Abortion – Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information

So, who are these people who are actually performing the abortions?

Well, first of all, they are real doctors.  They went to medical school, they did their residency programs at a hospital, they can write prescriptions.  I feel compelled to say this because in my interactions with abortion patients over the years, it was not unusual for someone to ask if the doctor they were going to see was a “real doctor.”  I’m not sure where this concern originally came from, but it’s out there.  So, I’m happy to set the record straight.

Most of the doctors at the clinics are Ob-Gyns, but I would guess that the majority of them have dropped the Ob portion of their practice.  Some dropped it just because Ob requires a lot of time, and unscheduled time at that.  But I will also say right here that some of those doctors dropped the Ob portion because they felt a little conflicted, going back and forth from aborting a potential child to helping a woman bring a child into the world.

 A small portion of the doctors are family practitioners.  In fact, probably the most famous abortion doctor in the world, the late George Tiller, was a family practitioner. 

Most of the doctors are men and many of them are getting up there in age.  Some of these doctors, in fact, were around when abortion was illegal and that inspired them to get into this field when abortion became legal.  Now, a number of those doctors are in their 70’s and they are looking for replacements.  I will write about that effort in another blog. 

There are more women doctors getting into the field, but they are still a minority.  Interestingly, a number of abortion patients say they prefer a male physician. 

Not every doctor does abortions up to the legal limit.  Every doctor has a limit on how far they will perform an abortion.  After all, it’s no secret that the fetus continues to develop in the womb and there are some doctors who only feel comfortable performing abortions before the fetus really starts to form into a “baby.”  In fact, the vast majority of doctors only perform abortions to the end of the first trimester or thereabouts.  Less and less doctors are performing later abortions. 

Most of the doctors do not perform counseling, which is generally a blessing.  They leave that task to the professional counselors, who are usually women. 

Most doctors are good, but there are some bad docs out there.  I’ve written about that in the past.

Years ago, many doctors were wearing bullet proof vests to work but they gave up on them after Doctor Baird Britton was killed when he was shot in the face.  His killer knew that he was wearing a vest.

I want to say thanks to these doctors.    They have stuck their neck out, they have been ridiculed by the peers, they have been harassed and threatened and, yes, murdered.  Yet, they continue to be there for the women who are seeking out their services.

President Obama has just nominated Elena Kagan to be the next justice on the U.S. Supreme Court and the proverbial poop is already hitting the fan.  Aside from the usual Republican “just say no” mantra, it seems that some pro-choice groups are a little nervous about her.   That’s because in 1997, she co-authored a memo to President Clinton that recommended he sign legislation that would have banned the “partial birth abortion” procedure.   If it were me, I would have advised the same thing.

As originally drafted, the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act” would have outlawed that procedure in all cases except when the woman’s life was endangered.   From the beginning, however, there were a number of pro-choice Senators who were very concerned about the political impact of this bill and they knew that the longer the discussion went on about this procedure, the more support they would lose amongst the general public.  After all, who the hell could defend this gruesome procedure?

So, looking for a way out, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota floated a “compromise.”   He suggested that the Congress not only ban that particular procedure but ban ALL third trimester abortions.  The catch was he left an exception for when the woman’s life and health was endangered.   That “health” exception, however, always raises a red flag for the anti-abortion crowd because they allege that that exception can be stretched in many ways.  Indeed, one late term abortion doctor was quoted during this time as saying he would certify the “health” exception in every case presented to him.  Yeah, that one really helped! 

Still, Daschle and others floated this idea, arguing that their proposal would not just ban the notorious partial birth abortion but any other late term abortion procedures.  And that’s when Kagan chimed in and suggested that President Clinton support that approach.   

In retrospect, that was good advice.  The fact is that when the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act” was introduced, the pro-choice groups were caught with their pants down.  They found it difficult to defend the procedure so they came up with a lame defense that it wasn’t used very often, a defense that ultimately blew up in their face.  Meanwhile, the polls showed that the vast majority of Americans opposed any late term abortions.  Recognizing the great place they were in, anti-abortion legislators gave speech after speech every day describing the lurid details of the procedure.  I was in the middle of that debate and I swear that the antis orchestrated the speeches to begin at 5:30 p.m. every day so channel surfers waiting for dinner could see the gross pictures depicting the procedure.   

It was a brilliant strategy from a public relations point of view.  And the irony was that the anti-abortion movement knew that if the bill ultimately became law, it would not have stopped one abortion.  Even certain anti-abortion leaders publicly acknowledged the same. What was important to them was that the issue not go away.  If the bill were signed into law, the issue would be gone.  

During that time, a one pro-choice voice argued that the movement should let this legislation pass without a fight.  Let everyone vote for it, don’t fight it, let it become law, no doctor would be affected and the issue would have disappeared.  Instead, the pro-choice movement fought the bill with disastrous consequences. 

Ultimately, the anti-abortion movement would not accept the Daschle compromise because, well, they just did not want to compromise.  And the pro-choice movement opposed him.  But Kagan was smart enough to realize what was going on and gave him some good political advice.   The pro-choice groups should not hold that against her.

Recently, a pro-lifer wrote to me to suggest that women who have abortions are run “through the mill” without any counseling and, if they do get some, the counselors try their darndest to persuade the woman to have the abortion. 

Let’s put aside for a minute the small percentage of sleaze balls out there who are in the field to only make money.   They’re out there and there ain’t nothing I can do about it.  Indeed, I know this for a fact because years ago I publicly criticized an abortion doctor in Pennsylvania, warning women not to go to him.  The next day, I got a letter from his attorney advising me to “cease and desist” from such criticism. Not making much money at the time, I heeded the advice.

Anyway, every abortion clinic is different and has its own way of approaching things, but the average  clinic has two or three counselors.  After the woman fills out her paperwork, she meets with the counselor to discuss a number of issues.  Some clinics subscribe to what is known as the “Head and Heart Counseling” method where the counselor delves very deeply into the woman’s thought process to try to determine if, in fact, she is ready for an abortion.  There is even a “homework” booklet that was produced years ago that the counselor could give to the woman if she was unsure of her decision.  The woman would take the booklet home, answers a bunch of questions, then come back to the clinic.  In the abortion industry, the joke was that at times it was almost impossible to get an abortion in one of these clinics. 

The average counselor will talk to the woman about her options.  They will ask about what kind of birth control, if any, they were using and what kind they might want to use in the future, the goal being that they never want to see that woman again in their clinic.  If the patient decides to use birth control pills, the clinic will usually give her three free months of pills to get her going. 

The last thing a clinic wants is to have a woman surface years later and complain that she was not counseled well enough, that she didn’t know her options.   The clinic does not want a woman ultimately regretting her abortion and one way to avoid that is to counsel her.  Of course, the system is not perfect. 

Indeed, there are a handful of clinics that find personal counseling insulting.  They suggest that women know what they are doing, that it is demeaning to ask a woman if she has really thought through her decision.  And there are women who resent the counselors even asking them such questions. 

Because every woman is different, there is no cookie cutter counseling experience.  And I would suggest that’s exactly how it should be.

Mother’s Day…

I am not sure where I want to go with this one.  

I guess my first thought is to wish all of the mothers out there a Happy Mother’s Day.  My mother died years ago and, honestly, I didn’t care for her.  Check that – I hated her.  She was an alcoholic, abusive, you name it.   Several years after she died, however, I learned from my father that she had had electric shock treatment at a local institution and that made me look at her, posthumously, in a different light.  Okay, enough of my personal stuff.

Since this blog deals with abortion, my second thought is about those women out there who chose to abort their unwanted pregnancy.  Yes, some of them may have gone on to have other kids but I’m sure there are some out there who didn’t and yesterday they may have thought about the child that might have been.  It’s a sad situation and I feel for those who felt that an abortion was the necessary decision at the time. 

What bothers me, however, is that on some abortion-related websites a number of anti-abortion types took the occasion to post mean-spirited messages.  “Hope you take today to remember the child you killed,” said one.  “You could have been celebrating with your child today if you didn’t abort,” said another.   

To this day, I really do not understand how some who oppose abortion can be so mean to these women who made the (sad) decision to abort their child.  Why do they take out their knives, stick it in and twist it a few times?  They seem to have so much compassion and so many feelings for the fetus but when it comes to the women they can get downright mean.  Sometimes I really think they are getting off on being so mean.  I picture them going to church yesterday, then running home to their computer, getting on some Facebook page and writing nasty stuff to women who aborted.  

No doubt that some of it is a simple hatred of women.  Some of it is machismo, the desire to command and dominate women.   And, yes, some of it is the myopic love of that fetus.  They will fawn all over that fetus and strive to protect it, all the way to the point where it’s born.   But then, it’s adios amigas. 

Maybe they are just part of the larger trend in this country, which almost rewards being mean.  Just look at the Tea Party crap.  Yesterday, they engineered the defeat of a long-time Senator in Utah and one of the participants said he supported that effort because, during that Senator’s welcome speech, he “didn’t mention the Constitution.”   Are you kidding me?   You voted against him because he didn’t mention something?   I assume he didn’t mention cancer research either.  Does that mean the Senator supports cancer?   Maybe that’s not being mean.  Maybe it’s being down right stupid.  But in some ways I have to believe that the element within the anti-abortion movement that is mean-spirited was the forerunner of the Tea Party.

I met someone at a dinner party the other night and she asked me if I was married.  I said I had been married for almost twenty five years. 

“Who’s winning?” was her response.

It’s been decades since the Roe v Wade decision was handed down.  Since then, we’ve had years and years of constant warfare (literally, at times), never-ending debates, marches to the Supreme Court, battles on Capitol Hill.  It is exhausting to think about all the time and energy that has been put into this one issue. 

So, who’s winning?

Well, it’s hard to say.

The pro-life movement has clearly failed to accomplish their ultimate goal:  to make abortion illegal in this country.   In the early 1980’s, they tried to pass a constitutional amendment banning abortion and failed miserably.  Since then, legislation has been introduced every Congress  declaring that life begins at conception but in all of those years not only have those bills not been voted on, they’ve only been the subject of one congressional hearing.  Even when Congressman Henry Hyde, one of the staunchest pro-life leaders in the Congress, was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he never pushed any measure outlawing abortion because he knew he simply did not have the votes.   At the same time, however, pro-lifers have successfully prohibited the use of federal funds for abortions, but at the same time, pro-choicers were able to enact the “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act” in the 1990’s.

In some states, pro-lifers have successfully passed laws restricting access to abortion services (e.g., parental consent laws, twenty four hour waiting periods).  But it’s really hard to say what kind of impact these laws have had on the availability of abortion services.  On the other hand, in some states and cities, pro-choice groups have passed laws protecting clinics by erecting “bubble zones.”    

As far as the Supreme Court, they’ve been all over the place.  The majority still tenuously supports Roe v Wade, but they outlawed the “partial birth abortion” procedure and gave the states the right to enact certain restrictions on access to abortion.    

So, where the hell does that leave us? 

Polls show that the majority of Americans support abortion rights but they are also uncomfortable with the abortion procedure.  They also do not want abortion to be used casually.  Still, polls can be sketchy and, depending on how you ask the question, you can usually make a poll come out the way you want. 

I think both sides agree that we want to reduce the number of abortions.  And, over the last decade or so, the number of abortions has actually decreased.  Now, I can’t say why this has happened.  Maybe that is fodder for a future blog. 

 But, if reducing the number of abortions is a common goal, then both sides are winning.

In a number of states, pro-life advocates are pushing for more regulations of abortion clinics. Their arguments make it sound like these clinics are running amok, that they do whatever they want free from any governmental interference. 

While they argue that they are merely insuring that the clinics are safe, these proposal are really designed to impose regulatory burdens on the clinic to the point where they simply cannot afford to remain open.   A few years ago, in the state of South Carolina, they passed a series of new rules that ultimately shut down two clinics. 

First of all, I find it ironic that opponents of abortion want to impose regulations on facilities that they are committed to closing down.   They are arguing that medical facilities that KILL BABIES need to be better regulated.  Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in that?  

Second, what the pro-life movement does not understand is that these clinics are already regulated by the state and federal government.  These clinics have to deal with OSHA, CLIA, HIPPA, and a lot of other acronyms – just like any other medical facility.    They have to deal with the Drug Enforcement Administration all the time.  They are subject to regular inspections.  Indeed, in the state of New York it is almost impossible to open up a new clinic anymore because of the stringent regulations.  So, let’s dismiss the notion that the abortion providers are running a medical facility free from any state or federal oversight. 

Third, over the years abortion providers have been very clear that they would be amenable to any other additional regulations if they were well thought out and not designed to just impose another burden on them.  They, like any other medical practice, want to avoid lawsuits, right?  So, if someone has a good idea, something that is actual constructive, they’d be open to that conversation.

Fourth, I find it interesting when pro-lifers make suggestions about the clinics when most of them have never even been inside of one!   I mean, it’s not like they took a tour, talked to the staff and used that experience to make some constructive suggestions.   No, they just assume that the clinics need more regulations.   Interesting.

Don’t give us any crap.  Just tell us you want to regulate the clinics to death.  I’d have more respect for you if you took that approach.

At this very moment, I am sitting in a large classroom proctoring an exam for about 80 seniors at a high school in Northern Virginia.   This test is given to students in the International Baccalaureate program, a program designed to challenge the best students in this high school.  The kids sitting in front of me at their desks are the cream of the crop.  Starting next fall, they will be going to prestigious colleges, preparing to be our future leaders.  They’ve got their whole lives in front of them.   

About half of the kids in this class are girls.  If the statistics hold true, however, a few of the girls in this group will soon get pregnant.  Yes, a very small percentage might actually elect to become pregnant but most of them will simply wind up having made a mistake.   How can this happen, you say?   Well, while most of the girls in this group in front of me are very smart young women, there are temptations waiting for them when they leave home and go up to Yale or the University of Virginia.  When they arrive, unshackled, they will be subject to numerous temptations.   They will be wooed by the sororities, suddenly exposed to drinking parties, they will start dating.  They may think they have fallen in love for the first time and, one night, they may exhibit those feelings in a sexual way.

Now, with a group like this you would assume that they would be smart about their sexual experience.  But even smart people can make mistakes.  In a moment of passion with their first love, perhaps emboldened by that alcoholic beverage they have been thinking about having for many years, they make love and forget or refuse to use protection.   Dumb, absolutely dumb.  But it happens. 

The next morning, the young couple realizes what they did and they both panic.  Now, if they are thinking clearly they could go to a doctor and get a prescription for the morning after pill.  But that’s assuming they know about its availability.  And, if they do know about it and get the prescription, when they go to the pharmacist he or she might be one of those pharmacists that refuses to dispense the morning after pill for moral reasons.  Discouraged, the young couple might just give up and start praying. 

A few weeks later, a few agonizing weeks later, the young girl misses her period.  She takes a pregnancy test and confirms she is pregnant.  She is now in a total state of panic.  She calls the young man and he is in denial, he wants absolutely nothing to do with this young woman who he just met a few weeks ago.   She cannot call her parents, they just would not understand.  She spends several sleepless nights envisioning becoming more and more pregnant.  She then starts wondering about leaving school and giving up her dreams of becoming a civil engineer.  She wonders what kind of job she’ll be able to get while raising her child.  Where will she live?  Who will take care of the child when she is sick?  What will happen to my life?

And the pro-life response to this girl?

Too bad, you made a mistake, you have to live with the consequences. 

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.