They said it.
“We try to use the physician for his technical skill and reduce the one-to-one relationship with the patient. We usually see the patient for the first time on the operation table and then not again. More contact is just not efficient.”
Abortionist Edward Allred, quoted in The San Diego Union, October 12, 1980. Also quoted in Anthony Perry. “Doctor’s Abortion Business Is Lucrative.” ALL About Issues December 1980, pages 10, 14, and 15
Share on Facebook“Oh no, I’ve done 13 year olds before. When they’re ten, maybe I’ll notice.”
Abortionist Alen J. Kline, on whether he noticed Dawn Ravenell’s age while performing the abortion that killed her
Legal Action for Women Press Release FAX 2/1/94
Also quoted in “The Doctor of Death” Voices for the Unborn March 1994 p 5
Share on FacebookFrom Citizen Magazine article “Bringing Good Things to Life” by Karla Dial, June 2003:
Share on Facebook“I thought the one reason the government made abortion legal was so women could be in a clean environment with medical doctors,” said Oliver, a licensed practical nurse [who went to a clinic considering abortion] “But there was an inch of dust on everything. The health department would have shut down my hospital in five minutes for any one of the violations I saw in that place.”
“I had complications, just like everybody else. I have perforated uteruses. I have had all kinds of problems –bleeding, infections– Lord knows how many of those women are sterile now. I remember getting called down to my chairman’s office because a young lady that I had done an abortion on showed up…and the abortion had been incomplete. I had not done my job right, and she passed an arm or a leg and she freaked out because she didn’t realize what happened.”
Dr. Anthony Levatino, Meet the Abortion Providers Conference
Share on FacebookIn her book Achieving Peace in the Abortion Wars (2009) author Rachel M. MacNair, PhD describes how the lack of doctors willing to perform abortions forces clinics to rely on only a few, allowing doctors with poor records and malpractice suits to continue to practice. If there is only a small pool of doctors to choose from, clinics are less likely to fire doctors who injure women. They know that getting a replacement doctor would be difficult or impossible. Here, MacNair says:
Share on Facebook“The New York Times even suggested in an editorial on October 13, 1994, that as abortion providers get more scarce, they also tend to be seedier. Young doctors see that doctors who do abortions get little respect. Nor is it terribly comforting to be one of only a very few people, as the numbers dwindle. The Times dealt with the subject of dwindling abortion doctors in a lead article of 13 pages on January 18, 1998; only 12% of OB-GYN programs routinely teach abortion and all indications are it is “trending down.”
Sometimes, even pro-choice activists admit that not all abortion clinics are good. Jennifer Baumgardner, who started the “I Had An Abortion” t-shirt campaign, in which women were encouraged to wear t-shirt celebrating their abortions, said this in her book “Abortion & Life”:
“Visiting many clinics in recent years, I’ve become concerned with how stark and unwelcoming some of them are….Certainly the cold procedure rooms, blank waiting room walls (or worse, cheesy posters), and worn furnishings probably don’t make patients feel nurtured….Further, some of the protocol at clinics has no root in medical care and undermines the comfort of patients.”
In many ways, that is an understatement.
“Abortion & Life” (New York, NY: Akashic Books, 2008) p 142-143
Share on FacebookJudith Fetrow (a former clinic worker) reported from her former work at a San Francisco Planned Parenthood clinic.
“The most horrifying complication that I witnessed was a woman who stopped breathing during the abortion. Dr. Michael Susman just walked out of the room when he was finished. Despite my telling him that the client was not breathing, he left me alone with her. When Dr. Susman was forced to return, we didn’t even follow emergency protocol for that situation. It was a miracle that this woman didn’t die.”
“Meet the Abortion Providers III: The Promoters,” Audiotape. Conference held by the Pro-life Action League, April 3, 1993.
Share on FacebookThis quote is from Achieving Peace in the Abortion War” by Rachel M MacNair, Ph.D., published by the Feminism & Nonviolence Studies Association January 2009. (http://www.fnsa.org/apaw/)
60 Minutes did a piece called “Suzanne Logan’s Story,” about health hazards at a Maryland clinic. Ms. Logan was brain-damaged and would spend the rest of her short life in a nursing home due to anesthesia complications. She died there on December 1, 1992, after the story ran. The report showed her attorney, Patrick Malone, saying:
Share on Facebook“The anesthesia was given without any monitoring whatsoever, without an anesthesiologist present, without a nurse anesthetist present, without the normal safeguards that are part of standard modern American medical care. I’ve seen a lot of cases, and met a lot of doctors, and reviewed a lot of records, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
To [abortionist Robert] Crist, the quality of abortion doctors is one of the most troubling aspects of what abortion has become….the few doctors willing to replace [those who are retiring] Crist says, are “mostly physicians who have had difficulty establishing regular ob-gyn practices.” As an example, he mentions a clinic in Nebraska where a young doctor was brought in to replace an older one.
“Out of his first six months of work, there are nine malpractice suits…After it was apparent the guy was a klutz, they kept using him, and trying to cover for him, because they couldn’t find another abortion provider. It’s a bad picture.”
St. Petersburg Times, June 3, 1990 (Quoted in Access: Key to Pro-Life Victory by Mark Crutcher Life Dynamics Inc.)
Share on FacebookDr. Bernard Nathanson described the clinic he ran the following way:
“The counselors were largely young radicalized college-educated women who were unapologetically feminist and regarded the largely male physician staff as the enemy. This attitude did not make for harmonious relations and the clinic, especially as the quality of the physician staff was – in a word – deplorable, consisting of an extra ordinary variety of drunks, druggies, sadists, sexual molesters, just plain incompetents, and medical losers. At least one was a fugitive from justice, with the FBI close on his tail.”
Nathanson, Bernard N, M.D The Hand of God: a Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind (Washington DC: Regnery Publishing Inc, 1996) 104
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