George Grant told the following story in his book, Grand Illusions.
“Martha Tollesk’s divorce had been final just 3 days when she discovered that she was pregnant. “Everybody told me that I should just go out and get an abortion,” she said. “I’d just enrolled in night courses at the local community college. I had a great new job. My life was coming together finally. And then this!”
Martha’s friends talked her into visiting a Planned Parenthood center where she received a fistful of brochures and tracts on the benefits and blessings of abortion. “It all sounded so simple and so secure. So I went ahead and scheduled an appointment.” The doctor performed a suction aspiration abortion on her 3 days later. “It was incredibly painful. It was just awful. But they told me all had gone well, and they sent me on home.”
But all was not well. After almost a week, Martha was admitted to the hospital with a number of alarming symptoms: swelling of the abdomen, severe pain, nausea, vomiting, rapid heartbeat, chills and fever, and shortness of breath. The obstetricians diagnosed her as suffering from peritonitis – an inflammation of the membrane covering the wall of her peritoneum. Caused by a small uterine puncture during the abortion, the bacterial infection had quickly spread throughout her body cavity. “They tell me I’m lucky,” she said. “But I’m not sure I call 4 days in the hospital and a close call with death lucky. I call it irresponsible.”
George Grant Grand Illusions: the Legacy of Planned Parenthood(Franklin, Tennessee: Adroit Press, 1988, 1992) 71
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