Roundup: Everyone Deserves Safe Medical Care

No one in the pro-choice movement supports dirty healthcare clinics and doctors who practice irresponsible medicine. Women deserve safe abortions performed in sterile environments, as do all who seek any kind of medical care. Which is why the story this morning about the troubled case of a Philadelphia clinic is particularly heartbreaking. The Associated Press reported:

Federal agents raided a clinic where abortions are performed and found "deplorable and unsanitary" conditions, including blood on the floor and parts of aborted fetuses in jars, according to the state agency that shut it down and suspended the license of the doctor in charge.

In the order suspending Dr. Kermit Gosnell's license, the Pennsylvania Department of State's Board of Medicine said investigators found numerous health and safety risks at Gosnell's abortion and pain-management clinic, including a preoperative and recovery area that consisted of several recliners grouped together.

The Philadelphia Inquirer was told that federal and state drug agents were investigating Dr. Gosnell on suspicion of illegal distribution of prescription painkillers and his medical license was suspended on suspicion of a patient dying under his care.

The likely victim has been identified by the Inquirer and her story reminds us that she only turned to a clinic like Dr. Gosnell's after being turned away from clinics in both Virginia and Maryland. Her struggle to get the abortion she and her family desired is exactly why outlawing abortion will never make it disappear and precisely why it should be legally practiced in safe, clean medical facilities.

Damber Ghalley remembers seeing his unconscious sister on an ambulance stretcher, being taken out the back door of the West Philadelphia clinic where she had undergone an abortion.

Ghalley and his niece - the woman's daughter - were stunned.

"I asked the doctor, 'What happened?' " Ghalley recalled yesterday during a phone interview. "He said: 'Her heart stopped. The procedure went well, but her heart stopped.' "

Ghalley's sister, Karnamaya Mongar, 41, developed a fatal heart arrhythmia after being given painkillers and other drugs at the clinic at 3801 Lancaster Ave., which is owned and run by Kermit B. Gosnell, according to a state order suspending his medical license.

The Inquirer reports that according the order, an unlicensed employee may have distributed painkillers to Mongar. If the anti-choice movement had not been so successful in limiting abortion services the victim should have been able to get an abortion at a clinic in her state of Virginia or in Maryland. But reading about her case in the Philadelphia Inquirer shows the lengths to which women will go to terminate a pregnancy if needed.

Ghalley explained that his sister; her husband, Ash; and their three children were living with him in Woodbridge, Va., a suburb of Washington. They had arrived in the United States only five months earlier from their native Bhutan, a poor, mountainous, landlocked nation between China and India.

Ghalley, who has been in the United States for a decade and speaks English fluently, became their interpreter, guide, and chauffeur.

He did not question his sister when she asked him to drive her to an abortion clinic in Virginia.

"In our culture, they [the couple] cannot talk about it with relatives," Ghalley said. "She was depressed. I figured she has three children, she has grandkids also, maybe she did not want another child."

Because Mongar was more than 12 weeks pregnant, the Virginia abortion clinic referred her to one in Maryland.

"They didn't want to do it either," Ghalley said. "They gave the name of the Philadelphia clinic."

Mongar was about 18 or 19 weeks pregnant on that November night, Ghalley said. Her husband could not accompany her because "he just got a job in a chicken factory."

Ghalley's first impression of the Philadelphia facility - a shabby, three-story brick structure with a two-story annex - was not good.

"So dirty. Dirty, bloody, a lot of people waiting," Ghalley recalled. "I was thinking at that time, maybe he [the doctor] was cheaper."

Most reproductive healthcare clinics that provide abortion services are professionally run. What Ghalley describes is almost like the "backalley" abortions of the pre-Roe era. We don't need to outlaw abortion in order prevent deaths like Mongar. Instead we need to make sure that abortion is always save and legal.

Mini-roundup: Yesterday South Dakota killed a bill that would have required insurance companies to cover birth control. And Bristol Palin will appear on The Secret Life of the American Teenager as herself.

February 24, 2010

Utah Lawmakers Approve Bill Prosecuting Women Seeking Illegal Abortions Lifesite

A death after abortion at suspended medic's clinic  Philadelphia Inquirer

Decision will expand local access to abortion pill The Register-Guard

Abortions via medication to be offered in our area Mail Tribune

February 23, 2010

Bart Stupak: Abortion Language in Obama's Health Plan 'Unacceptable' Politics Daily

Planned Parenthood's move stirs secularists Worcester Telegram

Family Planning service in Pacific is patchy says spokesperson Radio New Zealand International

Bishops slam condom campaign Healthcare Today

Bristol Palin to play a teen mom on TV The Money Times

New Studies Renew Sex Education Debate District Administration

Pro-Life Groups Reject Obama's Compromise Health Care Plan Christian Post

Pro-life groups oppose new Obama plan for health-care reform Catholic Culture

Fetuses First Feministe

Dramatic Pro-Life Rescue in Vegas Lifesite

VA Delegate Backs Off Comment About Disabled Children and Abortion WHSV

Nicaragua's abortion ban preventing cancer patient from receiving treatment Feministing

SC lawmaker proposes abortion funding ban WACH

Health Department Probes NY Abortionist Who Killed Woman in Failed Abortion LifeNews.com

Abortion Doctor's License Suspended After Clinic Raid FOXNews

Jury Selection In Anti-Abortion Activist, Businessman Murders WILX-TV

Pa. abortion doctor's license suspended after raid Houston Chronicle

Miller Attacks Marshall For Abortion Comments Loudoun Independent

Abortion supporters manipulating women to promote cause, warns population expert Catholic News Agency

Abortion debaters have agreed to disagree for 10 years Los Angeles Times

'Deplorable' conditions found at abortion clinic msnbc.com

Perennial Feud Remains on Abortion Wall Street Journal

Availability of Abortions Unclear in Proposed Health Care Bill Inklings News

Why be pro-choice and oppose the death penalty? Wednesday Journal

The GOP's misguided hunt for heretics Washington Post

SD House kills contraceptive coverage bill  Daily Republic

Ed Balls denies sex education 'opt out' for faith schools Telegraph.co.uk

Beefed up maternity health insurance bill sails through the House The Colorado Independent

Sexually confused The Guardian

Commons backs sex education move BBC News