From an article by a reporter who visited an abortion clinic, the story of one patient:
In her counseling session, Keesha explains that she’s going back to school and it isn’t a good time in her life to have another baby. The man who got her pregnant is out on the streets, and she expects to see him again, but he doesn’t know she’s here today.
“He thinks he got me knocked up and I’ll have his baby,” she says. “But I ain’t worried about what he’ll do when he finds out.”
On December 12, 2006, my obstetrician diagnosed my unborn baby with several and severe congenital heart defects and a kidney defect. An amniocentesis didn’t indicate my daughter had any chromosomal abnormalities. He recommended terminating my pregnancy since the defects were extreme. He also added all the other things that “could” be wrong with her including extremely small arteries, and an unattached abdomen.
I was told in the state where I live that I would have to start the termination procedure that day by 5pm or go to Kansas. I felt so much pressure to make a decision, but relied on my doctor’s recommendation to terminate to save my daughter from suffering. I was told that she would endure many surgeries, will probably need a heart transplant, and most likely would die. I was told she currently had congestive heart failure and was suffering at that moment.
I was devastated. I desperately wanted my daughter and was ready to have another child. I had been ill and worn down my entire pregnancy. I knew something was wrong and tried to tell the doctor’s my fears but it fell on deaf ears until I was 24.3 weeks pregnant and they saw it on the ultrasound. I am a strong person but the pressure and the trust I had in my doctor plus the fear of my daughter suffering scared me to death. I didn’t know where to turn or who to trust.
24 weeks
After careful measurements of my daughter, she was too big to terminate so my own doctor sent me to the wolves, Dr. Tiller. He gave me Tiller’s information packet and a phone in his office to call to schedule the appointment. He faxed my records and his diagnosis to Tiller.
I researched Tiller on the Internet and found horrible accounts and terrible things written about him. My baby’s father forbid me to search any further and told me he would take care of the paperwork and travel arrangements. I again trusted someone else.
We arrived in Wichita on December 17, 2006 and checked into the hotel. I was distraught and uncontrollably shaking.
Upon arrival at Tiller’s clinic on the morning of December 18 the pro-life advocates were setting up and I was horrified. I begged my baby’s father to take me home. He covered my eyes and drove on by. I blame myself for being weak. I should have left.
We were the first couple of four. We watched a video and they talked. I was clearly sobbing and the other mothers were composed. I can’t speak for their feelings but they were chatting and seemed fine. I couldn’t understand that. I was devastated and withdrawn. Tiller came in and spoke to the group and answered questions that this was legal, that we were all there to protect our children and our bodies. He seemed proud of himself to actually learn our names. I think he was trying to make us feel like we are people to him but clearly I was not.
I had to sign some forms and a form that stated I read the information and was within the 24-hour waiting period. I had not read that information but my fiancé said he did and that was enough. We were told we needed to pay four thousand dollars and if I wanted to wait it would be an additional five hundred dollars every day and after 26 weeks it would be even more because he needed a second physician’s signature.
As soon as we paid I was taken for an ultrasound. Dr. Tiller concluded with my doctor that the baby was not viable and then met with me in his office to explain my individual circumstance. I wanted to leave but how can someone leave when their own doctor sent me here. He had pictures of his family all over and I longed for a family. He has letters of thanks framed from other mothers who suffered. Tiller sent me back to the waiting room. Again I sobbed. I was called back in the ultrasound room and he gave me a twilight sedation and injected my baby with digoxin to stop her heart. He packed me with lamanaria and sent me back to the waiting room. He also told me he had to give me extra sedation as my body was fighting it and to relax or the process will be very difficult. I was allowed to use the restroom prior to that and I begged my baby for her forgiveness and told her goodbye.
We waited for about an hour. He checked for the heartbeat and when he didn’t find one he said, “I’m sorry, your baby has died.” I wanted to scream, “You killed her!” I was sent to Hart Pharmacy across town to get hydrocodone and benadryl. That night I had severe cramping.
The next day he told the group that he sent one girl back to her home state as she was only there for the digoxin shot because the delivery would have been too risky due to prior c-section deliveries. He said he doesn’t normally do that and went on to say “I never want to see your cervix’s again in here, especially C**** (the girl who was going home to deliver) because she has been here before.” I wanted to be sick.
He checked all of us and repacked me with lamanaria under sedation and sent me back to the hotel. The two other couples left were admitted to deliver because they were ready. Tiller told me I was not ready and sent me on my way. I just wanted to get it all over with, I was miserable. I was in so much pain that night we called Edna, the nurse on duty, and she told me to take double the hydrocodone and double benadryl. That only helped for a couple of hours. We went back in and Dr. Carhart was on duty and I sat there for what seemed like hours that night and ended up leaving. I was on a lot of medication so it’s hard for me to remember what was said, but I remember I was really afraid of him. I made it through the night shaking and not eating or sleeping.
We checked in again on December 20, and Tiller checked me. He said I was ready to be admitted. My baby’s father had to wait while they got me in my bed. I don’t remember how I got to the room but I remember the beds with the curtains. I remember an angel statue that I focused on to try to keep my mind clear. I was hooked up to an IV and given a pill to hold under my tongue. They then allowed my fiancé to join me. I would guess we were there for two hours and the pain got so bad I cried out.
I think it was Cathy that checked me and said I should have told her I was ready to deliver. I couldn’t even stand up for fear I would deliver on the floor. She got Tiller and he gave me more of the twilight drug and I remember having the urge to push. I delivered in the bed. Then he made me stand up on my own and walk to another room and get in stirrups. He gave me more of the twilight drug and at that point I had given up because I don’t remember what he did then. I woke up back in a recovery bed and then was sent back to my hotel empty hearted and empty handed.
On December 21, I returned to hold my baby girl, name her, and have her baptized. I went into a room and she was wrapped in a blanket and there was a pastor there. I sobbed and sobbed as I held my daughter. She appeared perfect and I felt like I had been tricked and in some sort of nightmare. The pastor sprinkled water and blessed her and he actually cried at my grief. That is the first person in that awful prison that showed humanity. Edna was very proud of her “cleanup” of my baby. I was released with some prescriptions for antibiotics and more pain relievers and was told we could drive the nine hours back home in another state that day. I don’t remember much of that drive back.
I didn’t get any follow-up from Tiller’s office until weeks later. A package arrived with my daughter’s ashes and a note saying they were thinking about me. I don’t really know if those are my daughter’s ashes or someone else’s but I put them in an urn and a keepsake box of my horrible experience in Kansas. I never want to return to Kansas. I hate that state. I wish Tiller’s clinic is closed and I wish it was closed in December of ’06. I have so many regrets and I will never forgive myself.
My fiancé made my life miserable the minute I found out I was pregnant and was relieved when termination was an option. He forced me to terminate, he guilted me into by saying my daughter who is alive will suffer the most if I was in hospitals all the time with the baby, and he mocked me while we were in Wichita and I was suffering. I was 32 years old at the time so there is proof that even adults can be coerce into something they don’t feel is right. If I could convince one woman to be strong and stand up for herself and her baby then perhaps I could relieve some of my sadness. Thank you for listening.
“In Their Own Words: Women’s Stories Of Coerced, Botched, and Illegal Abortions At Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita, KS” Operation Rescue
In his book on Planned Parenthood, George Grant interviewed two young women who had abortions there:
“Melinda Davies, and Cheryl Cook were best friends all through high school. During the summer following graduation, both girls became pregnant. “We decided to go into Planned Parenthood together. We didn’t want our parents to find out,” said Cheryl.”
Both girls had a D&E abortion at Planned Parenthood, but Melinda had problems afterwards,
“I had bladder infections, vaginal infections, and cervical infections, and my doctor couldn’t understand why. Finally, I had to tell him what I’d done. Thank goodness he was then able to treat the cause.” And what was the cause? “Well,” Melinda said, “apparently the doctor at Planned Parenthood did the procedure with unsterile instruments. The bacteria just wreaked havoc on my body.”
“Nobody told us that something like this could happen,” said Cheryl. “I feel like we were deceived.”
“We were,” agreed Melinda. “We really were. Abortion is a lousy gamble.”
George Grant Grand Illusions: the Legacy of Planned Parenthood (Franklin, Tennessee: Adroit Press, 1988, 1992) 74
Carol Everett, former owner of two abortion clinics and directer of four, on the Precious Feet pins prolifers wear:
“You know those little feet pins? Those things used to irritate me to death when I was in the abortion business. I couldn’t stand them. In the grocery line, a girl of about 16 was wearing the feet. That just about drove me crazy because, of course, she was shining the truth on me. I didn’t understand that then, but I hated them.”
Judy Madsen Johnson Stories from the Frontlines: the Battle against Abortion (2014) 55
“To some of these women, it is and can be a hard decision, and to others, it is not a hard decision because they’re certainly sure about the decision, just feeling that it is something that just has to be done, or they just can’t deal with the fact that they’re pregnant. As you know, there are women that get very emotional, and because of their choice, many don’t. You have some that will change their mind right before the procedure, and they do have the right to change their mind cause this is their decision. These types of patients are here because of their emotions. On the other hand, you have those who have their minds already made up what they want to do. They won’t even think twice about it and will go ahead and go through with having the procedure because they feel that this is something that they have to do; it’s their only way out of the situation that they’ve gotten themselves into.”
Tonya P From behind Closed Doors: “Abortions” (Xlibris, 2013) 18-19
“At the Dundalk office of the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), a client was told she could lie to her doctor about having had an abortion, advice that could put a woman’s life at risk, Professor Sam Coulter Smith, the master of Dublin’sRotunda Hospital, has warned.
He said he was aware of cases where women have died because they did not tell their doctors they’d had a termination….
At two Dublin branches of the IFPA in Tallaght and Cathal Brugha Street, women were also told they could conceal their abortions from doctors.
The same advice was given by a HSE employee at Ballinasloe Crisis Pregnancy Support Service in Galway.
In response, Dr Simon Mills, a barrister and medical doctor, said: “It is definitely reckless and probably negligent advice to tell a woman to conceal from doctors something that may be a vital part of her medical history.
“This is especially the case if she presented unwell in the immediate aftermath of a termination and felt that she shouldn’t tell her doctor about it when it could be the key piece of information to deliver prompt and life-saving treatment….-
At Dundalk IFPA, a woman was told: “Now when you go for medical attention they have no way of knowing that you have had an abortion. You need to say that you had a miscarriage. They will know you were pregnant but you need to say that you had a miscarriage.”
From Merle Hoffman, former owner/administrator of an abortion clinic (she is still pro-abortion):
“I knew I wouldn’t be able to run the clinic efficiently unless my staff took me seriously, and since I had no physical area I could use to enforce professional boundaries, I had to firmly demonstrate that even though I was young and inexperienced, I was in charge. But some of them made it clear that they resented my position in the medical hierarchy, their lack of respect palpable with every interaction. They weren’t going to accept my authority so easily.”
Merle Hoffman Intimate Wars: the Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Board Room (New York: Feminist Press, 2012) 65
From an interview with then abortion clinic owner Patricia Baird-Windle:
Q: You owned and operated a clinic that performed abortions for more than 20 years. Yet in the early ’80s you said, “I’m not pro-abortion. I know no one who is pro- abortion.” That seems to be a contradictory statement.
Preborn baby at 14 weeks. Is it “love” to kill him by dismemberment?
BAIRD-WlNDLE: I no longer feel that way. I am now pro-abortion. I’ve come a long, long way….
I now consider abortion to be a major blessing, and to be a sacrament in the hands of women….
At the very crucible of the sacrament of abortion work is the sentence in a letter written to me by a woman when I retired, and that is some women have an abortion out of love for the baby.
Pam Platt “A Radical Bows Out: Abortion provider Patricia Baird-Windle reflects on her career, her choices” FLORIDA TODAY Reprinted in The Forerunner August 29, 1999
Operation Rescue published stories by sidewalk counselors about women who went into the late Dr. Tiller’s clinic to have late–term abortions. One pregnant woman had an abortion because she wanted a tummy tuck:
“One such story was about a healthy woman, with whom sidewalk counselors had spoken, who came to Tiller’s to abort a healthy baby so as not to ruin her “tummy tuck.” That woman went through with her abortion in Wichita despite having no risk of suffering a “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” [which was the given criteria for a late term abortion in Kansas]. Women were getting late-term abortions of viable babies on a regular basis for appallingly frivolous reasons. Tiller and his staff were thumbing their noses at Kansas law.”
Troy Newman and Cheryl Sullenger Abortion Free (New York: WND Books, 2014) 97
