Sarah, Author at ClinicQuotes

Interview with Jewels Green, former clinic worker

Clinicquotes did an interview with former clinic worker Jewels Green. Her website, which has more information about her story as well as article she has written, can be found here.

1. What was the counseling like in your clinic? Did you give accurate information? Was it biased?

Women who came in to the clinic for an abortion were seen by a counselor one-on-one before paying for their abortion. This mandatory counseling session included making sure the abortion was her decision and that no one was coercing her, explaining the abortion procedure and aftercare, and asking her what kind of birth control she was intending to use when she resumed sexual activity after her abortion.

During my time working at the clinic a law was enacted requiring abortion clinics in Pennsylvania to offer each woman state- drafted information on fetal development that includes hand-drawn actual-size sketches of the detailed level of fetal development as well as size by weeks LMP of pregnancy. There was a script we had to follow, also drafted by the state, that went something like this—know that I’m paraphrasing from memory, “I am required by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to offer you detailed information on fetal development and information on WIC and public assistance available to pregnant women and families. The father of child is legally obligated to assist you financially in raising your child should you choose to continue the pregnancy. Would you like to see any of these materials?” Nine times out of ten, more like 19 times out of 20, the woman would decline.

….When explaining the abortion, the word “baby” was never used, rather “contents of the uterus”, “the pregnancy”, or “products of conception” were the preferred terms to refer to the fetus.

2. Have you ever witnessed a second trimester abortion? Is there any way you may be able to describe it?

No, I have never witnessed a second trimester abortion. However, when the clinic where I worked gained approval to do abortions up to 16 weeks (from the original limit of 14 weeks) I had seen the aftermath of a few of those abortions in the autoclave room (where surgical instruments are washed and sterilized and where the doctor reassembles the body parts of the fetus to assure a complete abortion.)

3. Did you ever view the remains from abortions? If so, can you tell me what you saw? How did the clinic handle the remains? Were they buried, incinerated, sent to the lab, etc?

I saw the remains of hundreds, if not thousands, of first-trimester abortions in the more than five years I worked at the abortion clinic. The remains were bagged in red biohazard bags with anything else bloody, and put into a freezer until they were picked up by a medical waste management company. I assume they were then incinerated, but I do not know for certain.

4. Were parts ever visible?

“Of course teeny-tiny body parts were visible. Well over half of the time body parts were easily discernible. Maybe more like 75% of the time. That was the only way the doctor could ascertain that the abortion was complete–to count limbs, make sure the spine and skull were present. The “blob of cells” argument is only spouted by people who have never seen the aftermath of an abortion. It is true that in a very, very early surgical abortion (about 8-9 weeks LMP) [Editor: this is about 6-7 weeks after conception] the fetal parts are too small to be seen, and in those cases the doctor looks for the gestational sac and chorionic villi to ensure a complete abortion.”

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Abortion clinic administrator says her patients are “happy and healthy”

Abortion clinic administrator:

“Pretty typically, our patients come from small towns… The majority are happy and healthy. If anything is guilt and trauma inducing, it’s the people picketing in front of our clinic.”

Faye D Ginsburg Contested Lives: the Abortion Debate in an American Community (Berkeley and Los Angeles California: University of California Press, 1989) 2

Testimonies from women who have had abortions seem to indicate that most are not going into the abortion clinic “happy” about their decision. As for healthy, this just gives evidence that few abortions are done for medical reasons.In fact, an analysis of all the abortions that took place between 1980 and 2000 found that only .36% were performed on women who had a health problem that interfered with her pregnancy.

Pro-life protesters are not there to make women feel guilty, but to offer them information they may not get inside the clinic and help with alternatives. Often clinic workers give false and misleading information about unborn babies and do not present all the abortion alternatives and where to go for help. Sidewalk counselors try to reach the women going in with the truth that they do not have to have an abortion; there are other options available and people who will help them in real, practical ways. Crisis pregnancy centers, which these sidewalk counselors often direct women to, offer a full range of services to pregnant women and their partners including free counseling, ultrasounds, baby clothes and diapers, and referrals to many different organizations. Sometimes these crisis pregnancy centers offer free medical care and housing along with parenting classes and job training. In contrast, the abortion clinic will take their money, do the abortion, and then send them home to cope with the aftermath.

Abortion itself can have very severe psychological complications for many women. A woman who has an abortion is 6 times more likely to commit suicide than a woman who hasn’t. Teens have a 10 times higher suicide rate after abortion. Hospitalizations for psychiatric illness and other disorders, as well as grief and guilt reactions sometimes including bad dreams or a condition similar to posttraumatic stress disorder, can sometimes happen

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French website: abortion pill destroys “eggs”

A French goverment website has the following in its description about abortions by pill.

“In 60% of cases, the abortion (expulsion of the egg) takes place within 4 hours after taking misoprostol”

This language categorizes the baby being aborted as a “fertilized egg.” Completely dehumanizes him or her, and this is especially egregious when you realize that abortions by pill are done as late as midway through the 2nd trimester in France. This is the information that the French government thinks that women need to know before consenting to an abortion. When she delivers her baby, complete with arms and legs and fingers and toes, then she will realize what the reality of abortion is.

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Planned Parenthood: Children of the Poor are Too Costly

A fund-raising letter of Planned Parenthood committee of Pittsburgh:

“Have you ever stopped to consider how much the “unwanted” children of poor and ignorant parents are costing you in the community in increased relief load, state medical and mental care, juvenile delinquency, and criminality?… There is a critical need for the expansion of this work [birth control] in American slums and other areas.”

Johanna Choen Choice & Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005)

This is an old letter from before abortion was legal, but it shows the disregard Planned Parenthood had for minorities and the poor.

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Unborn baby can feel pain in abortion, says pediatric neurosurgeon

Expert testimony from Dr. Robert White, pediatric neurosurgeon, before U.S. Congress, June 15, 1995 :

“By every measurable method, evidence suggests that the type of massive tissue destruction caused by all abortion methods at this stage [20+ weeks] would be expected to be accompanied by substantial pain to the unborn child. “

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George Will discusses pro-choice censorship when 16,500 bodies of aborted babies found

When 16,500 bodies of aborted babies were discovered in a storage container outside of a medical laboratory, some weighing as much as 4 pounds, news photographers who came to the scene were not permitted to take pictures. Later, photographs were obtained from a Los Angeles pathologist who examined the babies’ bodies. No legal action was taken. Washington Post columnist George Will made these observations:

Remains of baby aborted at 20 weeks. This child was torn apart by the abortion instruments

“Most proabortion persons have a deeply felt understandable need to keep the discussion of abortion as abstract as possible. They become bitter when opponents use photographs to document early fetal development. The sight of something that looks so much like a child complicates the task of trying to believe that there is nothing there but “potential” life. And if fetal pain is acknowledged, America has a problem. It’s uneasy conscience about 1.6 million abortions a year [as of 1981, the number of abortions have dropped since] depends on the supposition that such pain is impossible.”

George Will “Abortion Painful for the Aborted” The Washington Post, November 5, 1981

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Dr. Susie Baldwin: Abortion is Rewarding

“I provide abortions because it is the single most rewarding and gratifying field of medicine I have experienced.”

Dr. Susie Baldwin, abortionist, Los Angeles, CA

Below: Remains of an abortion at just 8 weeks. This is well within the time when most abortions are performed.

Physicians for Reproductive Health “Why I Provide Abortions”

http://prh.org/provider-voices/why-i-provide-abortions/

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Doctor from the University of Colorado Medical School : life begins at conception

Dr. Watson A. Bowes Jr. of the University of Colorado Medical School testified before the United State Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on when life begins:

“The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter…the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political or economic goals.”

Abortion: A Briefing Book for Canadian Legislators: National Public Affairs Office, Campaign Life Coalition, Suite 100, 1355 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON K1Y 3C2 Phone (613) 729-0379 Fax (613) 729-7611

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Seeing an aborted baby with “human form” in the second trimester is traumatic, article says

From an article in The Journal of Clinical Nursing:

“Second trimester terminations require the woman concerned to go through an induced labour, the result of which is a fetus in a very human form. This event requires sensitive management as it is has the potential to cause a great deal of distress for the women involved due to the psychological and physical impact of the procedure. However, health professionals involved can also find this a distressing clinical event due to the complex nature of the management and care required.”

ANNETTE D. HUNTINGTON RGON, BN, PhD “Working with women experiencing mid-trimester termination of pregnancy: the integration of nursing and feminist knowledge in the gynaecological setting” Journal of Clinical Nursing, 2002, 11 273-279

This is only one way to do a second trimester abortion. Others are done by D & E, where the baby is dismembered inside the mother’s body.

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Abortion by Pill: One Woman’s Story from Marie Claire

Norine Dworkin-McDaniel told the story of her abortion by pill in Marie Claire. She was pro-choice and thought she would have no problems.

She supported the use of the abortion pill and thought it was a good thing

“From the moment it was approved in 2000, I believed in the abortion pill. Finally! Abortion would finally become what it always should have been: a private medical matter between a woman and her doctor. It held the promise of swift, at home termination. There would be no more gauntlets of protesters at clinics, because who would know which physicians were dispensing the pills? Even better, the pill would keep abortion accessible at a time when fewer gynecologists were willing to perform them out of fear of attacks.”

Dworkin – McDaniel eventually was faced an unplanned pregnancy. According to her, when she became pregnant, she was using cocaine and would “work all day, and party, party, party all night.”

She worried that her drug use would cause medical problems for the baby:

“No matter what I did from this point on, there would always be a chance that the baby would have problems – maybe physical ones, maybe psychological issues. I wasn’t willing to roll the dice with another life.”

“There was the surgical option of course. I’d had one in college (so you think I would’ve learned this lesson already) and I dreaded the needle that would be used to numb my cervix.”

“The Mifeprex literature described some cramping and bleeding, “similar to or greater than a normal, heavy period.” This sounded far more appealing than surgical abortion. A few pills, a couple of cramps, and it would all be over. We could move on with our lives.”

“Clinic staffers had directed me to insert the tablets into my vagina in the morning so I’d have the day to recover. I envisioned recuperating on the couch with some uncomfortable but bearable cramps and soothing myself with s bad daytime TV.”…

I never made it to the couch.

“Nothing – not the drug literature, the clinic doctor, not even my own gyno – had prepared me for the searing, gripping, squeezing pain that ripped through my belly 30 minutes later. I couldn’t even form words when Stewart [her boyfriend] called to check on me. It was all I could do to gasp, “Come home! Now!” For 90 minutes, I was disoriented, nauseated, and, between crushing waves of contractions, that I imagine were close to what labor feels like, racing from the bed to the bathroom with diarrhea.”

Then, just as quickly, it was over. The next night, I started bleeding. I bled for 14 days. A follow-up ultrasound confirmed that I’d aborted. And that’s when the problems really began.

I had been prepared for the possibility that the pill wouldn’t work and I’d still need a surgical abortion – that happens in about 5 to 8 percent of cases. I also knew that I might bleed so heavily I need surgery to stop it… [But] what blindsided me, apart from being battered by the mifepristone, with a huge, cystic boils that soon covered my neck, shoulders, and back. I was also overcome by fatigue – an utter lack of ability to do anything more strenuous than sleep or lie on the couch. My brain felt so fuzzy – English seemed like a 2^nd language, and I couldn’t work. On top of all that came depression; I sobbed constantly. I wouldn’t leave the house. I stopped showering.

It was only when I described my symptoms to my gynecologist that I discovered my experience wasn’t all that unusual. (The Mifeprex literature didn’t even mention it) “I think it’s underreported, but probably one in 3 women have dramatic side effects,” he told me. My body was in total chaos – pregnancy hormones clashing with anti-pregnancy hormones clashing with stress hormones. “I’ve seen a lot of women go through it – I don’t want to call it postpartum, but post event melancholy that’s more dramatic than people want to admit.” He prescribed antidepressants. “One day, you’ll feel just like your old self.” It took 9 months.”

Dworkin – McDaniel describes going back to the clinic and talking to one of the clinic workers:

“We could have told you it wasn’t going to be easy,” a clinic staffer noted when I rattled off my complaints during my follow-up.

Why didn’t she speak up sooner?”

Norine Dworkin-McDaniel “BETRAYED BY A PILL” Marie Claire (US), Jul2007, Vol. 14 7, p184-186

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