Pro-Life Answers

PRO-CHOICE ARGUMENT:
"Abortion providers are respected medical professionals working in the woman's best intrests.
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PRO-LIFE ANSWER:
Abortion clinics do not have to maintain the high standards of health, safety, and professionalism required of hospitals.


According to Planned Parenthood, "Most abortions are perfomed in specialized clinics, and only 10% are perfomed in hospitals....4% in physicians' offices." To understand the abortion business in America we must understand what goes on indside abortion clinics.


The Miami Herald found abominable conditions in abortion clinics, including mold growing on a sunction machine. Florida's Department of Health secretary examined four abortion clinics finding no restrooms or hot water at one of the clinics, stirrups covered with blood, an oxygen mask with smeared lipstick from a previous patient, and disposable tubes used with bodily fluid, being reused on patient after patient. There wasn't any soap in one abortion clinic, so inspectors had to go to a building next door to wash their hands. One official stated, "it is hard to believe that places like this can even exist in this age of modern medicine.
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The Chicago Sun-Times expose of Illinois abortion clinics described an abortionist dashing from one woman to the next., "without washing his hands or donning sterile gloves. Sun-Times reporters also discovered dirty and rusty instruments, instruments encrusted with "dried matter," and recovery room beds made with dirty linens. Surgical equipment, including the suction machine , were being cleaned with nothing more than plain water. Abortionists were described as "cold," mechanical," and even "sadistic" in their behavior.


These are not stories of back-alley abortions, but of legal clinics doing legal abortions since 1973. Neither were they located in "sleazy" areas--the Sun-Times investigation centered on abortion clinics in Chicago's high rent district, where one third of all Illinois abortions are done. Abortion clinics can get away with such substandard conditions because they are not carefully regulated or monitored like hospitals.


Many people assumed that the Sun-Times expose would "clean up" the abortion industry in that state. However, six years later a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Public Health was unable to identify any lasting reform in abortion clinics.


I have spoken with a number of former abortion clinic employees. This is a partial list of abuses they have described: falsified records, unreported injuries, unsanitary conditions, invalid licenses, no lab work, inadequate supervision of patients in recovery, illegal disposal of fetal remains and biohazardous wastes (e.g. body parts, needles, and bloody material in trash cans), unprofessional behavior of doctors toward patients, insurance fraud, medical advice and drugs dispensed by untrained and unlicensed employees, and use of illegal drugs and alcohol by clinic staff while on duty.


The contrast between abortion clinics and hospitals doing legitimate surgeries in conspicious. Abortions seldom include pathologic exams, while normal surgeries do. Abortion clinics aggressively advertise their "services," while real hospitals seldom do. The patient's informed consent is always required at hospitals, while abortion clinics almost never explain to women the full risks of abortion or the physiological development of the unborn. The consent of the parents of a minor is always required for an ethical surgery, but not for abortion (except in states with parental consent laws, which is very few). Abortion clinics sometimes give kickbacks to family planning clinics to send them business, something ethical hospitals would not do. Hospitals require detail record keeping, abortion clinics records are often sketchy. The great majority of ethical surgeries are for true medical reasons, whereas 99% of abortions are for non-medical reasons.