Clinics raided and caught “red-handed”
by Bethany Kerr
You’d think abortion proponents would stop claiming that abortionist “quacks” are the exception and not the rule by now. It seems every month we hear of a new abortionist being caught practicing abortions without a license, butchering women, raping women, falsifying records, etc. The ratio of “bad” abortionists to abortion clinics seems to become closer each time an abortion clinic is investigated.
From Operation Rescue:
The Los Angeles Times is reporting today horrific new details about a chain of Southern California abortion clinics, owned by Bertha Bugarin, that were raided last summer by a special task force of the Los Angeles Police Department. Bugarin was charged with practicing medicine without a license.
Bertha Bugarin’s abortion mills are not an anomaly. The only difference between her mills and other deplorable clinics across the nation is that she was caught.
According to the LA Times:
By the time paramedics arrived, the patient was lying in a pool of her own blood, her pulse racing and her blood pressure dangerously low….
The woman, identified only as Angela P. in records of the Medical Board of California, had gone to the Clinica Medica Para la Mujer de Hoy in Santa Ana in the summer of 2004 for an abortion.
Dr. Phillip Rand, then in his early 80’s, performed a vaginal suction procedure, despite having determined that Angela was about 20 weeks pregnant, well into her second trimester. She was given no anesthesia or painkillers.
According to the National Abortion Federation, vacuum aspiration procedures are normally performed on women who are up to 14 weeks pregnant. After 14 weeks, a more complicated procedure, known as dilation and evacuation, is standard.
“A suction abortion is not appropriate at 20 weeks,” said Vicki Saporta, president of the federation….
Other doctors who performed abortions at the clinics include:
* Torrance-based Mohamed Dia, who surrendered his license in 1999. He admitted to the medical board that he used a van to bring a bleeding patient to a hospital after perforating her uterus and leaving part of the fetus in her body during a 1996 abortion at Clinica Medica.
* San Diego-based osteopath Laurence Reich, who surrendered his license in 2006 after pleading no contest to misdemeanor criminal charges of sexually exploiting two patients during abortions in 2000 at clinics not associated with Bugarin. His conviction was expunged in 2004 after he completed a yearlong probationary period and paid the court a $100 restitution fine, according to a Van Nuys court file.
One of the patients, Sherman Oaks resident Yvette Chambers, 43, said in a phone interview that Reich groped her breasts and asked explicit questions during an abortion at a Van Nuys clinic.
An earlier board accusation in 1982 had accused Reich of sexual abuse in three cases in 1981 and 1979. Reich asked the women to masturbate and rubbed their genital areas, according to the accusation, which led the board to put Reich on probation for 10 years until 1994. Reich could not be reached for comment, and his attorney, Santwier, declined to comment.
* Santa Monica-based Glenn Edward Miller, an admitted alcoholic whose license was revoked by the medical board in 2005 due to repeated substance abuse relapses. Miller was on probation for performing obstetrical procedures while under the influence of alcohol when he began working in Bugarin clinics in about 2003, according to board records.
That same year, Miller and Rand settled a malpractice lawsuit filed by a woman who said they gave her an abortion at a non-Bugarin clinic in 2002 even though she was not pregnant, rupturing her uterus in the process, court records said. Miller could not be reached for comment.
* George Dalton Flanigan, who was hired as an independent contractor at five Bugarin clinics in 2002, according to court documents. That same year, at an unnamed hospital, he delivered a dead baby using a vacuum procedure after refusing to perform a cesarean section, according to a board accusation that led to a 2007 decision to put him on probation for five years. Both Flanigan and his former attorney Arthur Selesnick declined to comment.”
There’s much more…please read the entire LA Times article here!
Puke. This is a disgrace. Where is NOW? They should be all over this. Do we see them speaking out against this outrage towards women? As usual, of course not.
Abortion proponents, do you REALLY think this is the exception to the rule? If you do, you’re willfully ignorant. It’s that simple.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Where are the so called conservative Latinos and Hispanics that we are always hearing about? Why don’t they do something to stop these clinics in the areas where they live and killing future generations? If that demographic were true am sure those clinics would of been closed long ago by angry mobs.
Sanger’s dream of limiting the others lives on. Yeah, where the heck is NOW and Ms. Mag and Sherly Crow?
Where’s FF?
She’s always the first to hop on and make a sarcastic comment and post and unsourced biased study. Can’t think of a quick sarcastic comment and find an unsourced study that proves unlicensed abortionists and senile doctors are good for women’s health FF?
Where’s Sally?? Oh, that’s right, on another related thread she claims the women who recieved abortions at this clinic were OK with the services provided by unlicensed derelects so there really is no problem here.
Where’s Hal? Oh, that’s right. His wife was serviced by a Limousine abortionist. This wouldn’t affect him.
I agree Mario, where is Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Aniston, Sybil Shepard, Ashely Judd?
I guess they are too busy to speak out against the illegal abortions going on in 2008?
Can’t think of a quick sarcastic comment and find an unsourced study that proves unlicensed abortionists and senile doctors are good for women’s health FF?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ve never claimed that quacks don’t exist.
Gee, the worst practitioners in all of medicine are Obstetricians. They get sued more than doctors in any other specialty, and considering the numbers of successful lawsuits against them, must butcher women and children every day.
When are you people going to outlaw pregnancy and childbirth so that these quacks stop exacting carnage upon the innocent?
Laura,
You make these claims all the time. This time I’m calling you on it…show me multitudes of successful lawsuits. Show me where these ob/gynies have been sued for raping their patients. Or not having running water in their offices. Or have human remains in their refrigerators next to their lunch. Or have left their patients to bleed to death while they took a phone call. Or neglected to send their office patients to an emergency room. Or where they called an ambulance but refused to tell the 9ll operator why they were calling. Or…oh, what’s the use…
MK,
You beat me to it. FF, that’s all the better you can come up with? You use this lame claim all the time. By comparing OB/GYNs to these dirty filthy money grubbing abortionists you are clearly operating with sand in your eyes.
Why do you guys even bother with FF/Laura, the Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of this blog – sorry, just Mr. Hyde! No split here.
Her comments are so over the top and show evidence of a lack of higher brain stem function.
FF/L would prefer to remain in the dark FOREVER about abortion. That’s her CHOICE.
Sometimes, we get what we ask for.
What’s really twisted is there are pro-lifers who favor strict clinic regulations and Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and NOW oppose them. You’d think this would be a case where pro-aborts SUPPORT clinic regulations. And pro-lifers need to oppose ANY regulations because we oppose abortion clinics COMPLETELY.
Excuse me?
The average OB can expect to be sued 2-3 times over the course of a career. Their malpractice premiums can run well into 6 figures because of the ginormous settlements the insurance companies have to pay out for their sloppy mistakes.
There are a lot of articles about this phenomenon. have one:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/healthcare/2002-07-01-malpractice.htm
FF –
Most of the lawsuits I know about against OB/GYN are basically frivolous and if the “patient” wins it is usually overturned on first appeal. So, I agree with MK – and I would like to see what happened on appeals as well.
One lawsuit against an OB/GYN in Ohio – The woman ripped during delivery and she filed a lawsuit because she didn’t get an episiotomy. She lost on appeal because she signed documentation stating she wanted a “true childbirth experience with limited medical interference”.
What I have found numbing in my research is the amount of abortionist that get second, third, fourth chances before their lisence get revoked. One abortionist, Mi Kim, had more than enough chances with alot of blood on her hands before she stopped. In 1997 her clinical privaleges were suspended at the hospital she used for emergencys. This was becuase of a botched abortion where a C-Section had to be performed to save the mother. In 2002 a patient died because she didn’t order proper tests to be done before the abortion; improperly administered Versed; She didn’t check for a pulse before ordering an oxygen mask for the patient; She was not certified in advanced cardiopulminary life support or competent to perform intubations and no one in her office new how to use the crash cart.
She was still in practice after this and in 2005 she advertised her practice was a licensed clinic when it wasn’t; kept inadequant control substance logs; on 13 patients she didn’t have an anesethsiologist on record; on 2 patients she did not have informed consent on anesthesia filled out properly; in 2006 she was inspected by the department of health and it was discovered that on 16 patients she didn’t do a check up on them before the abortion; had missing vicoden; she had the medical assistant do the follow up exams; and she did not have the appropriate staff as required by law before performing abortions.
She did not loose her license until April 11, 2007.
I didn’t even list all the problems she had before she finally lost her license. Who know if she is still practicing though…..
Abortion really is a seamy industry and this L.A. Times article is just one of many that have surfaced over the years exposing brutal assaults on women by hacks and incompetents.
But it need not have come to this if those on the pro-choice side of the equation would take seriously their oft stated concern that abortions should be rare. When (then president-elect) Bill Clinton issued his famous “abortions should be safe, legal but rare” obfuscation it simply meant that the status quo would not be challenged in any significant way. In fact quite the opposite occured. He used it as a springboard to support his first act as president in lifting restrictions on federal monies promoting abortion abroad. It was just a way for him and those who support abortion to hide behind a meaningless faux concern about the issue. Every major effort on the part of pro-lifers to limit the number of abortions was blocked by Bill. The populist president could not even bring himself to sign the ban on partial-birth abortions, something that poll after poll show 90 plus percent of Americans find abhorent.
Clearly there are political underpinnings that result in toleration of substandard care for women at these facilities. For example, try as we have in Illinois to get a law passed that would bring the standards at these facilities up to even the level of care and cleanliness mandated at other health clinics and we are met with irrational resistance from Democrats who see these things as weakening abortion rights. They would rather let these places operate without the high standards and the scrutiny of public health inspections and standards demanded of every other type of medical facility then to take a chance on abortions limited in any way whatsoever. Thus they share at least some of the responsibility for the awful conditions that results in substandard medical care.
Laura,
While that article was very interesting it did not list a single case of malpractice, let alone a case of the doctor raping his patient, leaving her to die or putting her body parts in the refrigerator. It talked about insurance premiums being jacked up.
The objections of NOW and other so-called woman’s groups to the regulation of abortion clinics speaks volumes about their actual disregard for real women. These groups receive tons of funding from abortionists and really have little support from regular women. Their baby boomer members are about as detached from the real needs of women as possible.
They want to argue on one hand that abortion clinics offer health services for women, but on the other that no standards or regulations are needed. Tattoo parlors are more highly regulated and require permission from parents. If woman’s groups really cared about women, they would want them to receive excellent care from excellent professionals — but that would be biting the hand that feeds them.
And once again, leave it up to the Pro-Lifers to bring this disgusting abortion mill to justice.
If the PLers weren’t around, this phony abortionist and her side kick sister would still be up and operating. The whole abortion industry is such a joke.
BTW Laura,
I haven’t heard a case of anyone opening up a clinic and pretending to be an OB/GYN.
If this were someone pretending to be a phony vet, I am sure you would be outraged.
What if the doc who impanted all of your plastic facewear was a phony and got caught? I bet you’d be the first to be outraged and file a lawsuit.
You guys are presenting anecdotal events, not a mean or trend.
The deathrate for abortion complications remains about 1 in 100,000.
The deathrate for liposuction complications is 19 in 100,000
If you’re so “pro-life,” why aren’t you marching and praying to shut down the evil fatsuckers?
Laura, put up or shut up. Where are all these ob-gyns that are raping, molesting, and practicing without license? How many of them have done these things and are still practicing? you keep bringing up frivolous lawsuits, but nothing substantial.
Yet, we can name hundreds, literally hundreds, of abortionists who have done these things over the last 30 or more years. AND not only this, but there are only about 752 abortion clinics in the US today (there used to be 2000). Out of 752, what is the ratio of abortion clinics to “bad” abortionists? And why are so many shut down? I mean, for 1248 abortion clinics to shut down in less than 30 years, something must be up.
Next, compare the number of Ob-gyn offices to the number of ob-gyns actually caught doing any of these things. I bet you’ll be surprised. But I know you won’t care.
The deathrate for abortion complications remains about 1 in 100,000.
Yet the deathrate for abortion remains over 100,000 in 100,000.
Anyone,
What has become of our Heather? Am I missing her somewhere? I haven’t seen her name in a long time.
Laura –
The reason the reports show that the maternal death rate for abortion is so low is because “death by abortion” is a rare one to put on a death certificate. Even the CDC admits that in their MMWR reports.
For the most part, in order to get our statistics we are dealing with inforamtion that is being provided on a voluntary basis. A woman may die of a perforated uterus, so that is what is listed on the Death Certificate – in the notes of the autopsy it will say that the perforation was from an abortion, but the notes are not what is placed in the “statistic pool”. OR abortion could be listed as a secondary reason for death, but secondary doesn’t get reported, it is the primary.
Liposuction has mandated reporting. Because of this if liposuction is listed as the reason for cause of death in the notes, or as secondary reason, it is mandated by law it be reported. No such thing with abortion.
Also, why would we march on a plastic surgeon? Isn’t it the PCers who complain that if you scratch your skin your killing humans – or some such nonsense. I think it would be the PCers who would want that stopped because of all the “death of fat” that happens. PLers do believe that women have choices. We just don’t believe terminating a developing human being should be one of them, just as terminating a developing human being we can see can’t be done either. If a woman wants her fat sucked, thats up to her, as long as the Dr. provides her with the risks that involve liposuction. Oh wait – isn’t that something else that the PCers don’t want – having an abortionist provide the woman with the facts of an abortion. Goodness knows we wouldn’t want a woman who requests to see an ultrasound actually get one – that would be providing her with to much information, even if it is her that wants it.
Also, we are reporting a trend. We are reporting time and time and time again when an abrotion clinic gets closed down for running an abortion clinic in conditions that an animal hospital wouldn’t be found in. The PCers just don’t want to admit this, so you hide behind the delusion that it rarely happens, even when it is up in your face.
We have this one that is posted. There were 2 clinics in NJ last year – one had 106 PAGES of health violations, there were 3 or 4 in florida that were investigated and/or closed down. then there is the abortionist that I listed that lost her license. All this in a year. Imagine what we could find out if the national media actually reported this sort of thing on the news!
“Yet the deathrate for abortion remains over 100,000 in 100,000.”
Right on, sister!
Laura,
keep up. We’re not talking about safety of birth versus safety of abortion.
We’re talking about doctors practicing without licenses, leaving patients to die, not calling ambulances, not having sterilized instruments…
If you want to discuss safety issues that’s fine, but one topic at a time.
This post is about yet another abortionist being shut down because they were breaking the law. Because there are no regulations for abortion clinics. We are discussing the lack of outrage by the prochoice side when it is their women that are being hurt and put in danger because these places are not being regulated…
Jerry 5:13PM
We all know the great esteem and respect in which Bill Clinton has always held women. He’s right up there with that other feminist icon and abortion supporter, Ted Kennedy. What does one expect from someone who views women as playthings?
valerie, not to mention that a lot of the obstetric malractice cases I’ve seen — the obstetrician in question was also a practicing abortionist.
It’s a chicken and the egg thing. Did the fact that they were just quacks lead them to simply slide into the quack’s last best refuge: abortion? Or did the slipshod carelessness so rife in abortion practice spill over into their obstetric practices?
With Nabil Ghali, it seemed to be the former.
LB, for all their talk about prolifers “putting the unborn ahead of the born”, it’s the prochoicers who do so. The possible preferences of women who haven’t even been conceived yet trump the lives of women undergoing abortions right now.
FetusFacist, we’ve already established that the CDC just puts in a perfunctory effort toward counting abortion mortality. I did six months of research looking into exactly how they tabulate their abortion mortality data, and I’m not the only one to have looked into this.
Life Dynamics found abortion deaths the CDC overlooked. Kevin Sherlock did an extensive study of abortion deaths in the 1980s and concluded that during the 1980’s alone, the CDC missed at least 45 deaths, an increase of 42% over the 108 deaths the CDC had counted.
So you can cite data shown to be bogus all you want. All it demostrates is that you’re willing to use bogus information to further your argument.
Bethany,
You ask where is N.O.W.? They’d certainly be howling like banshees if these were illegal abortionists, crying how the legalization of abortion is necessary to put these hacks out of business.
Now let’s return to the real world where N.O.W. puts its political agenda ahead of the welfare of women. The deafening silence on the antics of Bill Clinton and the denigrating of the women who accused him. Didn’t the N.O.W. leader in NY whine about Ted Kennedy’s support of Obama, claiming how “women” have been patient with Ted and forgiving. Speak for yourself lady.
This speaks volumes concerning N.O.W.’s concern for women.
Christina —
Thanks for the link to a very interesting article.
Exposing the true lack of care by the pro-choicers is really important in changing hearts and minds. Once people see how the supposed ‘care’ providers are in this business for the money, it should open eyes. The fact that the big “womens” organizations are allies in the abortion business and are willing to let horrible conditions and quacks operate show their colors.
Prolife is about life; pro-choice is about making money.
“Abortion proponents, do you REALLY think this is the exception to the rule?”
I have no way of knowing. How many doctors perform abortions in the US? How many are doing it right and how many are doing it wrong? Then I’ll know which is the exception and which is the rule.
If this is a common problem, let’s figure out a way to fix it. How can we encourage the best ob/gyn’s to perform abortions in ideal settings? Is it money? Is it the abuse that they suffer from some pro-lifers? Is it moral or political? Has anyone surveyed ob/gyn’s who do and who do not perform abortions and try to figure it out?
The bottom line, Hal, is ob/gyn’s don’t want to perform abortions. The best ob/gyn’s practice to SAVE their patients – ALL of them.
Abortionists are bottom feeders.
that’s one theory Patricia, but I don’t know if it’s fact. Someone should ask them.
It’s a well known fact that very few medical students and even fewer certified doctors opt for doing abortions.
In Canada, we have no abortion law,meaning anyone can get an abortion – yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain an abortion.Why? There are simply NO doctors willing to do the procedure. Some provinces cannot do them because NO ONE is WILLING to do abortions.
It is stigmatized within the profession and often those with poor marks in medical school opt for abortion training.
Even the proabort feminists lament this fact and want medical schools to “ENCOURAGE” students to consider abortion as a viable (no pun intended) option.
Obviously, it’s not going over too well.
Could it be Hal, that people want to enter medicine to HELP others – hard to see how you’re doing that when arms, legs, and mushed heads come out of a “procedure”.
“It’s a well known fact….”
Maybe. I don’t know all the “well known facts” regarding this issue. I don’t know doctors don’t want to do abortions, and–if so– I don’t know WHY doctors don’t want to do abortions.
I was talking to a Pediatrician the other day. Her daughter is in her late 30s and pregnant for the first time. She spoke very matter of factly about her daughter wondering whether to “terminate” the pregnancy or not, and was very understanding of the choice her daughter was faced with. I don’t think she would have had any ill feelings if her daughter aborted, even though she is the only surviving child and this would have been the first and probably only grandchild.
I don’t know if this female doctor ever performed abortions (I assume not, it’s not what pediatricians do) but she was clearly and unabashedly pro choice.
The bottom line, Hal, is ob/gyn’s don’t want to perform abortions. The best ob/gyn’s practice to SAVE their patients – ALL of them.
Abortionists are bottom feeders.
Posted by: Patricia at February 8, 2008 8:50 PM
………………………………………………
Ob/Gyns are not pediatricians, Or fetusticians for that matter. A good OB/Gyn knows how to perform abortions. Abortions are often necessary to preserve the health and reproductive abilities of women.
There are people in all walks of life that pass themselves off as something they are not. Look at Reardon.
Why you people pretend that you give a rat’s patooty about conditions in clinics is just beyond comprehension. Your only agenda is to send women to back alleys. You take glee in digging up and exploiting anything you can find even slightly pertaining to abortion providers. If you spent the same time and energy obsessing about any other profession you’d find exactly the same amount of stuff to be all outraged over.
ARCC (abortion rights coalition of Canada) has been attempting for the past 2 years to recruit doctors to perform abortions without success.
I think it’s sick that a woman whose speciality is the care of children would be ambivalent about the murder of her “grandchild”.
As for the don’t know part – try to think a little DEEPER Hal.
Some key words, human, blood, body parts, baby, arms, legs, dismembered, unborn baby…….
Sorry Sally,
But a competent ob will tell you that abortions are RARELY if EVER necessary to save the life of a mother.
This is a myth promulgated by the radical feminists to scare women into believing that they are INCAPABLE of having children under certain circumstances or any circumstances and that both pregnancy and labour are DANGEROUS.
In fact an abortion is likely to damage not only the woman’s reproductive organs but to impair her emotionally and place her at substantial increased risk for various cancers.
And I “obsess” about a the “profession” of abortion providers because they kill children – our future, at the expense of convenience, relationships and so forth.
I was talking to a Pediatrician the other day. Her daughter is in her late 30s and pregnant for the first time. She spoke very matter of factly about her daughter wondering whether to “terminate” the pregnancy or not, and was very understanding of the choice her daughter was faced with. I don’t think she would have had any ill feelings if her daughter aborted, even though she is the only surviving child and this would have been the first and probably only grandchild.
I don’t know if this female doctor ever performed abortions (I assume not, it’s not what pediatricians do) but she was clearly and unabashedly pro choice.
Posted by: Hal at February 8, 2008 9:29 PM
Hal,
Did she tell you the circumstances of her daughter’s pregnancy? Was her daughter raped?
Sally —
Why are you upset that anyone is outraged at the substandard and cruel treatment of women? Do you think the clinic in the article is okay? Don’t you think anyplace offering invasive care should have to meet some sort of standards?
Pro-abortion folks aren’t interesting in anything beyond the bottom line — making money. If they did, wouldn’t defend outfits like the one above or defend the quakes that are rampant in the field.
Hal —
So you just have conversations with doctors who openly talks about such personal information of a family member. She just revealed her daughter’s private information, and it’s no big deal if she offs the baby.
Can you please share this doctor’s name so I can make sure to avoid such an uncaring and unprofessional person?
Hal –
A recent poll of OB/GYNs (when I say recent, I mean in the last year – I can try to find it if you want…) showed that more than 90% said they would not perform “elective” abortion because of moral reasons. Considering the perfered and safest meathod of abortion in the 1st trimester is a D&C and OB/GYN’s know how to do this there is no concern that they can’t do it because of medical reasons. And if an abortion needs to be performed in the 2nd trimester because of life/health of mother, they know how to do this because they know how to deliver stillborns. and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to kill a baby to make them stillborn.
Sally –
“Abortions are often necessary to preserve the health and reproductive abilities of women. ”
Often? Really? Abortions for life/health of mother AND gross fetal deformity make up only 7% of all abortions in the US. This is according to the CDC and Guttmatcher Institute. (I read one report where life/health of mother was less than 3% but I cannot remember if that was from a biased source or not.)
Even if stories like this one appeared everyday in papers across the country, the PCers, and Feminists would still find a way to deny them and say it’s all a scam…when in fact THEY are the ones responsible for the biggest scam of all: That Roe eliminated FOREVER the butcher abortionists, guaranteed absolute safety of all abortions at all stages at all times and saved hundreds upom thousands of women’s lives who otherwise would have perished at the hands of quacks.
Yeah…right.
Sally 9:34PM
Send women back to the back alley? It sounds like the back alley moved up to the avenue and put up a shingle. Now the back alley dregs can conduct their business legally on unsuspecting and vulnerable women.
PL people “pretend” to give a “rat’s patooty” about these appalling conditions? Well that’s certainly a lot more than can be said about NARAL and NOW who don’t even pretend to be concerned.
You GO, Mary !
Wait a minute here…I’ve obviously gotten this wrong from the beginning.
The PCers and the Feminists, and the Pro-aborts, under all their various pseudonyms, have said all along that abortion empowers women. They aren’t about to speak against these quacks and their clinics because after all, Gonzales and her ilk are HEROES for the cause of women maintaining this EMPOWERMENT…by risking their own careers, their bank accounts, and their own personal freedoms so that women can STILL get their abortions…even if a few have to die along the way, like martyrs for their cause.
They’re willing to overlook a “few” dirty clinics, unlicensed practitioners, gross negligence, perverts, child rape, incest, mutilation of patients, dead women, ad nauseum, …anything to keep women “empowered”.
Why didn’t I get this before now?
Being male, I feel like I’m getting gypped here:
I’ll NEVER get to appreciate this incredible sense of empowerment women get from having their cervix forced open, a vacuum hose (29 times more powerful than a household dirt devil) or cold steel vice-grips shoved up inside their uterus to suction out or dismember their baby, bleed all over, then crawl off some table and be able to shout to the world: “I have just experienced the ultimate level of EMPOWERMENT”.
Damn. I have the worst luck.
I don’t know if this female doctor ever performed abortions (I assume not, it’s not what pediatricians do) but she was clearly and unabashedly pro choice.
It’s much easier to be pro-choice than to be an abortionist, Hal.
From the book, Lime 5 by Mark Crutcher:
In 1973, over half of all abortions were performed in hospitals. Today, well over 90 percent are done in free-standing clinics. This has resulted in the abortion industry not only being physically isolated from mainstream medicine, but philosophically isolated as well. Abortionists are the first to admit that this is true. Life Dynamics, posing as a pro-choice organization called Project Choice, sent a survey to 961 doctors who do abortions as their primary business. Having received a large response, it can be considered reliable. Among others, questions were asked regarding the way abortionists perceive their place within the broader medical community:
69 percent felt that they were not respected by the rest of the medical community.
65 percent felt ostracized for doing abortions.
61 percent have been verbally confronted by a pro-life physician.
60 percent feel their prestige has been damaged because they do abortions.
51 percent feel isolated from the medical community for doing abortions.
19 percent haev been denied hospital privileges because they perform abortions.
not only is the abortion industry isolated from the legitimate medical community, occasionally abortionists are even isolated from others within the abortion industry.
Abortionist Warren Hern once observed, “Increasingly, doctors have been made to feel irrelevant. Feminist abortion clinics treat doctors like technicians and are especially contemptuous of male physicians. Entrepreneurs who treat abortion strictly as a retail business also
tend to treat doctors as technicians. Doctors who perform abortions have usually acquiesced in these roles, and their status has plummeted lower than that of physicians who do insurance company examinations”
(source: 3-13-93 New York Times)
Skip a few pages, and here’s more:
Emotional abandonment:
When we were conducting the Project Choice survey, we encountered a very interesting phenomenon. Within the abortion industry, there is often bitter animosity between what we call the “doers” and the “talkers” (Hal, your ped would be the “talker”.)
While there is some overlap generally speaking, talkers are the people who work in the public and political arena to keep abortion legal. Doers are the ones who work in the abortion clinics. We found that the talkers tend to view doers as the ghouls of the movement who perform the disgusting, but necessary, dirty-work.
Meanwhile, the doers think the talkers are a bunch of prima donnas who live to go on national television and talk about what a terrific thing abortion is, but couldn’t stomach watching one if their lives depended on it.
Over 78 percent of abortionists who responded to the Project Choice survey said they don’t get enough support from pro-choice activists, and some were downright hostile about it. One doctor complained, “I have heard women state they go to Dr. ‘X’ because he’s pro-choice. These various Dr. X’s frequently talk a good game, and have busy practices, but I have yet to see them provide abortions. Privately tehy tell me they are afraid to lose the patients and physician referrals. I wish I had the luxury of reaping the rewards of being pro-choice without the above problems.”
Another wrote: “The pro-choice majority has done nothing to support physicians who provide abortion service. It seems that even pro-choice women are reluctant to go to an office that provides abortion care, for fear that they may be thought to be obtaining an abortion.”
There’s a LOT more but I think this has been sufficient to prove my point (plus, my fingers are tired from typing this all out) lol
Mike,
An excellent post but I’m afraid you overlooked another very empowering experience for women, that being the sexual abuse abortionists have inflicted on vulnerable women. Women they know are not likely to report this abuse. What gives women a greater sense of empowerment than being abused by a sexual predator?
Bethany,
An excellent post. I have worked in the nursing field in one capacity or another for close to 40 years and have seen so much of what you write.
There is indeed an underlying contempt for abortion and abortionists though they will be tolerated. The “doers” and “talkers”, absolutely no question there. The “doers” definitely have a point.
I have to admit that more than a few doctors expressing this contempt have not been above sending a pregnant mistress or two to the local abortionist for a discreet abortion. Certainly a little hypocrisy where this “contempt” is concerned.
I’ve heard plenty of lip service to “choice”, but dirty their own hands? Never!
Its like the person who supports legalizing drugs but doesn’t want to be seen doing business with the local dealer.
PC women are embarassed to go to an office providing abortions because someone might think they’re having one? It seems efforts to make abortion respectable both in and out of the medical community have met with the same success as putting lipstick on a pig.
Patricia 9:49PM
Very true. Thankfully in this day and age, it rarely comes down to the life of the mother versus that of the unborn. There was a time when women with rheumatic heart disease were signing their death warrants if they became pregnant. Better treatment of RHD dramatically decreased the death rate as did the eradication of the disease.
Even if there is any threat to the woman’s life or health, she need only go to the nearest hospital equipped to care for her. She can get whatever care she needs, including abortion, safely and legally. This has always been the case and Roe v Wade was never necessary to save a woman’s life or protect her health.
“So you just have conversations with doctors who openly talks about such personal information of a family member. She just revealed her daughter’s private information, and it’s no big deal if she offs the baby.”
She’s a relative. I don’t think you’ll run into her. She mostly retired, but still teaches part time at a major medical school. Her daughter was not raped, but in a relationship with a boyfriend.
The way it came up was as an explanation of why she didn’t tell us for several months about the pregnancy. “She wasn’t sure if she was going to go through with the pregnancy or not” (not her exact words, but something like that.)
We all know the great esteem and respect in which Bill Clinton has always held women. He’s right up there with that other feminist icon and abortion supporter, Ted Kennedy. What does one expect from someone who views women as playthings?
Mary, I agree with you on this. I remember a couple decades ago Teddy was drunk and chasing a woman or some women around on a beach – “big, drunk, pink and hairy,” was the description of him. Had to laugh….
Doug
Doug 4:50PM
Ptui! Doesn’t exactly make a girl’s imagination run wild.
CrankyCatholic said:
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What’s really twisted is there are pro-lifers who favor strict clinic regulations and Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and NOW oppose them. You’d think this would be a case where pro-aborts SUPPORT clinic regulations. And pro-lifers need to oppose ANY regulations because we oppose abortion clinics COMPLETELY.
Posted by: CrankyCatholic at February 8, 2008 4:57 PM
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CC,
Even if we can’t stop them completely we still need to reduce the evil as much as possibly while we work to eliminate it. For example the partial-birth-abortion ban. What a blessed achievement. But you are correct in that there is absolutely no need for abortion mills. If a woman’s health was ever in danger due to a pregnancy a full service hospital would be better anyway.
Even if we can’t stop them completely we still need to reduce the evil as much as possibly while we work to eliminate it. For example the partial-birth-abortion ban. What a blessed achievement.
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The “PBA” ban didn’t prevent one single abortion.
Not one.
FF,
Why/how can you blind yourself to the truth like that??? Abortionists testified as to how they were performing the procedure at the Supreme Court hearing where PP was fighting for the right to “continue” performing them. To say otherwise would either be ignorant or putting yourself in denial.
Ptui! Doesn’t exactly make a girl’s imagination run wild.
Heh – Mary, need I remind you that you’re not “every girl…”
And of course, jes’ kiddin’…
Being male, I feel like I’m getting gypped here: I’ll NEVER get to appreciate this incredible sense of empowerment women get from having their cervix forced open, a vacuum hose (29 times more powerful than a household dirt devil) or cold steel vice-grips shoved up inside their uterus to suction out or dismember their baby, bleed all over, then crawl off some table and be able to shout to the world: “I have just experienced the ultimate level of EMPOWERMENT”.
Well Mike, perhaps if you were female and had an unwanted pregnancy it’d be different.
As things are now, guess what?
Doug