My heart needs a break from breaking

Have you been reading the news lately? I have, unfortunately. It feels as though current events have just been an unrelenting stream of examples of the horrors and cruelty that human beings are capable of inflicting on other human beings. Thanks, murderers and abusers and rapists and torturers, but we don't need more examples. We get it. You can stop now.

And in the last several hours I've done only two things: read about the latest awful case of kidnapping and almost-unspeakable abuse, the one in Cleveland, or stewed over it while unsuccessfully attempting to focus on other things.

But I'm here trying to write something because there's a part of me that's sure someone will ask. Or assume. How many hours or days til the half-witted comments hit, ones about how this is all because of the "culture of death" that abortion perpetuates? OR the ones asking why I "care" about this but "don't care" about the trial of Kermit Gosnell, a man who stands accused of killing babies and calling it abortion?

I ask because because it's so, so, so routine; these words have likely been uttered on several prominent anti-abortion blogs today. But I don't want to go find out.

Sometimes, despite being a super-famous internet celebrity (humble joke), and despite bearing the weighty mantle of spokesperson for ALL abortioneers and being asked for comments on ALL bad things that happen to babies or fetuses or embryos (angry joke), a person's got to have some time to themselves to deal with pain.

We often have stuff to say about things that show up in the news, but I'm not interested in being a ripped-from-the-headlines current events commentator. I just wanted to tell my truth, particularly in times when it wasn't represented elsewhere. But you're probably sickened and saddened too, and that's the truth for all of us.

Even sadder times: Bad doctors, system failures, lost lives

Terrible news. Kermit Gosnell has made the news again. You might remember, we wrote about him in March when his medical office was discovered to be practicing abortion in improper ways and under unsafe conditions.

Now he has been charged with multiple counts of murder. I'm warning you, the story is long, sad and gross; also, both the article and the grand jury report have some unsourced descriptions and apparent speculation. But ignore those and the allegations are still clear. Investigators say that some of the wrongdoings are too old to press charges or too many files have been destroyed to amass sufficient evidence; nevertheless, from the evidence they did gather, they're charging Gosnell and several other people with the deaths of seven prematurely-delivered infants and one woman who sought his services. In fact, because of how much the piece (and all the headlines and abbreviated news pieces going around) lingers on the dead newborns, it's easy to miss the few lines mentioning that he and his staff caused the deaths of at least two women and injuries for many others.

Gosnell's lawyer, while maintaining that everyone's innocent until proven guilty and the case must have its day in court etc, also apparently attempted to mitigate Gosnell's actions by saying he "served patients in a low-income city neighborhood for decades." Would he really have us believe this is what serving the underserved looks like? It's not even like this happened in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming. It's west Philly. It's devastating that society, our insurance system and Medicaid laws, state regulators and medical services have abandoned some women to a situation where they can't obtain the safe, legal and ethical care available a few miles from them. The other side of the tracks may as well be the other side of the world.

Another stupid thing to say:

State regulators ignored complaints about Gosnell and the 46 lawsuits filed against him, and made just five annual inspections, most satisfactory, since the clinic opened in 1979. The inspections stopped completely in 1993 because of what prosecutors said was the pro-abortion rights attitude that set in after Democratic Gov. Robert Casey, an abortion foe, left office.

It strikes me as fucked up and crazy that someone would blame this disaster on a "pro-abortion rights attitude." No pro-choice person wants women to be injured and killed because they sought abortions! In fact, many people are pro-choice because they're aware that women risking injury and death is part of the status quo for most times and places in which abortion is illegal. If there were actually a pro-abortion-rights attitude in Pennsylvania government, they'd have been collaborating with experts who actually care about improving the quality of abortion care.

In fact, if more states did exactly that, then we wouldn't have situations like this in Pennsylvania on the one hand, and state agencies like Louisiana's shutting down clinics for no cause simply to prevent abortions on the other hand. (As Robin Rothrock -- RIP -- said at that time, "No one in their right mind would think the state of Louisiana is interested in quality abortion care. It is interesting that the state sees itself as an expert on these issues when it does not provide any such care, and when it prohibits use of any public dollars for abortion care, including training.")

The most frustrating, haunting thing in all of this is summed up by an excerpt from the March article:

More than a decade ago, CHOICE, a Philadelphia abortion referral service, contacted the state medical board about Gosnell because some of his patients had called CHOICE with appalling stories, said Brenda Green, the organization's executive director. "We were told that we could not file a complaint. It had to be a patient. It could not be a third party," Green said.

Reproductive health activists and Gilbert Abramson, a lawyer who filed the 2008 case that was later dropped, said they urged Gosnell's patients to file complaints with the state. But when the women learned that they would have to provide medical records and other forms, plus attend a hearing in Harrisburg, they changed their minds.

As Rob wrote at Abortion Gang yesterday, states keep getting the oversight wrong. Many states harass providers baselessly. Yet Gosnell was a concern of pro-choice advocates and case managers for years, but the medical board said only an actual patient could file a complaint. Apparently, the state can pursue an abortion clinic relentlessly and routinely without a particular basis, but review of a doctor in private practice (any doctor, not just an abortion provider) must be prompted by a patient. If this is true (confirm, anyone?), I just don't understand it.

Deception

A fantastical post by Mr. Banana Grabber this past Sunday reminded me of an experience I had a couple years ago. After joining Abortion Land and having had my eyes opened to the horror of CPCs, I started looking out for them everywhere. Under tables, behind bookcases. I had to make sure patients had the correct names, addresses, phone numbers of clinics to ensure that they didn't accidentally wander into a CPC wondering why they have no trained health care personnel on staff. So it was pretty obvious when the signs depicting a distraught young black woman and the thoughts floating around in her head ("...my baby...") started showing up in city buses that they were up to no good. So like any curious/concerned/asshole person, I gave them a ring.

The conversation went a little like this:

Me: Hi, I think I'm pregnant.
Them: We offer free pregnancy tests if you come to one of our centers.
Me: What kind of pregnancy test? I don't like needles.
Them: No it's a urine test.
Me: Is it accurate?
Them: Sure, it's [some commercial brand] that is 99.9% accurate, like in the commercials.
Me: Do you have a doctor on staff?
Them: No
Me: What kind of people work there?
Them: We're social workers.
Me: But what if I want some medical information? I want to make sure I'm healthy.
Them: Well, you can come into our center and we can give you some information.
Me: I work, and I don't have a car. I don't know if I can get there. Can you tell me some info over the phone?
Them: We don't give out information over the phone, you'll have to come into our center. (emphasis added)

I think I even got an address for one in the 'burbs where "se habla Español", but of course I didn't go. I did try not to sound to hip to what they were really about. I figured I'd ask questions that any average Joanna would ask about a pregnancy center, using cues from actual phone convos I'd had with patients. I don't remember now if I blocked my number or not; they undoubtedly have caller ID, but luckily I never received a call back.

So, let's go through the red flags that most folks would just gloss over:

1. No doctor - or nurse, or physician's assistant, or nurse's assistant, or dental hygienist - was employed. They are not licensed to practice health care or give medical opinions (at least credible ones)
2. No clinically significant pregnancy test is administered, meaning they have no diagnostic/laboratory capacity. They buy stick tests from the drugstore that you could easily administer yourself.
3. Ambiguous clinic name. I don't remember what it was when I called, and it didn't say on the bus signs, but I remember being confused by the name. It was very unclear what kind of enterprise this was.
4. Insisting that I come to the center! They would not talk to me about anything over the phone. They wouldn't refer me to any external resources (not even external anti resources, which I found surprising). They wanted me to come in so they could hold me hostage and force feed me propaganda.

For lack of time to live a double life I dropped my investigation. I didn't think I had the gumption to actually go there and snoop around wearing a wire, but maybe I should one of these days. Of course, to get the kind of info I'd need for an exposé I'd have to get real specific and make it clear that I was onto them. For example:

"Please cite the research that you use to determine that 50% of women die within one year after having abortions."
"Please describe the physiological mechanism by which abortion causes cancer of any kind."
"Please explain why you have no health care professionals present to substantiate these health risks."
"Is this center affiliated with any religious institutions? If so, why?" (After all, there must be some atheist antis out there!)

And so on. But how to carry this out without blowing my cover? I guess it's a lost cause. But what a scoop! At the very least, some CPCs are being *sorta* honest about what they can do for you. Take the banner above, from a CPC in Michigan. They admit on their website that they do not perform abortion services, and gives a fair assessment of Plan B (at least!). Haven't gone through the entire site, but why is that so hard for CPCs to do? Why can't they just say, up front, WE DO NOT PROVIDE ABORTIONS. It might be bizarre for us to request that McDonald's disclaim that they don't provide abortion services, but not so for a pregnancy center! What a bunch of whiners.

Anywho. Pregnant ladies, if you're out there, please beware!

Dr. Rude

Within the field of abortion it can be very challenging to have conversations about the difficulties we face, because there is a fear that anti-abortion radicals will take our words and misconstrue them. Once an anti took one of my blog posts about being burned out, posted a few sentences about it and turned my point into their own point. It's a fear based on experience.

One of the doctors where I work is rude. Sometimes doctors are rude no matter what they specialize in. It's challenging because doctors who will do abortions are so few and far between that we have to accommodate doctors even when they are inconsiderate. It feels like we have to be thankful they are willing to provide safe abortion care and just put up with their ugly attitudes. This doctor is one of the few who will provide abortions in my area, and he will do second trimester procedures. I am thankful he is willing to practice and provide safe care.

Abortion care is under such attack in this country that there is limited space for us to figure out how to keep improving services, because we are constantly fighting just to keep our clinic open. We are constantly defending our very existence rather than putting our energy towards perfecting the care we provide. I don't feel like I have any answers, but I wish that abortion care providers had space to work through the daily challenges that could come up in any old job without being under the constant scrutiny of anti-abortion activists. We try to do some of that constructive conversation right here on the blog, but as you've probably noticed it often gets crowded out by posts about anti-related stress. QED: They're such a drag.