women's benefit that they fight to keep the state from tightening standards for abortion clinics. But who is it that really benefits?

Let's look at some of the clinics that closed down in the wake of the Texas law that Wendy "Abortion Barbie" Davis fought so hard against and ask, "Cui bono?"

Let's look at some of the facilities Davis and her friends were fighting so hard to keep open.

Abortion Advantage (operating under several different names) was fined for repeated health violations: in March 2003 for $11,400 and in September 2007 for $1,950. Violations included:

• failure to maintain a safe and sanitary environment
• failure to maintain appropriate infection control
• failure to maintain complete and accurate medical records including documentation of medications administered
• failure to ensure that staff who provided patient care were certified in basic life support
• failure to meet minimum standards for administering sedation

A doctor at this clinic, Dr. Robert Prince, was no prince. He was sued by the family of Dorothy Brant for failing to perform a proper pre-operative evaluation before performing an abortion on 22-year-old Dorothy at Dallas Medical Ladies Clinic on May 27, 1986. Dorothy hemorrhaged during the procedure. Prince, they added was negligent in his administration of drugs, anesthesia, and a blood transfusion. Dorothy was transferred to a hospital, where she died four days later.
One of Routh Street Clinic's doctors, Jasbir Ahluwalia had lost hospital privileges in 1996 due to improper handling of high-risk pregnancies. He had already been sued in 1991 and 1995 by three women whose abortions he botched, one of whom wound up needing a hysterectomy, and sued in 1995 by a woman who ended up losing a kidney because he stitched one of her ureters shut during a hysterectomy. In 2002, the Dallas Morning News noted that Ahluwalia had been sued after causing severe brain damage to their child during delivery.

Hilltop Women's Reproductive Health Services threw fetal remains in the trash, where a neighborhood dog found them. The dog's whose owners gave the remains to prolifers who then notified the authorities -- who chose to do nothing. If the state is turning a blind eye to a clinic dumping fetal remains outside the clinic, what are they turning a blind eye to behind the clinic's doors?

Women's Center of Houston's doctor Richard Cunningham was sued for his involvement in an ordeal suffered by a teenage abortion patient and her baby. After the insertion of laminaria (sterile seaweed sticks) to dilate her cervix for a late abortion, the teen changed her mind. Another doctor working with Cunningham lied to the girl, telling her that it would very much endanger her to remove the laminaria and stop the procedure, and put in more laminaria to further dilate her cervix. After leaving the clinic, the teen, increasingly upset, returned and spoke first to the other doctor then to Cunningham, who again lied, telling her that she could bleed to death if they removed the laminaria. After half an hour of badgering the girl to continue the abortion, Cunningham told her to look in the yellow pages for an anti-abortion group and dismissed her from the clinic. The girl and her mother immediately went to a hospital, but by then the teen's cervix had been too far dilated to keep her from going into labor. She gave birth to a 1 lb. 13 oz. baby girl who struggled for life in the NICU for six months before dying in February of 1992. Cunningham had also performed a fatal abortion on Sheila Watley in 1987.

In 2010 their other doctor, Shah Siddiqi, was disciplined for malpractice involving two non-abortion patients. One suffered permanent damage after he botched back surgery and failed to diagnose what he'd done wrong. Another patient lost function in her left hand due to an infection caused by a spinal procedure and Siddiqi failed to quickly diagnose and treat the infection.

Whole Women's Health of McAllen: disposed of fetal remains and other biohazardous waste in a dumpster.

Douglas Karpen closed his clinic soon after the law was passed, without waiting for the injunction to be sorted out.

He was the  main doctor involved in the refusal to stop an abortion after the teenage patient changed her mind. (See Richard Cunningham, above.)

He let a teenage abortion patient bleed to death, after having lied to her parents about the risks to their daughter.

Glenda Davis bled to death after an abortion at Karpen's Aaron Family Planning. Rather than call an ambulance when Glenda started to hemorrhage, employees just pushed her out in a wheelchair and loaded her into an employee's car.

Three former employees provided photographic evidence that Karpen was killing live-born infants.

On two occasions, the owner of a car dealership next door to Karpen's clinic had to call authorities to report that the clinic sewer had backed up, spilling recognizable fetal parts onto his lot.

The mainstream media, who evidently consider "journalism" to consist of getting a talking points sheet from abortion-rights groups, have failed to report on the conditions at any of the closed clinics, but have instead just uncritically and unquestioningly parroting the words of those organizations.

Who would benefit if abortion-rights advocates successfully block state crackdowns on abortion clinics? Who would benefit if abortion clinics aren't held to the same standards as other outpatient surgical facilities? Who would benefit if Wendy Davis had her way?

It wouldn't be the women walking into those abortion clinics.

Gosnell: The One that Got Away & Hope for Others

Ann McElhinney, one of the team currently crowdfunding a movie about serial killer Kermit Gosnell, lost her composure while reading part of the Grand Jury Report on his crimes.

But it wasn't the horror or the tragedy that left Ann so moved. It was the child that escaped, who didn't end up just another tiny body frozen in an empty orange juice carton.

From the Grand Jury Report:

We learned of another illegal, third-trimester abortion only because the mother changed her mind. In 2004, a 27-year-old woman went to Gosnell, pregnant with her first child. She testified that she was surprised when Gosnell told her she was 21 weeks pregnant. On the first day of what was to be a two-day procedure, Gosnell inserted dilators in the woman’s cervix. After Gosnell had finished inserting the laminaria, the woman asked him what happened to the babies after they were aborted. She testified that Gosnell told her they were burned.

At home, thinking over how Gosnell disposed of the fetuses, the woman had a change of heart. She called her cousin and the cousin called Gosnell to tell him that they wanted him to take the laminaria out. Gosnell said that he could not do that once the procedure was started. And he did not want to return the $1,300 that the patient had already paid. The pregnant woman ended up going to the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania to have the laminaria removed. It was determined at the hospital that she was 29 weeks pregnant. A few days later, the 27-year-old delivered a premature baby girl. She was treated at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is today a healthy kindergartener.

It's not at all unusual for an abortionist to lie to a woman who changes her mind and wants the laminaria removed.

Lied to: Tamiia Russell

Staff at Alberto "Licensed to Lie" Hodari's abortion clinic near Detroit told the family of 15-year-old statutory rape victim Tamiia Russell that she could not have the laminaria removed and the abortion halted. Hodari subsequently botched the abortion, and Tamiia bled to death.

Nicolette C changed her mind about a late abortion at Douglas Karpen's Houston abortion facility. Karpen not only refused to remove them, but lied to Nicolette and told her that it was impossible to remove them without endangering her life. After repeated scare tactics, Karpen finally sent Nicolette on her way with instructions to find an anti-abortion group in the Yellow Pages. Nicolette sought emergency care at a hospital, where she delivered a 1 lb. 13 oz. infant girl, who she named Ashley. Despite efforts by hospital staff, Ashley died six months later.

Gosnell worked
at a NAF clinic.

I listened to a tape of Karpen complaining at a National Abortion Federation meeting about how the prolifers were annoying him by offering to take his patients to a doctor who would remove the laminaria and allow them to continue their pregnancies. He complained about the patients he was losing that way. He asked for suggestions -- all of which centered around making the patient sign a paper promising that she would follow through with the abortion no matter what. Nobody ever addressed the obvious: If patients are changing their minds even after the abortion is started, maybe the clinic should stop initiating abortions on women who are so uncertain. 

One possible benefit of the Gosnell movie could be raising awareness that as long as the baby is still alive, it's not too late to at least try to halt the abortion. The laminaria can be removed. I don't know if there have been any studies to date that provide data on outcomes. The alternative to laminaria removal, however, is the certain death of the baby via abortion.

Supporting the Gosnell movie just might save a child's life, and spare a mother a lifetime of regret. A contribution to GosnellMovie.com need not set you back any more than $1 -- less than the cost of a cup of coffee or a bottle of water. If you can't contribute, or have already contributed funding, keep in mind that both prayer and spreading the word about the project are also vital contributions to the efforts. Together we spread a message of hope to women who think that it's too late.

For more about why it's vital that this movie be made, read:

• Verified: Gosnell Got Snipping Idea at NAF Seminar
• Gosnell Clinic Even Nastier than Grand Jury Reported
• The Gosnell Patient Who Barely Escaped With Her Life 
• Kermit Gosnell and the Milgram Experiment
• Gosnell and Viability: Where's the Line?  
• Why "Gosnell" Must be Told: The Compton-Carr Effect
• Gosnell and Post-Viability Abortions 
• Gosnell: Location Can Mean Misdemeanor vs. Murder 
• Gosnell: The Grand Jury Convened 
• Why the Left must Censor us on Gosnell: The "Outlier" Lie
• "Snipping" and why the Left Must Silence Us on Gosnell
• Semika Shaw and Why the Gosnell Story Must be Told

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Remembering Douglas "Texas Gosnell" Karpen's Teenage Victim

Abortionists Douglas Karpen is currently under investigation after three of his empolyees came forward to assert that they'd seen him, Gosnell-like, routinely murder viable infants born alive during abortions.

But it's not only nameless infants that have fallen victim to Douglas Karpen. Today we remember a teenage victim.

Denise Montoya was fifteen years old when her parents brought her to Women's Pavillion in Houston for an elective abortion on May 13, 1988. Karpan performed an abortion to kill Denise's viable 25.5-week unborn child.

Denise suffered severe bleeding, and was admitted to Ben Taub hospital. Her condition deteriorated, and she died on May 29, 1988.

Her parents filed suit against Karpen and the clinic, saying that they had faied to adequately explain the risks of the procedure, and had not provided consent forms, or had the parents sign any informed consent document, prior to the fatal abortion. They indicated that they never would have subjected their daughter to a highly risky third trimester abortion had they been informed of how dangerous the procedure was.

According to their 1991 Annual Report, Women's Pavillion was a National Abortion Federation member.

Operation Rescue has made the complaint by Denise's parents available here.

Karpen also owned and operated the facility where Glenda Davis suffered multiple internal lacerations before being loaded into an employee's car rather than an ambulance for transport to the hospital where she died.

Abortionist Showery

In a Post-Roe Texas, it would likely be easier to take a quack like Karpen out of circulation -- provided, of course, the authorities actually cared enough about women to want to do so. So far the authorities in Texas are moving at an utterly glacial speed regarding the allegations his former employees have brought forth -- and what they have provided already far surpassed what was sufficient to convict Raymond Showery of murdering a live-born infant in 1979. But were the law that Norma McCorvey challenged as Jane Roe once again in effect, there would be no dancing around how many ultrasounds Karpen did or didn't perform, or whether he killed the baby with digoxin before ripping its throat out, or even whether the baby was in or out of the womb when the deed was done. Such niceties of law might determine precisely which laws he could be prosecuted for breaking, but "So what? Abortions are ugly and brutal." wouldn't provide any legal coverage.

As we move closer to a Post-Roe America, prolifes in individual states need to do an in-depth legal analysis of the laws that are currently enjoined by Roe and Doe, along with laws that have been  passed since then, and immediately move to close up any loopholes the likes of Douglas Karpen will be looking to wriggle through. The laws need to be tightened up to make it clear that killing a baby is killing a baby, and where that baby was when you ripped through its fragile flesh with your Bierers' forceps should have zero effect on how accountable an abortionist is held.