Laissez-Faire Abortionomics

Kermit Gosnell

Liberals have objected vehemently to suggestions of increasing regulatory scrutiny of the abortion industry. Apparently, the cost of sterilizing equipment to ensure that teen victims of forced abortion do not acquire sexually transmitted diseases while having their babies exterminated could potentially reduce abortionists' obscene profits, putting the whole industry in jeopardy.

Last year, while Dr. Kermit Gosnell was greedily raking in at least $1.8 million at his abortion mill in Philadelphia, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli provided his non-binding opinion on the power of the state to regulate the abortion industry:

It is my opinion that the Commonwealth has the authority to promulgate regulations for facilities in which first trimester abortions are performed as well as for providers of first trimester abortions, so long as the regulations adhere to constitutional limitations...

The regulations at issue [concern] licensing requirements; staffing rules; specified drug, equipment and laboratory availability; detailed record keeping and reporting duties; maintenance, safety and emergency policies; sterilization procedures; and design and construction standards.

As noted by the Washington Times, this opinion ignited a brushfire that quickly engulfed liberal America:

Liberals usually want to regulate everything that breathes, moves, burns, flows or produces. When it comes to abortion mills, however, the same leftists scream bloody murder - not against killing babies, but against daring to regulate the practice even for the mother's safety. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has drawn fire merely for saying his state's Board of Health is allowed to regulate providers of first-trimester abortions...

Morality demands that women be protected from unhealthy practices of licensed abortionists, who after all are in business to make money and frequently cut corners. Pro-abortion militants are against abortuary oversight for fear that some clinics will be shut down, thus preventing mothers from terminating their pregnancies...

True to form, lefties at The Atlantic were much more concerned about the profitability of the abortion industry than about the safety of mothers and their babies. Nichole Allan accused Ken Cuccinelli of making an "end run on abortion" when Cuccinelli said that Virginia has the power to regulate abortion in the same way that it regulates other procedures at outpatient surgical clinics:

In 2001, Mother Jones ran a story about the rise of what abortion rights advocates call TRAP laws, short for Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. The article, written by Barry Yeoman and titled "The Quiet War on Abortion," detailed the anti-abortion movement's shift from targeting the legality of the procedure to applying pressure on its providers...

If the [Board of Health] were to follow Cuccinelli's advice, the state's 21 abortion clinics would be subject to the same requirements as hospitals. In order to comply, they would have to undergo structural renovations and obtain staff members with new qualifications. The cost of these requirements would, Virginia abortion rights advocates estimate, put 17 of the state's 21 clinics out of business.

"We predict it's about $1.5 to $2 million per clinic in extra cost," Keene said. "It's just crazy. And the thing is, it's really just designed to shut these places down. It has nothing to do with medical care."

Maybe the folks at The Atlantic can be forgiven for their shortsightedness. This time last week, very few of us had any idea how dirty and unhealthy the abortion industry could be. The holocaust at Dr. Gosnell's flea-ridden charnel house has opened millions of eyes. Because Gosnell was operating his business in a state dominated by militant pro-abortion politics in both political parties, Gosnell was free to subject his victims to filth, disease and death while state regulatory agencies deliberately turned a blind eye.

Now we know how dangerous and reckless the abortion industry can be. The decades-long laissez-faire approach to the abortion industry hurt women and their families in Pennsylvania irreparably.

X-posted

Memeorandum stuff

The Price of a Forced Abortion

Photographer: Louisa Stokes

Dr. Kermit Gosnell is the now-infamous Philadelphia physician who was charged Wednesday with murder, accused of killing one mother and of delivering seven babies alive and then using scissors to kill them. Evidence provided by the grand jury strongly suggests that Gosnell killed countless others.

Gosnell subjected his victims to humiliation, filth, disease, and extreme pain.

Gosnell committed his grizzly crimes over a 30 year period with the tacit support and cooperation of other physicians, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Pennsylvania Department of State and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

In the 281 page Report of the Grand Jury, Gosnell's evil is documented in incredible detail. I will discuss these details over the course of several posts, starting with this one.

In this post I will shed light on Gosnell's policies and practices relating to forced abortions.

Kermit Gosnell was explicitly in the business of providing forced abortions. This fact is made abundantly clear by Gosnell's schedule of fees for anesthesia. In addition to the fee for the procedure itself (up to $2,500 or more), victims were encouraged to pay extra for dangerous doses of anesthetic agents, particularly in cases in which the "patients" were being subjected to coercion:

An “Anesthesia for Surgery” form [Appendix B] presented to patients for their signature – and payment – did not identify or describe the drugs to be administered.

However, it suggested:

It will probably be best to pay the extra money and be more comfortable if some of the following conditions are true for you.

1. The decision to have the procedure is a difficult decision.

2. Medication is usually necessary for your menstrual cramps.

3. Your decision has been forced by your parents or partner.

4. Your family members or friends “don’t like pain.”

[Emphasis added]

For their special needs, victims of forced abortion were offered several options at various price points:

The “Custom” mix of medications is described on the form as follows:

"Most women who choose CUSTOM SLEEP want to feel ABSOLUTELY NO CRAMPS OR PAIN during their procedure. A needle with an anticlotting medication is inserted prior to the procedure and sedation is repeatedly administered until the patient is comfortable throughout the procedure."

The form has a place to sign next to “I choose CUSTOM SLEEP” and a blank where the price of the “Custom” option is handwritten in. The price of the “Custom” sedation is $150.

The form explains the effects of the “Twilight Sleep” concoction in this way:

"Most women who choose TWILIGHT SLEEP want to feel VERY FEW OR VERY SLIGHT CRAMPS during their procedure."

The cost listed is $90, which was in addition to the cost of the procedure. The form describes the clinic’s “Heavy Sedation” option:

"Most women who choose HEAVY SEDATION feel SLIGHT TO MODERATE CRAMPS during their procedure."

Heavy sedation cost $50 extra.

Read more.

X-posted.

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Team Obama: Denying A Woman's Right To Choose

Do women have an unalienable right to make their own reproductive decisions? Obama's science czar, John Holdren, says no. The right to carry a baby to term is apparently not as sacred to leftists as the right to abort...

In a book Holdren co-authored, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives — using an armed international police force.

Other gems from the czar:

• The U.S. is "the meanest of wealthy countries."
• We will need to surrender national sovereignty to an armed international police force.
• Pro-family and pro-birth attitudes are caused by ethnic chauvinism.
• "Carbon dioxide-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020."
• "The Christian concept of life in this world, as voiced by Saint Paul, that 'here we have no abiding city,' for example, conceivably could help explain why some people show rather little concern for the long-term future of the global environment or for the well-being of future generations"
• Mass sterilization of humans though drugs in the water supply is OK as long as it doesn't harm livestock.

So these are the notions Obama had in mind when he said he would "restore science to its rightful place"?

More

Restoring Science to its rightful place

Forcing women to abort their pregnancies...

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