Month: September 2012

Abortionist Describes the Difficulty of a D & C

An abortionist describes a D&C, an abortion procedure in which the  lining of the uterus is scraped to remove the baby and placenta. Now most early abortions are done by the suction curettage method, but in most cases the uterus is still scraped to remove remaining tissue that the  machine doesn’t suction out. So this quote is still relevant to the way abortions are performed today.

“I always used to tell medical students it was like being blindfolded and trying to scrape wet cotton balls out of a wet paper bag and getting all the balls without tearing the bag… The uterus was so soft, it was very easy to poke something through the uterus.”

Carole Joffe. Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995) page 58

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Dr. Brian Finkel Mocks Pro-Life Protester And Insults His Wife

Dr. Brian Finkel was convicted of molesting dozens of women in his abortion clinic, and was accused of molesting over 100. Several years before his arrest, he said the following to a pro-life protester he dubbed “Beer Belly”:

‘Hey, Beer Belly, I want you to know that if your wife ever needs an abortion, I’ll do one for free.  Not because I’m a nice guy, but just because I want to get between her l-e-e-e-e-gs.’”

June 17, 1999 Phoenix New Times article, Trash-talking abortionist Dr. Brian Finkel has a message for pro-life zealots: “Kiss My Ass.”

Quoted by Life Dynamics

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Stigma of Abortion Persisted after Roe Versus Wade

On how the medical community did not support those who performed legal abortions after Roe:

“Academic departments of obstetrics and gynecology [did not] welcome skilled abortionists to their ranks. Even though abortion now was legal, a stigma remained on those who had earlier performed illegal abortions.”

Philip Darney, “Training Physicians In Elective Abortion Technique in the United States” in U. Landy and S. Ratnam, editors, Prevention and Treatment of Contraceptive Failure (New York: Plenum, 1986) P133 – 140

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Doctor: Abortionist Is a “No More Than a Technician”

From pro-choice author Carole Joffe in Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995)

 “[influential physician Robert Hall said that women should have counseling before an abortion] Then if she still wants the abortion she should have it. When it comes to the doctor, I think he’s eventually going to be no more than a technician. This may be humiliating to him. But it is his unavoidable plight if we are to grant women their inherent right to an abortion.”

This may be part of the reason why abortionists are so hard to come by in United States. They often turn out abortions on an assembly line, seeing the woman only long enough to perform the operation and developing no rapport with her as a patient.

Often abortion clinics have very substandard counseling. Read about abortion counseling here.

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A Shortage of Abortionists in Duluth

Tina Welsh of the Duluth Women’s Health Center abortion clinic told 20/20 in a May 24, 1991 interview,

“In 10 years we have never had a physician from Duluth that has been willing to work here.  And I went right down the list, about 27 physicians, in the immediate area of northern Minnesota and Michigan and Wisconsin.”

Abortionists are hard to come by these days in the United States. Pro-choicers often blame pro-life activities and violence, but the more honest among them point to the stigma of providing abortions and the unpleasantness of the work. Read more about the stigma in this section.

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Early Abortion Clinic Is Not Safe for Women

Abortionist who set up a clinic shortly before Roe versus Wade, when abortion was only legal in a few states:

“We did about 60 abortions a day. It was a wonderful service, and women were coming from all over the United States where it was illegal. They traveled long distances… And then the problem of getting care for them after they’d go home. They’d call up and be in trouble and we didn’t know where to send them. There were no doctors to take care of them. It was quite an experience… Back in the early days, the clinic had an ambulance that was kept on hand all the time. It was rarely, if ever, used and finally they got rid of it. It just fell apart from no use but we didn’t know if it might be necessary if a woman started bleeding in the clinic and we had to rush her to the hospital…”

Sending women home without follow-up care and operating without a means of transportation for injured women put women’s lives and health at risk in his clinic.

Carole Joffe. Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995) page 18

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The Reasons Why There is a Shortage of Abortion Providers in America

From author Carole Joffe in Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995)

She discusses the fact that there are so few abortion providers, and puts forth the theory that it is stigma within the medical community and not pro-life activities or violence, that causes the shortage.

“In seeking to explain this puzzle – a high degree of support for legal abortion by both the general public and the medical specialty most directly affected, yet so little commitment by this specialty to provide necessary services and training – it is tempting to point to the violent wing of the antiabortion movement… There is no question that the climate of violence surrounding abortion facilities, and especially the murders that occurred, have had a chilling effect on abortion provision. But it is a mistake to overemphasize the role of the terrorist wing of the antiabortion movement in the current crisis… It is the medical community itself, and not Operation Rescue, that bears chief responsibility for the present marginalization of abortion provision.”

 

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In the Past Few Decades, Abortion Providers Have Been Hard to Come by

“… The struggle facing this branch of medicine [providing abortions] is most evident in the enormous difficulty many facilities have in finding an adequate supply of abortion providers. At the NAF [National Abortion Federation] meeting, some clinic administrators told of being able to offer abortion services only every other week. Other administrators recounted how they are forced to fly in physicians from halfway across the country in order to hold regular clinics. The director of one clinic related to colleagues that she recently sent out letters of inquiry to every single graduating resident of obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) programs across the country and received no replies.”

Carole Joffe. Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995) page 3

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Planned Parenthood Statistics

The most recent statistics from Planned Parenthood come from 2009. In 2009 Planned Parenthood performed more abortions than ever before: 332,278, 2.5% more than in the previous year. Abortion rates at Planned Parenthood have risen for the 15th straight year.

During that time, it has gone from committing 9.3 percent of all abortions in the United States to committing 27.5 percent.

Income from abortion accounts for 40 percent of Planned Parenthood’s annual clinic income.

97.6 percent of pregnant women going to Planned Parenthood are sold abortions while less than 2.4 percent of pregnant women received non-abortion services including adoption and prenatal care

There are 340 abortions for every one adoption referral

Read some women’s testimonies of Planned Parenthood’s biased and coercive abortion counseling:

Jennifer Clifford’s Story

Alicia’s story

Kathy Walker’s Story

Anonymous Story

Source for these statistics: Planned Parenthood Report here.

Cited in LifeNews “New Planned Parenthood Report: Record Abortions Done in 2009” Steve Ertelt Feb 23, 2011

 

 

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Genetic Testing and the Coercion to Use It

“The mere existence of a [genetic] technology contains an implicit coercion to use it… Sometimes the coercion is more than implicit.”

Lori Andrews, Future Perfect: Confronting Decisions about Genetics (New York: Columbia University press, 2001), 63

Paige Comstock Cunningham, Esq. “The Supreme Court and the creation of the two-dimensional woman” Erika Bachiochi. The Cost of “Choice”: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion” (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2004)

Read an example of such coercion here.

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