This will be the face of abortion,
Jan. 20th, 2011 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillif the In Sorrow Shalt Thou Bring Forth Children crowd gets their way.
This way to the back-alley hack performing illegal abortions.
Keep abortion safe and legal.
[Later edit--one of my readers had trouble with my link. Here is CNN's story on the incident.]
This way to the back-alley hack performing illegal abortions.
Keep abortion safe and legal.
[Later edit--one of my readers had trouble with my link. Here is CNN's story on the incident.]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 05:05 pm (UTC)In other bad news, the House Republicans are planning to introduce a law to make access to abortion even harder. There seems a chance it will pass the Senate. http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/01/21/the-true-meaning-of-replace-house-readies-bill-to-codify-hyde-amendment/
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 07:39 pm (UTC)I'll put up another link (to the same event but from a different paper or something) to be sure.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 07:31 pm (UTC)I'm still considering the possibility that some of this evidence was trumped up by a hyperconservative prosecutor with an agenda. After all, this is how half the Fox "news" crowd would escribe *any* clinic where abortions are performed, no matter how clean and competently run.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 07:47 pm (UTC)Also, apparently Gosnell is not a board-certified ob/gyn (which I would have thought belonged in the first or second paragraph but instead is buried halfway down the CNN article.) He is also suspected of prescribing painkillers for patients he has never seen, which doesn't seem in keeping with a normal abortion provider to me.
I'm sure people intent on enforcing sexual purity on women would describe *any* women's health center this way, but even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 07:51 pm (UTC)The article is horrifying, however; it's so depressing to realize that things like this are happening here. Bah. This isn't 1950 - things are supposed to be better! and not just for the wealthy.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 11:13 pm (UTC)And I agree with you that the article is horrifying. I assume that the women going to this guy were too poor to afford a regular abortion (given the current restrictions on funding for abortions.) And poor patients don't have a lot of clout and can be mistreated with fewer consequences.
Add into that that many of them may have been too young to get an abortion legally, given the parental consent rules in Philadelphia. I hate the idea of anyone being stuck with a place like that but I hate the idea of underage patients there even worse.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 11:15 pm (UTC)Because the suffering of these patients isn't enough for them.
But they will take advantage of the outrage of decent people moved by the suffering of these patients--and use that outrage to try and make sure this is the *only* kind of abortion available.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 09:57 pm (UTC)If they were coming in for late term abortions, the women knew it was illegal, too. How very sad.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 11:20 pm (UTC)And one of the side effects of making abortions hard to get is that getting one takes longer--which is going to push some women into later stages of pregnancy. Somehow I doubt any of the women deliberately put things off so they could have more expensive, more difficult, more dangerous abortions.
But yes, of course many of the patients were well aware their abortion was illegal. Dr Gossner was probably counting on them being afraid to go to the law if they were mistreated.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 12:57 am (UTC)I think also that his helpers got blase about how they'd assisted in procedures, and started thinking they could do it all on their own, without medical supervision.
While at the YMCA tonight, I saw on CNN that a Republican Congressman is trying to make it illegal for any federal funding or insurance to go towards any abortion, ever, and is trying to get some kind of inquiry going to see whether Gossner got any federal funding ever, so you are so right about the antis using this for their agenda.
It's too bad the antis don't see that by doing so, they create even more Gossners.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 01:39 am (UTC)To the extent that Gossner counted as medical supervision in the first place.
Though in some of the articles it says Gossner instructed them to perform procedures while he wasn't present. The helpers' hubris may have played a role, but apparently didn't come out of nowhere.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 01:37 am (UTC)And the head nurse who approved it was excommunicated, if I recall.
Apparently the theologically correct thing to do would have been to let mother and fetus die together.
Yum.
Increasing religious control of medical services is a serious concern for women's health, safety, and happiness.