Category: Provider Hall of Shame

A pro-choice author describes an abortion clinic where she visited:

“In all the years I have spent writing and thinking about a woman’s right to choose, I have never set foot in an abortion clinic, because I have never needed to. In my mind, I had always pictured a clean and comfortable place. This was no Westchester clinic. The place was dirty and dark and the women in the room outside were standing, as there were no chairs. A woman beside me was crying… In the press, the issue of the right to choose will be reduced to the terminology of precedent and privacy. But the visceral reality of abortion–the grimy clinic, the sobbing and hapless young woman — cannot be understood by such desensitized vocabulary.”

“The real state of abortion rights, before Alito.” Raw Story January 12, 2006

Kevin Sherlock writes about a member of the Nazi SS, Dr. Vilis Kruze, who later became an abortionist:

“Kruze was a member of the Nazi SS during World War II. He emigrated to Ohio after the war. He was convicted in connection with botching an abortion performed on a 19-year-old Cleveland go-go dancer. The teen hemorrhaged and passed the baby away from his office, then she committed suicide a few days later. Ohio authorities sent Kruze to prison, and then made him receive psychiatric treatment at a hospital for the criminally insane. Later, Ohio authorities made Kruze receive treatment in a mental hospital for reportedly locking his secretaries in closets and for forcing them to urinate in bottles at their desks.…

Later, Kruze moved to Hawaii, got a contract as a fill-in doctor for Kaiser, and reportedly treated a child so negligently that the child suffered permanent brain damage. The child’s parents brought suit, and eventually, Kruze’s evil past was revealed. But by now Kruze himself was dead. The brother of a teenage girl who overdosed on drugs Kruze gave her in exchange for giving him sex tracked Kruze down and stabbed the Nazi abortionist to death to punish him for exploiting and nearly killing his sister…

Kruze’s conviction for criminal abortion was overturned after the Roe V Wade decision made abortion legal throughout America in 1973.”

Source: Transcript of a 60 Minutes broadcast on November 4, 1990 Quoted in: Kevin Sherlock The Scarlet Survey (Akron, Ohio: Brennyman Books, 1997 pgs 5 – 6

Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue describes an abortion facility that her group purchased. When they entered the building, they discovered that conditions inside were filthy. She describes below:

“I was working with Operation Rescue when it purchased an NAF approved abortion facility in Wichita, Kansas, in 2006 and evicted the abortion business. When Troy [Newman] ==took possession of the building, he and I, along with a couple of our friends, went in to take our first eager look around. The clinic was filthy. From the carpet to the walls to the ceiling, everything was worn, outdated, and dirty. Plumbing leaked. Mold grew in the ceiling where the roof chronically dripped. The electrical system was hazardously out of code. The junction box could not be closed due to the obstruction of a water pipe that extended from the water heater, which had been dangerously installed under it.

The entire office was permeated with a putrid odor. Under a dirty sink was an industrial garbage disposal that was clogged with rotting material, possibly human in origin. That sink was the source of the stench.

In the 23 years that the abortion business had occupied that building, never had a representative from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment ever darkened the doorway of that clinic, and it showed. However, on the window separating the receptionist from the patient waiting area, there was a proudly displayed sticker indicating that the facility had met NAF’s so-called “standards” that same year.”

Cheryl Sullenger The Trial of Kermit Gosnell (World Ahead Press, 2017) 58 – 59

In an inspection report which can be found here, an abortion clinic in England called Maidstone was cited for serious violations:

Care Quality Commission on Marie Stopes International, Date of inspection visit: 17 May 2016 Date of publication: 02/10/2017

“Infection control systems, processes and practices were not delivered in line with the current national guidance. There was poor hand hygiene, poor use of personal protective equipment and poor pre-surgical preparation. ….

Services at MSI Maidstone were very process centric with staff showing limited empathy for how the patients might be feeling. Support from a partner, friend or parent was discouraged and accompanying supporters were asked to leave the premises whilst the patients were being treated.

Staff sometimes failed to consider patient’s privacy and walked into the the theatre whilst procedures were taking place.

There were complaints about staff being abrupt and blunt towards patients……

Staff did not take adequate infection prevention and control (IPC) precautions with hand hygiene … We observed a surgeon wearing a large, stoned ring during surgery and not washing their hands between patients…..

The corporate policy of ensuring there was an appropriate adult escort post procedure was not followed at MSI Maidstone and placed patients at significant risk….

There was inconsistent use of sedative medication such that staff had raised concerns about over sedation with Midazolam. Specific occurrences relating to oversedation were not acted upon or recorded as incidents; instead staff voicing concerns were removed from theatre work….

Unsupervised healthcare assistants (HCAs) were used to supplement and replace trained nurses by completing pre-procedure assessments, scanning patients, taking consent, making decisions regarding safeguarding and providing post-operative care….

We also noted that the sink in the theatre was not used by any member of staff throughout the entire list of 21 patients. We saw a surgeon wore sterile gloves but kept their large, stoned costume rings on when undertaking surgical procedures. This surgeon did not wash their hands or use alcohol gel between patients and failed to follow good hand hygiene practice. Other theatre staff changed their gloves but did not wash their hands or use hand gel between patients…..

The surgeon did not wear an apron to protect their theatre clothing from potential contamination and to reduce the risk of cross contamination during surgical procedures.

We observed that poor practice in the theatre meant that the sterile gloves were contaminated by being removed from the outer wrapper with unwashed hands. The contaminated gloves were dropped by the surgeon from unwashed hands onto the trolley, which contaminated the sterile field.

We observed poor practice in pre-operative preparation of the genetalia. This posed a risk of introducing an infection.

Staff we spoke with said that the 15 minutes allotted to each consultation was insufficient to allow proper cleaning of the room and equipment, which they did whilst the patient was still signing consent forms.

We observed that in the theatre, a member of staff used a single antiseptic wipe to clean all equipment, the couch and the floor between patients….

[T]here was no direct access from the theatre to the room containing the locked specimen freezer used to store pregnancy remains, which was on another floor within the centre. Staff had to carry an unsealed bucket of pregnancy remains through a patient waiting area, upstairs to a records cupboard where the fridge was sited. This was poor infection prevention and control practice as well as potentially being offensive to patients waiting.”

Nursing staff reported to us that they had tried to discuss two recent cases of oversedation with the anaesthetist but they wouldn’t listen. They felt there was inadequate support to address concerns about anaesthetists not following the corporate sedation policy and no senior back up in case of an emergency….

Patients could travel home after surgical treatment with conscious sedation without a responsible adult to accompany them. We were told by several nursing staff that his included children travelling by public transport on long journeys

The corporate policy on surgical terminations under conscious sedation required staff to ensure that a responsible adult accompanied patients home. This policy was not being followed in practice. Direct observation showed that staff discharging patients did not check whether they had an accompanying adult…..

Staff were concerned about this practice and one said they worried about young girls getting buses and trains without anyone with them for journeys of up to two hours.”

This facility did abortions up to 14 weeks.

An article in GQ is about an abortionist from Florida.  The abortionist, John Bayard Britton, was later killed by an anti-abortion extremist.

“His clothes are shabby and his offices, in Jacksonville and Fernandina, are seedy… At the clinic in Pensacola, the protesters congregate behind a tall wooden fence, and Doc Britton sometimes speaks, with a smile, of taking target practice through the knotholes. He believes, deeply, in the prerogative of capital punishment. If he were God, or king, he says, he would have executed [abortionist David] Gunn’s murderer two weeks after the arrest. If, by chance, he executed the wrong man, his remorse would have been tempered by the simple fact that we are all frail, we are all sinners, and the accused, in the course of his life, had probably done something worthy of death….. All his life, he has gotten into scrapes -with hospitals, with other doctors, with medical boards- until he has become, in some quarters, an outcast who can walk only where no one else will.”

He started doing abortions after he could no longer practice legitimate medicine. He was disciplined for over-prescribing narcotics to a drug addict:

“… [T]he state medical board charged him, in 1981, with prescribing 1,900 Percodan and Percocet tablets to a drug addict. He disputed the charges, but accepted-“on the advice of an expensive lawyer”-two years of probation, and that, he says, was the end of him: “I was a pariah as far as any salaried job was concerned.”

He gives the reason he did abortions:

“I made a living doing abortions,” Doc says. “I did them because I thought they should have been done..But I will say I had no money to feed my family…”

Tom Junod ““THE ABORTIONIST” GQ February 1994

Clinic Quotes condemns all violence against abortion doctors.

Abortionist John Bayard Britton set up shop doing abortions as soon as they were legalized. He improvised his own tools.

As soon as the Supreme Court wrote Roe v. Wade into law, he applied some heat to the shaft of a ballpoint pen, fashioned it into a cannula (the stiff tube that’s inserted through the cervix during an abortion), attached the cannula to a hose and the hose to a small vacuum and went into business. In the Ladies Center, although the cannula is a long plastic tube, rather than the body of a ballpoint pen, and the vacuum is a large beige box fitted with hoses and gauges, rather than a small gray cylinder, there is still something ramshackle about Doc, something improvisatory and unsettled.

Tom Junod ““THE ABORTIONIST” GQ February 1994

This slapped together abortion machine was not sterile and likely put women at risk. The abortionist couldn’t wait for proper tools before cashing in on legalized abortion.

Dr. Brian Finkel is believed to have molested over 100 women in his abortion clinic. An article in The Arizona Republic quotes his lawyer:

“Finkel’s defense attorney Richard Gierloff said many of the 35 women who claimed Finkel twisted their nipples or strummed their genitals never wanted to testify. “They just wanted to stand in the back of the mob and throw bricks at Dr. Finkel. Some of his patients are narcissistic, manipulative human beings,” He also argued that the 35 women who complained are insignificant, compared to the patients that have never had a complaint.”

“Finkel sexual-abuse case likely to go to jury today” The Arizona Republic 10-29-2003

Finkel was convicted and sent to jail.

Sexual abuse allegations against abortionist Laurence A  Reich:

“You’re naked from your waist down. And you’re legs are spread. And you feel extremely vulnerable. I was questioning myself as to why I felt so uncomfortable. Because it’s a doctor, he’s a doctor.” She said after the exam he asked to take her out, “He offered to take me to lunch, At that point I realized — Ewe! Ewe! I have just been molested! I have just been violated.”

And:

“You’re in a precarious situation with your feet in stirrups and this doctor examining you. You’re pretty vulnerable, right there. And so when you’re feeling like something’s not right and you’re in that position, you — there’s really no option for you to escape at that point. I just knew in my gut that something was wrong. I was scared.”

CNN, Anderson Cooper 360 degrees December 2, 2005 Friday, Transcript #120202CN.V98 Gynecologist Accused Of Numerous Molestations Continues To Sees Women And Practice Medicine, Despite Complaints From New Victims