As quickly as states like Texas, Arizona, and Kansas pass new definitive laws designed to protect women and children against subpar health standards in abortion clinics, pro-abortionists challenge those laws in court, purportedly on the grounds that said laws will restrict access to care and thus limit a woman’s right to affordable healthcare. But reality says that isn’t so.
Since the landmark decision of Roe v Wade, one in six children conceived have been terminated in the United States of America. That’s the entire population of Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona – combined.
As organizations like Planned Parenthood figured out there were profits to be made from abortifacient drugs and surgical abortions, business models were developed and clients were groomed and educated to the slanted perspective that life in the womb simply isn’t human or significant.
Their clever advertising worked and before long, hundreds of abortion clinics popped up all over the U.S., many of them operating without any oversight by their state’s health departments. Inspectors either didn’t have time to routinely visit each clinic, or they purposefully turned a blind eye to abortion clinics breaking state laws. Without regular, scrupulous inspections, abortion clinics operated without meeting acceptable healthcare standards. And these shortfalls put women and children’s health at risk.
The most significant evidence of such negligent oversight was the case of physician, Kermit Gosnell. When officers raided Gosnell’s establishment in February, 2010, investigators found ‘disgusting,’ ‘unsanitary,’ ‘filthy,’ conditions including human blood and cat feces on the floor and a stench of urine in the air. According to testimony at Gosnell’s trial, female patients awaiting their abortive procedures were found to be unsupervised and only semi-conscious, sitting on dirty recliners - covered in blood-stained sheets, in a filthy waiting room.
So, one would think that what happened in Philadelphia would be a wake-up call to all Americans, so that horror stories such as this would never happen again. But based upon Planned Parenthood’s ardent challenges against state laws specifically designed to raise healthcare standards in abortion clinics, it seems the organization has a different agenda – one that’s not at all about protecting the woman’s health.
No matter how you look at it, abortion is Big Business. This simple fact is precisely why they fight so fiercely against any law that would hamper their ability to cut corners and make an extra buck. Restrictions of any kind are viewed as a threat - not against women - but against their bottom-line. Once you realize that, all the other irrationalities of Planned Parenthood’s resistance makes perfect sense and you can slice right through their transparent arguments.
As a registered nurse with years of emergency nursing experience, I’d like to take a stab at blowing a few holes through their arguments.
First off, because we live in a first-world country with state-of-the-art, top-notch medical care, we’ve come to expect the best and the brightest in healthcare. Yet, when the subject of abortion comes up, IQ’s seem to drop and we allow our standards of care to plummet, settling for third-world levels of care.
In today’s America, there’s no reason for filthy floors, littered hallways, or rusting equipment. There’s no excuse for a clinic to be devoid of resuscitation equipment and life-saving drugs, especially if they are performing invasive procedures. Furthermore, there’s no way any state should allow life-ending drugs to be administered to a patient, via video feed, especially when the situation is neither urgent nor emergent. And finally, there should be no tolerance by anyone, for physicians who are not qualified or board certified in their field of practice, or who are without a working association with a nearby hospital. Period.
We expect more from our local dentist. Yet because of the dominant position Planned Parenthood’s wields over scared or naïve patients, few women comprehend the significance of substandard facilities. Furthermore, few are knowledgeable enough to demand more. And that is precisely why state governments must enact and enforce laws which protect the health of all patients, regardless of their chief complaint.
Another point worth mentioning is that although a woman might be psychologically distraught, simply being pregnant isn’t routinely considered to be a medical emergency. Quite the contrary; it’s perfectly normal.
But Planned Parenthood insists the opposite. They strongly argue that when a woman decides she wants an abortion, she has a right to demand it instantaneously. They claim that a woman has already been ‘inconvenienced’ enough by the simple act of being pregnant, and therefore should not have to drive more than 50 miles from her home to get an abortion. The reality is that if a woman is given adequate time and counseling to consider viable alternatives to ending her child’s life, she will frequently reconsider. And that would cut down on their all important revenues.
Thus, Planned Parenthood vehemently argues against the requirement that abortion clinics be within a requisite 30 miles of a hospital or medical facility. For years, Planned Parenthood has been operating abortion clinics in outlying rural clinics, with no physician or registered nurse on staff. Pregnant women go to a rural clinic, get counseled by an abortion ‘technician’ with little or no medical training. Then the woman is taken into a private room where she is connected to physician via a video monitor. From the other end of the video feed, the physician asks if the woman’s been advised of her rights and the risks. Assuming the woman acknowledges she has, the physician pushes a button on his end of the feed, which unlocks a cabinet, causing a small drawer to pop open. Inside the drawer sit two pills. She is instructed to take one pill at the clinic and the other pill a few hours later – at her home, unsupervised.
More often than not, she is being given RU-486, the abortifacient drug responsible for over fifteen deaths in recent years. Yet, in these circumstances, and per Planned Parenthood’s protocol, no physician will be with her when she takes the second dose. This practice leaves the woman vulnerable to all the terrible potential side-effects of RU-486; hemorrhaging, infection (sepsis), and cardiac arrest. Yet, Planned Parenthood ignores the PDR and FDA guidelines, filing suit against laws that require this drug to be administered appropriately in a supervised setting.
In short, they want to be able to give drugs as they see fit, without regard to the rules and regulations set down by the FDA. There is not a single emergency room in the country that could get away with disregarding FDA guidelines in dispensing drugs to their patients, nor could your family physician get away with such a breach. Yet Planned Parenthood demands it be immune from routine standards.
And that brings up another salient point. The need for a surgical abortion, due to an elective abortion, also does not constitute an emergency. Because of the invasive nature of the procedure and need for anesthesia, it demands even further the need for the patient to be in a fully functioning, clean and certified facility. In a worst case scenario, standards of care dictate that the patient have access to every possible type of emergency care. And if the woman is slightly inconvenienced by having to travel a few extra miles to reach a clinic that’s within thirty miles of a hospital, then so be it, because her own life may very well depend on it.
Since many women seeking surgical abortions are frequently unaware of the dangers and risks these invasive procedures will expose them to, the states have no choice but to step up to the plate and protect women by ensuring the clinics meet the same health standards as any other facility doing equally invasive procedures.
Having worked in high traffic hospitals, I can safely say that I witnessed a lot of death. I’ve had to take care of women barely hanging on to life, as a result of botched abortions. It’s not easy, not pretty and very sobering. Because of our demands for top-quality medical care in the United States, we should be extra concerned when substandard clinics (of any kind) are operating in our communities. These laws aren’t about denying women access to appropriate health care, they’re about protecting the lives of the women and their children. Abortion is horrific enough; there’s no need to have one bad decision lead to another tragedy.