They said it.
Sandra Caskie OB/GYN on abortion:
“Any in-office procedure can have complications from time to time. Even in the best of hands, things can go wrong.”
Richmond Times Dispatch, Senate panel rejects measure on abortion clinics, 2-24-2006
Quoted by Life Dynamics.
Injuries and deaths from abortions still occur. Read about legal abortion deaths here
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In the article “Induced abortion: An ethical conundrum for counselors” the writers discuss how many counselors do not acknowledge how painful abortion can be for their patients. they cite two studies:
“….[One study] discovered that counselors sometimes are not sensitive to grief issues surrounding abortion and encourage clients “to move on.” The development of grief that is socially negated (i.e., denied or suppressed by oneself and others) can complicate issues for counselors as well as clients. Grief, when not recognized, accepted, and resolved, can result in masked maladaptive behaviors, such as lack of appropriate affect and damaged interpersonal relationships.”
Millner, Vaughn S; Hanks, Robert “Induced abortion: An ethical conundrum for counselors” Journal of Counseling and Development January 1, 2002
Share on FacebookDr. Warren Hern, late term abortionist:
“While I was in family practice, I got a part time job in the Women’s Center. Over the course of several months, I recognized things there could be run a lot better, with a much more professional level of service…The typical abortion patient spends less than ten minutes with the physician who performs the surgery. Yet, that patient might be in the facility for three hours. When I talked to other physicians whose patients were referred here, I saw problems that could be easily corrected.”
Discharging the Committee on the Judiciary from Further Consideration Of the President’s Veto of HR 1833, Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995, September 9, 1996 Capital Words, A Project of the Sunlight Foundation volume 142 , number 130. Can be found here.
Read about legislative efforts to improve care at abortion clinics and pro-choice opposition here.
Share on FacebookAn abortion provider talks about the dangers of second trimester abortion.
“When you do a termination at this stage, you’re at a greater risk for perforation, laceration, hemorrhaging”
David Morton, “Anonymous Abortion Provider” July 12-July 18. 2000. Alternative Weekly
From abortion provider Dr. Warren Hern, in his “how to do abortions textbook”:
” Abortion is a blind procedure that proceeds by touch, awareness, and the nuances of sensations provided by instruments, honesty and caution. While competent orientation in the performance of an abortion is essential, abortion, almost more than any other operation, demands experience to develop skill. Experience that is not interpreted honestly, however, becomes the mere repetition of mistakes. The operator must be brutally honest with himself to make the necessary corrections from second to second while performing the procedure. Has the suction tip passed through the uterine wall? Is the material grasped with the forceps unyielding? Is the material uterine wall and not fetal tissue? Is the patient merely agitated or is she having severe vasovagal episode?
Warren Hern Abortion Practice (Philadelphia: J Lippincott, 1990) ( Chapter 5, PG. 103)
Despite the difficulty of performing abortions, Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice organizations have push for laws allowing nurses and other non-doctors to perform them.
Share on FacebookAccording to Mark Crutcher in Lime Five:
“In our research, we were able to identify approximately 100 lawsuits and/or disciplinary board actions against Planned Parenthood facilities, with complaints covering virtually the entire range of problems seen at other abortion clinics. We also found many examples of Planned Parenthood clinics operating in the same filthy conditions, and with the same outrageous practices, as NAF or independent abortion clinics. And again, the dynamics I’ve mentioned elsewhere apply here: the cases we found can be no more than a fraction of what really exists.”
Mark Crutcher “Lime 5: Exploited by Choice ” (Denton, Texas: Life Dynamics Incorporated, 1996) 117
Share on FacebookSome doctors were illegal “back alley”abortionists in the years before Roe versus Wade,and when abortion became legal, they simply hung up a sign and started performing the same dangerous procedures legally. There was almost no oversight.
“One such doctor was Dr. Richard Mucie, DO. He was one of the three main doctors in Kansas City, Missouri, that were known to do abortions. In 1968, a woman died from his procedure. In her corpse, her hands were shaped into claws, caked with blood. The jury gave Dr. Mucie the maximum sentence for manslaughter in the death of the woman. He got out on parole after 14 months, but he lost his medical license and set up an antique shop.
In 1973, Roe vs. Wade came down. Because of it, Mucie went back to court and got his license back. He then literally set up shop on Main Street and heaved a sigh of relief that the police wouldn’t bother him anymore. But his medical skills were such that family-planning clinics were never willing to refer patients to him. He stopped only when he died of an old-age related illness.”
It is unknown how many women died or were injured during abortions by him.
Rachel M MacNair, PhD. Achieving Peace in the Abortion War (New York: iUniverse, 2009) 83
Share on FacebookA study in the Lancet of 1182 legal abortions found that 9.5% of their patients require blood transfusions, 4.2% with cervical lacerations and in 1.2% the uterus was perforated. one researcher commented:
“The incidence of the complications described and the severity of some of them are disquieting. Some may claim that termination of pregnancy is much safer in their hands. If so, they are to be congratulated. The present figures represent the combined experience of five consultants and a series of experienced lecturers, senior registrars, and registrars. It is perhaps significant that some of the more serious complications occurred with the most senior and experienced operators. This emphasizes that termination of pregnancy is neither as simple nor as safe as some advocates of abortion on demand would have the public believe… It is disquieting that post-abortive infection, which is one of the most common causes of death after criminal abortion, should have occurred in 27% of this series. Septicemia, peritonitis, and paralytic ileus are potentially fatal complications and the risk of death increases if they occur after the patient is discharged from the hospital and there was a delay in diagnosis.… The fact remains that none of these situations may be the result of negligence. They are complications which, though well known to, and well-documented by, those with wide experience of an operation which is neither simple nor safe, are seldom mentioned by those who claim that abortion is safe and merely an extension of contraceptive techniques.”
Thomas W Hilgers “the Medical Hazards of Legally Induced Abortion” from Abortion and Social Justice edited by Thomas W Hilgers and Dennis J Horan (Kansas City, Missouri: Sheed & Ward, 1972)
Share on FacebookAbortion clinic director Carol Everett thought that her clinics would be shut down after a woman died at one of them due to a clear case of malpractice. On finding out that there would be no problem:
“I couldn’t believe my ears! He said what I wanted – with all my heart – to hear. Was it possible that we could kill a woman, then go on as if nothing ever happened? Was the industry that unregulated? Could HJ get other doctors to cover for him even in the case of a woman’s death? Maybe my life wasn’t over.”
Carol Everett with Jack Shaw, Blood Money (Oregon: Multnomah Press Books, Questar Publishers, Inc., 1992)
Quoted in
Rachel M MacNair, PhD. Achieving Peace in the Abortion War (New York: iUniverse, 2009) 83
Read more about Carol Everett here
Read more about legal abortion deaths here.
Share on FacebookDr. Bernard Nathanson, former abortionist, on the D&E procedure:
“This [the D&E procedure] strikes me as rash and irresponsible… The surgeon is working blind, and the womb is soft from pregnancy, and the relatively large chunks of jagged bone and cartilage wreak havoc if they are not removed with great skill.”
Bernard N Nathanson, M.D. with Richard N Ostling. Aborting America (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1979) 44
The D&E procedure is the most common second trimester abortion method used in the United States. Read a doctors description of the procedure here.
Here is a diagram of the procedure.
