Abortion – Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information

I recently decided to have a colonoscopy.  I’m at that age, saw enough commercials warning me about what could happen if I didn’t get one, so I figured it was time to do it.  I ran to Google and started looking for a doctor in my area who did the procedure.  Got the phone number and called for an appointment.

Ten days later, I was in the doctor’s office.  I filled out my medical history (since I was a new patient), was handed a bunch of brochures and escorted into a small room, you know, the kind that has Time Magazines from 1985 and a article haphazardly taped onto the bare white wall.  Then, the doctor barges into the room, holding a clipboard, introduces himself and then, without making eye contact, proceeds to tell me about the procedure.  As I start to doze off, he suddenly leaps up and tells me he wants me to now look at a DVD about colonoscopys.  How exciting! 

I make it through the fifteen minute movie and he comes back in and asks if I have any questions. 

“Nope,” I reply. 

“Okay, then,” he says, “let’s get you scheduled for the procedure.”  

Two weeks later, I have the colonoscopy and everything looks good. 

That process sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it?   I mean, whether the surgery is necessary or elective, you always go to the facility first for a consultation, to do the paperwork, etc.  Normally, it’s a rather short visit.  Sure, it’s inconvenient to have to take time off from work, but that’s just the way it is. 

Supporters of legal abortion are proud to say that it is the most common surgical procedure a woman will ever have.  I assume that is correct.  But if abortion is so “common,” then why do pro-choicers oppose the imposition of a 24 hour waiting period for a woman seeking an abortion?  Such laws have been proposed in numerous state legislatures and the pro-choice groups always object. 

Imposing a 24 hour waiting period would mean that the woman would go to the clinic for the initial consult, just like I did with my colonoscopy, then she would come back the next day or next week and have her surgery, just like I did.  Currently, however, a pregnant woman who wants an abortion just calls the clinic and sets up the appointment.  She goes to the clinic and everything is packed into those few hours. 

Now, I get that in some states a woman has to travel hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion and that if she were forced to wait 24 hours after her initial visit, it would mean having to stay overnight at a hotel or a friend’s house.  But don’t some people have to do the same when they need some very specialized form of surgery (e.g., if they have to fly to the Mayo Clinic)? 

I also understand how it is insulting to women when pro-lifers say they need to think about the abortion a little more, as if they hadn’t thought about it already.  That is demeaning.   And I know that they’re ultimate goal is to just make it more difficult to get an abortion.   

But putting aside the political angle and speaking from a purely medical point of view, is it really good medicine to let a woman come straight to the clinic and have surgery?    Is it not possible that it might be easier on a woman if she came into the clinic one day, saw the office (remember, many people have very negative images of the inside of abortion clinics), talked about the (emotionally difficult) procedure and then come back soon thereafter?   Is it not possible that she could be a better patient, one that is not so full of anxiety? 

Somebody out there help me sort this one out!

A number of years ago, the pro-life movement discovered the “partial birth abortion.”  This particular kind of abortion was developed by a physician in Ohio.  Basically, he would inject a needle into the head of the fetus and remove the contents so the head would shrink.  Then, he would bring the dead fetus down the birth canal.  He developed this procedure to mitigate the possible trauma that a large head could cause the woman. 

Not surprisingly, the pro-life movement reacted with horror, calling upon the Congress to ban its practice.  This procedure thus became the subject of great national debate for many years. 

Because there has always been a disconnect between the pro-choice organizations and the abortion clinics, pro-choice leaders were caught by surprise.  Suddenly, they were being forced to defend an actual abortion procedure and their first reaction was to “apologize.”     Their first response was that only a few hundred of these procedures were performed each year and that they were only done in “tragic” circumstances where the woman’s life was endangered or if there was a severe fetal abnormality. 

The problem was that what they were saying was not true. 

Ultimately, the press started doing their own research and newspapers like the Washington Post and the Bergen County Record learned that there were many more of these procedures being performed and most of them were performed in the late second trimester where there were no extenuating circumstances.   Ultimately, the shit hit the fan when a little-known pro-choice advocate talked frankly about the procedure, describing when the procedure was done and how many times, basically verifying the previous newspaper reports.  The pro-choice community, as you can imagine, was pissed – despite the fact that this pro-choice advocate had been giving them the facts about this procedure for over a year.  Despite his pleas to “fess up” about the procedure, they continued to tout the “it’s not done often and only in tragic circumstances” line. 

The revelations of this pro-choice advocate made the front page of every newspaper in the country, embarrassing his colleagues.  Suddenly, the pro-choice groups had to come up with a new argument because the pro-life movement was getting very close to passing the law banning this procedure.  So, the pro-choice groups switched gears and said that passage of the bill would expose most abortion doctors to criminal prosecution because the “partial birth abortion” was not clearly defined and the ban could extend to any kind of abortion procedure.    

Well, it is now over a decade since this issue was in the forefront of the national consciousness and the “partial birth abortion” procedure is now outlawed, the legislation having been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

And to this day not one abortion doctor has been prosecuted under this law. 

At the same time, not one abortion has been prevented by this law because abortion doctors who perform later abortions have other methods of terminating the pregnancy. 

And what was this furor all about?

Yesterday I wrote about how the woman who was the plaintiff in the Roe v Wade case ultimately “converted” to the pro-life cause.  Since then, the leaders of the pro-life movement have touted her change of heart as if her conversion really means anything.   In this case, I don’t think it means diddly squat in the grand scheme of things. 

On the other hand, for years Doctor Bernard Nathanson ran the largest abortion clinic in the country in New York City and he performed thousands and thousands of abortions over the years, many of them late in the pregnancy.  I believe he was even on the Board of Directors of the National Abortion Rights Action League.   Then, at some point, he announced that he would no longer perform abortions and that he was converting to the pro-life cause.  The pro-choice movement was understandably dumfounded, did not have a response.  Doctor Nathanson ultimately went on to produce the film, “The Silent Scream,” which reported was the first film which showed an actual abortion. 

Then, years later a nurse who worked in a clinic that performed the “Partial Birth Abortion” resigned in protest and became a national spokesperson for the pro-life movement. 

So, what do these conversions mean? 

Well, I guess these conversions are certainly small PR points for the pro-life side.  The conversion of Doctor Nathanson is rather interesting to me in that he really did give up a very lucrative medical practice.   If I were on their side, I definitely would have exploited his change of heart for all it was worth.   

But, on an almost daily basis clinics that perform abortions see their own “conversions.”   They see people who thought they were pro-life and were now coming in for abortions.  I’ve talked to many, many abortion providers over the years and they would relate to me the stories of women who would come in and tell them they are against abortion, but…

Several years ago, a doctor in North Carolina told me a fascinating conversion story.   Every Saturday, a woman would camp out in front of his clinic and hold up a sign saying “Abortion is Murder.”  She would cry out to the women as they entered the clinic, urging them to come over and talk to her before they “killed their baby.”  At times, the doctor would actually stop and talk to her about why he performed abortions and, ultimately, they struck up a civil relationship. 

Then, after protesting in front of the clinic for almost two years, this woman’s daughter got pregnant.  A few days later, as the doctor was walking into the clinic, the woman asked him to come over.  “I couldn’t believe it,” he told me years later.  “She told me her daughter was pregnant and that they had talked about the possibly of getting an abortion.”  To his credit, the doctor held his tongue and told the woman to come into the clinic after hours when there was no staff around and to bring in her daughter. 

That night, he talked to both of them about her options and the abortion procedure.  Ultimately,  they decided to have the abortion.  A week later, he asked a discreet staff person to remain at the clinic after hours and, with her help, he quietly performed the abortion.  He never asked the woman if she thought it was a little hypocritical of her to bring her daughter in for an abortion. 

“A week later,” he told me, “she was back out in front of the clinic telling women that they shouldn’t murder their babies.” 

I say chalk one up for our side.

The pro-life movement likes to brag about how they have made a number of “conversions” over the years. The activists who stand in front of clinics and perform “sidewalk counseling” love to tell us how they talked a woman into not having an abortion that day. They call it a “save.” What they don’t realize, of course, is that that woman probably told them she wouldn’t have the abortion just to get them out of her face and later made an appointment at a different clinic that didn’t have protestors.

Pro-lifers also have made a big deal out of the fact that they converted a woman named Norma McCorvey to the pro-life side. In 1973, Ms McCorvey was the plaintiff in the Roe v Wade case. She was “Jane Roe,” picking that name to remain anonymous. As we all know “Jane Roe” ultimately prevailed in Court and it was the Roe v Wade decision that paved the way for legal abortion in this country. Many years later, Norma McCorvey came out and announced that she was the famous “Jane Roe.” She hit the book tour circuit, became the darling of the pro-choice movement, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the cause. She also started working at an abortion clinic in Dallas, Texas.

At some point, the anti-abortion group “Operation Rescue” moved into the building right next to that clinic and the head of the operation, Mr. Flip Benham, started talking to Norma. Ultimately, Benham convinced Norma that everything she stood for had been wrong and with great fanfare she announced, with Flip at her side, that she was now pro-life. Headlines everywhere, interviews on Larry King. She suddenly was the darling of the pro-life movement. Of course, Flip Benham sought to maximize this conversion for all it was worth. This “leader” of the pro-choice movement had suddenly gone to the other side, she now saw the truth and, parenthetically, please send me $100 today to help us continue our good work.

The fact is that Norma McCorvey was just a single woman who wanted an abortion and she met a lawyer who convinced her to challenge the law in Texas that restricted her ability to get one. By being in the right place at the right time, she became a pro-choice celebrity. But, of course, when she switched Operation Rescue, et al used her and I don’t blame them one bit. In many ways, the pro-choice movement did the same.

This was a very high profile conversion but in my next post I will talk about other, less publicized conversions of pro-lifers to the pro-choice side.

Stay tuned.

On a separate thread, the one about the movie “Precious,” we are having a good discussion about whether or not a 22 week abortion constitutes killing a baby.  A pro-life advocate posed the question about a week ago, asking an active pro-choicer if a 22 week pregnancy was a “baby,” and, if so, did the abortion constitute “killing?” 

That pro-choicer has, at this point, avoided the question.  He seems rather intelligent, but it bothers me that he has yet to answer this delicate question.  I have called him out on this, arguing that to be pro-choice means having to defend an abortion at this late stage (or later).  Yes, I know that most abortions do not occur at this stage, but some do.  Women do go to a clinic at that stage and have abortions and the clinic staff does not need to ask why she has waited that long.   She can come in and, no questions asked, abort a 22 week fetus. 

Now, pro-choicers can respond with generalities like “it’s the woman’s right,” which is true.  But if we ever hope to win the hearts and minds of the general public, we need to be able to look them in the face and explain what is happening with a 22 week (or even later) abortion.    

When my daughter was at 22 weeks and I looked at the ultrasound, I saw a baby.  No doubt about it.  I saw the head, the feet, the fingers.   It was certainly not a fetus.  Imagine a woman at a similar stage in her pregnancy who feels the need to abort.  That baby is very much alive at that point (although not viable) and, after the surgery, that baby is not alive.  What happened in the interim?   Do pro-choicers really believe that a “fetus” was just “terminated?”   Gimme a break.

Okay, so by now a number of my pro-choice colleagues are ready to kill, uh, abort, me now, right? 

Well, stick with me for one more second.

First of all, this country sanctions killing in certain circumstances.  The state of Utah just killed a convicted murderer by firing squad.  In some states, we allow families to pull the plug on a relative.   And, of course, we send young Americans overseas to kill Osama and his thugs.  I just put abortion into that category of sanctioned killing.  

Most importantly, however, is that the words just don’t matter!   No matter what we call it, no matter what words we put out there, it doesn’t matter to those women who feel the need to abort at that late stage (or any stage for that matter).   Indeed, to think that our saying that abortion “kills a baby” is going to enlighten women is insulting to those women.  Women know exactly what is going on.  Indeed, they are the ones who are either using those words or at least thinking them. 

Now, I’m not saying that groups like the National Abortion Federation should a new tag line on their stationary that says “We Kill Babies.”  What I am saying is that we all know what is going on so don’t be afraid to say it.  This is the proverbial big elephant in the middle of the room.  Pro-choicers need to fess up.  You’ll feel a lot better if you do.

I subscribe to Netflix.  This is a movie program where you pay about $17 a month and you select three movies.  Those movies are sent to your house.   When you are done a movie, you stuff it back into the self addressed, self stamped envelope they provided, put it in your mailbox and within one, maybe two, days you receive the next movie in your queue.   It is very cool.     

The other night, I finally watched “Precious,” the story of a young African American girl whose life is basically a living hell.  Yes, I know there was a subtitle attached to the movie, but I can’t remember it.  Anyway, Precious is about 16 years old, in a tough inner city high school when her father rapes her.  Real pleasant stuff.   Not the kind of movie you watch during dinner. 

Precious already has a child.  I’m not sure when she had that one, but the baby looks about one year old.  She lives with her mother, who is an abusive, alcoholic living off “the welfare.”  Oh yeah, Precious is also very large physically and can hardly put two words together.  You’re getting the picture, right?   We’re not talking Ozzie and Harriet here.  

Ultimately, to add insult to injury, Precious learns that she is pregnant again from the rape. 

Now, I know movies are not real and that they exercise a lot of literary license.  I’m also not interested in criticizing the movie industry.  But I was really bothered by the fact that (according to the movie) Precious never even seemed to consider an abortion.  Raped by her own father, failing high school, one child at home being cared for by a wacked out mother, dependent on welfare.     

Hello out there!  

I mean, if there was a circumstance that cried out for an abortion, this was it.  

But, ultimately, she had the baby and at the end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT) she seems to be getting her act together to some extent after winning a writing contest.    

I don’t know what happened to the real Precious and whether or not she ever considered an abortion, but I can’t help but be bothered by two things – the fact that the movie never interjected the possibility of an abortion and whether or not the real-life Precious even considered it.  Let’s face it, no one wants to be catalogued as “pro-abortion” but in a case like this it’s hard for me to not think that the situation cried out for an abortion. 

Of course, I could never advocate “forced” abortions, but what pisses me off is that the anti-abortion movement has so stigmatized the abortion process that it has in some ways persuaded this woman, and women like her, to not even consider the option.  And the cycle of poverty persists.

I don’t know how many times I have heard pro-lifers say “a woman who has an abortion is just taking the easy way out.”  

Excuse me?

I’ll say right up front that I have very little patience when someone opines about a situation that they have never been in themselves.  It is way too easy to sit back and pontificate about the rest of the world, to look at the world through cookie cutter eyes and say that this is the way things should be. 

I don’t care if you are living in the South Bronx and your parents are on crack.  If you just get off of your butt and work hard you too can become a millionaire!   Easier said than done. 

I don’t care if your hormones are raging like a wildfire, you just can’t have sex until you get married.  Easier said than done. 

I don’t care if you had unprotected sex and the boy has disappeared and your parents are pressuring you to have an abortion.  You go have that child and do the best you can.  Easier said than done.

Let’s look at this more closely.

A woman has unprotected sex.  She goes home that night and immediately starts thinking about the chance she took.   She then has to wait a few weeks to see if she gets her period.  To suggest that she just goes about her daily business without thinking about the potential problem is naïve and insulting to women. 

Finally, the time arrives and her period does not come.  Now, she really starts to panic.  She talks to the man who was involved, if he is still around, she may talk to her parents or a girlfriend.  She decides that this is an anomaly and will wait another month for the next period.  It doesn’t come.  She gets a pregnancy test and discovers she is pregnant. 

Now what?   She thinks about her options (which she has already been thinking about for two months).   She is Catholic, so she is very concerned about an abortion.  She lives with her parents, has no visible means of support, can not imagine giving birth to a child.  Her parents, who she finally told, want her to get an abortion because they don’t want to be responsible for raising the child.   

Ultimately, she decides to have an abortion.   She goes through the Yellow Pages and sees numerous listings for abortion clinics, but she doesn’t know anything about them.  She has heard that there are “abortion mills” out there that harm women.  Which ones are the mills?  She calls several clinics and has different reactions.  The longer she waits, the more money it costs to have an abortion.    

She finally decides and makes the appointment.  That morning she goes in, runs through a gauntlet of anti-abortion protestors screaming “Don’t kill your baby”, and makes it to the waiting room in an agitated state of mind.  She sees the counselor and is finally brought to the surgery room.  She is shown pictures of fetal development that are required by the state and can see that there is a semblance of a baby there.  She goes ahead with the abortion.

After the abortion, she goes home to rest.  She starts thinking “what if” she had had the baby?  Has she done the right thing?  She may wonder about it for years and years.  She may ultimately come to regret her decision.

And this is “taking the easy way out?”

Abortion has been legal since January 22, 1973 when the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v Wade decision.  Since then, millions and millions of women have had abortions.  One statistic shows that 43% of all women in this country will have one abortion in their lifetime.  It is the most common surgical procedure performed on women. 

Yet, despite its common usage, abortion also remains the most stigmatized of any medical procedure.  No one talks about it openly.  Women will travel hundreds of miles to get an abortion instead of risk being seen walking into a clinic in their own neighborhood. Many women are ashamed that they have had abortions.    

The stigma just doesn’t affect women.  It affects those who work in the clinics, the doctors, nurses and other line staff.  They do not tell people what they do or, if they say anything, they’ll say they work in a “medical facility.”  The stigma extends even to the pro-choice organizations.  For decades, supporters of legal abortion have hidden behind the cloak of “choice” because, in my opinion, they are not comfortable with the actual procedure.  The fact is, however, that “choice” can lead to abortion but it has always seemed to me that the national organizations will provide support to the point when the woman “chooses” but, when she chooses abortion, she is on her own.    

That’s why years ago, the pro-choice movement got into a lot of trouble when anti-abortion organizations sought to outlaw the so-called “partial birth abortion.”  For the first time, the organizations were forced to talk about abortion – and they failed miserably.  They didn’t know the facts, they stumbled over the words, they didn’t know under what circumstances the procedure was performed and ultimately they were embarrassed nationally. 

If we ever hope to erase the abortion stigma, supporters of “choice” need to start talking more honestly about abortion which means that, first, they need to understand more about the procedure.   If supporters of “choice” do not start talking more about abortion, beginning with saying that they support legal abortion, we will not make any progress.  The pro-life movement will just continue to focus on the abortion procedure, they will continue to show the (somewhat accurate) pictures of dead fetuses, they will insist that it’s murder and will say that women regret their abortions.  If we don’t respond to these tough issues, we lose the long-term battle.   

I am pleased to say that there is one organization, the Abortion Care Network, that is facing this issue head on.  They are leading a “national conversation about abortion” in an effort to put everything on the table.  This is an organization of independent (i.e., non-Planned Parenthood) abortion providers that needs to be paid attention to and, yes, needs your support.

“Did you know that the abortionist gives the 30 week baby a saline solution that makes its body burn up and then the abortionist throws the baby into the incinerator with the other babies and burns them every night like the Nazis exterminated the Jews?”

“Did you know that the abortion mills sell the parts of the baby and make a lot of money?”

“Did you know that the notorious late term abortionist, George Tiller, performed thousands of third trimester abortions each year?”  

Over the years, in my capacity as a consultant for hundreds of abortion providers, I have listened to these charges by the pro-life movement.  While my pro-choice colleagues would always express outrage, my reaction has been one of sadness.

It makes me sad that most members of any organization, whether it is a pro-life group, the American Association of Retired People, the National Rifle Association or, yes, the National Abortion Rights Action League, all seem to take things at face value.   They go to their organization’s website, they attend a rally on the Mall, or they read a direct mail piece and they just figure that their organization is telling the truth. 

What they don’t seem to get is that these national organizations need to raise money and one way of doing that is to scare the crap out of their members.  And to do that, they sometimes stretch the truth.   

“President Obama is plotting to take away all of your guns!” screams the NRA.

“Pro-choice Groups Want Abortion on Demand through Nine Months of Pregnancy!” shouts the National Right to Life Committee. 

The letters, which are replete with exclamation points and red lettering, talk about the incessant attacks on their organization.  And, yes, at the very end comes the inevitable line:   “You can help us defend your rights by immediately sending us $10, $15, $100 or more…”    There will be an envelope for your convenience and they usually accept credit cards.   

In the early 1980’s, the pro-choice groups raised millions and millions of dollars to help defeat a constitutional amendment banning abortion that was pending in the Senate.  The day after the amendment was defeated, the direct mail people had a meeting (I was there) and they were downright depressed because they knew that, now that they had won the victory, they could not raise the kind of money they had been raising. 

Practically the day after Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, pro-choice groups had a fundraising letter warning people that he would “stack the court” against abortion rights and asking people to send money so they could stop these pernicious attacks on the right to choose.

We all have a lot to do.  We don’t have time to sort out all of the issues and verify what the national organizations are saying. 

All I am suggesting is that folks take a little bit of time to think things through and, God forbid, to even listen to the other side, no matter what the issue.  You’ll often find that the truth is always somewhere in the middle.

In the last few years, pro-life organizations have convinced numerous state legislatures to offer specialized license plates that say “Choose Life.”   Any resident of the state can request the plate as long as they pay an extra fee.   The money that is raised goes to local crisis pregnancy centers, i.e., centers which try to convince women to not have abortions. 

Pro-choice groups have cried foul.   This is not fair, they say, the state should not be promoting crisis pregnancy centers because they mislead women, they give them inaccurate information, blah, blah, blah.

Whenever I hear these protestations, my first reaction has always been “quit your whining.”   I mean, all the pro-life organizations did was lobby their state legislatures and convinced their elected officials to make these license plates available.  They used the process to their advantage.  That’s democracy, right?

Sure, it’s kinda sucky that they convinced their legislators to send that money to pro-life centers that do, at times, mislead women.  But, if the legislature bought it, then more power to those pro-lifers for being so persuasive.  After all, the bottom line is that, no matter what the issue, it always comes down to who has the votes.  

Finally, however, the pro-choice folks have struck back.   Instead of whining about pro-life license plates, Planned Parenthood clinics throughout the state of Virginia have convinced their generally anti-choice legislature and anti-choice Governor that there should be pro-choice license plates as well.  The new plates, which will be available soon, read “Trust Women/Respect Choice.”   And any money raised through the purchase of these plates will go to Planned Parenthood.  The Governor did insist that that money not be used for abortions, but we can live with that.

I do wish that some of that money was directed to clinics other than Planned Parenthood.  Indeed, it is the independent abortion clinics that perform most of the abortions in the state of Virginia.  Still, kudos to Planned Parenthood and its lobbyists.

It will be interesting to see how many people buy these plates.  I am totally pro-choice, but I won’t buy one.  I think that’s because I do not wake up in the morning thinking about preserving legal abortion.  I am not that manic.  I’m thinking about the weather for the weekend, whether or not the Yankees won last night, how much mulch I need for my garden. 

I’ll bet you anything that they won’t sell 100 of these plates.   Still, it’s refreshing to see that someone stopped whining, took the bull by the horns and did something positive for a change.