The closer abortion gets to being illegal

[Skeptic Ginger]

I know you'd like to pin all the blame on the anti-abortion side of the debate, but about the only connection this case has to abortion restriction is the fact that late-term abortions are illegal. Unless you're arguing that they should be legalized, your argument has no basis, and if you are arguing that, good luck, it ain't gonna happen.

You ignored all the evidence of the effect requiring teens to notify their parents has on access. You are ignoring the fewer and further between access as the result of the anti-abortion campaigns across the country. Clinics quit providing abortions rather than have protesters screaming at their patients and bombs left on their doorsteps.

But let's go on to the rest of your comments. Thanks for digging up the Grand Jury report.

Furthermore, there's far more direct blame to be placed on elements of the pro-abortion camp. Let's take a look at the grand jury report:
http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/PDFs/GrandJuryWomensMedical.pdf

From page 9

This claim needs verification. It's the opinion of the DA. So it should be looked into. But to say things changed after 1993, when nothing was done before 93 either is stretching the facts based on how the overview is worded. From the same page:

The department had contact with the Women’s Medical Society dating back to 1979, when it first issued approval to open an abortion clinic. It did not conduct another site review until 1989, ten years later. Numerous violations were already apparent, but Gosnell got a pass when he promised to fix them. Site reviews in 1992 and 1993 also noted various violations, but again failed to ensure they were corrected.

So how is that different from the subsequent time when inspections stopped? Three site reviews with no follow up in 14 years vs no inspections is not effectively different.

And the motive for a change in inspections is unsupported opinion. I'm still combing through the document for the evidence supporting the opinions. It is incongruent to think lack of inspections somehow supports access to care or pro-choice sentiments.


We don't find more evidence in this section you quoted, only more unsupported declarations:

From page 137-138:

(italics in original, highlighting mine).

Now, none of this invalidates the pro-abortion position. Bad apples come in all flavors. But this deserves a little more introspection on your part about exactly what went wrong.

There are other sources of information that present something else going on here besides the conclusion a pro-choice governor "ordered" inspections to stop. According to this WA Post article:

"I was flabbergasted to learn that the Department of Health did not think their authority to protect public health extended to clinics offering abortion services," [ex Governor] Rendell, also a two-term Philadelphia mayor in the 1990s, said in a statement released through a spokeswoman.

"When I found this out, as a result of the press on the Gosnell case, I immediately directed the them to inspect these facilities," Rendell said. "It was simply preposterous that the department took this position, ever."

It is very curious someone would decide a clinic that provided abortions and which was inspected in the 2 previous years was no longer under the inspecting agency's authority.

We'll have to see what the evidence shows was the case, not what the DA's opinion of the reason is since the DA did not provide a basis for his opinion (as far as I have yet found in the report).


The pro-choice community is also very much a women's health advocating community. So even if this aberrancy turns out to be related to a pro-choice individual, it in no way is a pro-choice position to provide unregulated abortions. It leaves the same question, why would women go to this clinic if they had better options? Seven late term abortions does not suggest in the least that late term abortions was the dominant reason patients went to this clinic.

Perhaps more answers will be forthcoming: Corbett demands answers on clinic

Gov. Tom Corbett said Friday that he gave the Health Department and the secretary of State a one-week deadline to report to him on what happened in the bungled oversight of a squalid abortion clinic that a Philadelphia prosecutor described as a "house of horrors," where babies born alive were killed with scissors.

 

[AvalonXQ]

You ignored all the evidence of the effect requiring teens to notify their parents has on access. You are ignoring the fewer and further between access as the result of the anti-abortion campaigns across the country. Clinics quit providing abortions rather than have protesters screaming at their patients and bombs left on their doorsteps.

Sorry, but I'm also seeing how you're blaming anti-abortion groups for the poor service provided by a legal abortion clinic. What's the connection?
Interestingly, pro-lifers are using this as evidence of just how terrible abortion clinics are and how they should clearly all be shut down. I'm not seeing how the facts in evidence support either conclusion.

 

[Ziggurat]

This claim needs verification. It's the opinion of the DA.

It's the opinion of the grand jury. That's who wrote the report, not the DA. While the DA's opinion will obviously carry significant weight with the grand jury, the attribution belongs to the latter, not the former.

There are other sources of information that present something else going on here besides the conclusion a pro-choice governor "ordered" inspections to stop.

I'm curious why you're putting that in quotes, since none of my quotes or your quotes contain that word. I never claimed anyone ordered a stop to inspections, and neither does the report.

It is very curious someone would decide a clinic that provided abortions and which was inspected in the 2 previous years was no longer under the inspecting agency's authority.

Indeed, it's very curious. In fact, it's not really believable.

The pro-choice community is also very much a women's health advocating community.

Much of the time, yes. But don't assume that this is axiomatic.

So even if this aberrancy turns out to be related to a pro-choice individual, it in no way is a pro-choice position to provide unregulated abortions.

Or more specifically, it's not a mainstream pro-choice position. And I agree. I never claimed otherwise. That's why I specifically stated that this incident doesn't invalidate the pro-choice position.

It leaves the same question, why would women go to this clinic if they had better options? Seven late term abortions does not suggest in the least that late term abortions was the dominant reason patients went to this clinic.

It wasn't seven late-term abortions. It was a hell of a lot more than that, and the report explicitly states that late-term abortions dominated his business. From the report, page 3:
"The real key to the business model, though, was this: Gosnell catered to the women who couldn’t get abortions elsewhere – because they were too pregnant. Most doctors won’t perform late second-trimester abortions, from approximately the 20th week of pregnancy, because of the risks involved. And late-term abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy are flatly illegal. But for Dr. Gosnell, they were an opportunity. The bigger the baby, the more he charged."

pages 4-5:
"The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby’s neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that “snipping.”

Over the years, there were hundreds of “snippings.” Sometimes, if Gosnell was unavailable, the “snipping” was done by one of his fake doctors, or even by one of the administrative staff. But all the employees of the Women’s Medical Society knew. Everyone there acted as if it wasn’t murder at all.

Most of these acts cannot be prosecuted, because Gosnell destroyed the files."

 

[bookitty]

Sorry, but I'm also seeing how you're blaming anti-abortion groups for the poor service provided by a legal abortion clinic. What's the connection?
Interestingly, pro-lifers are using this as evidence of just how terrible abortion clinics are and how they should clearly all be shut down. I'm not seeing how the facts in evidence support either conclusion.

The connection is that anti-choice groups are working and succeeding in decreasing the availability of abortion. They have successfully stopped the construction of new Planned Parenthood buildings in several states. They have picketed others out of business. Women who don't have the money to afford a private abortion have fewer and fewer places to go. Then there's the snow ball effect. By driving out, closing and obstructing women's health centers, they make it more difficult to prevent or plan for pregnancy, to diagnosis it and if necessary to perform a perfectly legal first trimester abortion.

Planned parenthood and related health centers offer birth control at affordable cost for women who either don't have insurance or have a plan that doesn't cover it. With less access to birth control, there will be more unplanned pregnancy. They also offer free pregnancy testing. Without that, a woman might find it harder to confirm or admit to herself that she is pregnant. Which means that she may not seek an abortion as early as she should.

 

[Ziggurat]

The connection is that anti-choice groups are working and succeeding in decreasing the availability of abortion.

People weren't going to this guy because abortions weren't available anywhere else. They were going to him because they wanted late-term abortions, which are illegal, but which he would do. So unless you want to argue that late-term abortions should be legal, then your argument makes no sense. And if you do think that they should be legal, as I said before, good luck, it ain't gonna happen.

Women who don't have the money to afford a private abortion have fewer and fewer places to go.

This doctor made a lot of money off those women. Their ability to pay wasn't the problem.

Planned parenthood and related health centers offer birth control at affordable cost for women who either don't have insurance or have a plan that doesn't cover it. With less access to birth control, there will be more unplanned pregnancy.

These were late-term abortions. Access to birth control isn't the problem here.

They also offer free pregnancy testing. Without that, a woman might find it harder to confirm or admit to herself that she is pregnant. Which means that she may not seek an abortion as early as she should.

Yeah, no.

This doctor wasn't giving out charity abortions. He charged money, and a fair amount, enough to make himself rather wealthy. The cost of a pregnancy test wasn't the issue.

 

[kellyb]

I just read about 200 pages of that PDF.
That's...I just don't know what to say. It shouldn't have happened. It's one of the most horrifying things I've ever heard of. I'm so conflicted.
This:

People weren't going to this guy because abortions weren't available anywhere else. They were going to him because they wanted late-term abortions, which are illegal, but which he would do.

Is absolutely true. This is a modern day case of back alley illegal abortions, but just mega-hyper horrifying and sad and gruesome, because it's both more dangerous for the women, and the "fetuses" were often born alive. The media spin is way, way under-exaggerating things compared to the grand jury report. According to the grand jury, it wasn't just 7 babies born alive and murdered; it was hundreds, maybe thousands.
My god.

 

[bookitty]

People weren't going to this guy because abortions weren't available anywhere else. They were going to him because they wanted late-term abortions, which are illegal, but which he would do. So unless you want to argue that late-term abortions should be legal, then your argument makes no sense. And if you do think that they should be legal, as I said before, good luck, it ain't gonna happen.



This doctor made a lot of money off those women. Their ability to pay wasn't the problem.



These were late-term abortions. Access to birth control isn't the problem here.



Yeah, no.

This doctor wasn't giving out charity abortions. He charged money, and a fair amount, enough to make himself rather wealthy. The cost of a pregnancy test wasn't the issue.

Your argument assumes that the women had access to abortion during the first trimester, decided not to access it and then changed their mind. This is possible for a certain small percentage - they could have found out there was a problem with the fetus, or some other problem arose. It would not have been the case with the majority of women.

So why didn't these woman have access to safe and legal abortion?

 

[Ziggurat]

Your argument assumes that the women had access to abortion during the first trimester, decided not to access it and then changed their mind.

It's not my assumption, that's pretty much the only conclusion to draw from the Grand Jury report.

So why didn't these woman have access to safe and legal abortion?

Why do you assume they didn't? Philadelphia has a Planned Parenthood clinic. They have other organizations which also provide abortions, like the Philadelphia Women's Center. These women weren't going to this guy because abortions weren't available elsewhere They were. Hell, according to the report, he was charging women more for larger babies, so if they were going to him because he was the only one who would provide abortions, why wouldn't they go to him earlier?

They went to him because he provided late-term abortions, and other providers wouldn't. Yes, they didn't have access to safe and legal abortions, because late-term abortions aren't legal. Do you really want to change that?

 

[kellyb]

It's not my assumption, that's pretty much the only conclusion to draw from the Grand Jury report.



Why do you assume they didn't? Philadelphia has a Planned Parenthood clinic. They have other organizations which also provide abortions, like the Philadelphia Women's Center. These women weren't going to this guy because abortions weren't available elsewhere They were. Hell, according to the report, he was charging women more for larger babies, so if they were going to him because he was the only one who would provide abortions, why wouldn't they go to him earlier?

They went to him because he provided late-term abortions, and other providers wouldn't. Yes, they didn't have access to safe and legal abortions, because late-term abortions aren't legal. Do you really want to change that?

It might depend on how you're defining access.
I don't know how relevant this 1987 data is, but it's a starting point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#Reasons_for_abortions

According to a 1987 study that included specific data about late abortions (i.e. abortions “at 16 or more weeks' gestation”),[30] women reported that various reasons contributed to their having a late abortion:

* 71% Woman didn't recognize she was pregnant or misjudged gestation
* 48% Woman found it hard to make arrangements for abortion
* 33% Woman was afraid to tell her partner or parents
* 24% Woman took time to decide to have an abortion
* 8% Woman waited for her relationship to change
* 8% Someone pressured woman not to have abortion
* 6% Something changed after woman became pregnant
* 6% Woman didn't know timing is important
* 5% Woman didn't know she could get an abortion
* 2% A fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy
* 11% Other.

 

[Emet]

Not sure of the date, but here's a TV interview with the "good" Doctor:

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/fox-29-speaks-with-dr.-gosnell

 

[Ziggurat]

It might depend on how you're defining access.
I don't know how relevant this 1987 data is, but it's a starting point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#Reasons_for_abortions

It's not very relevant. First off, their definition for "late" is 16+ weeks, but in this case we're talking 24+ weeks, and that makes a huge difference, especially in regards to their leading cause (not knowing you're pregnant). Secondly, in reference specifically to the part you bolded, we don't know what they mean by "hard to make arrangements for abortion". Does that mean that they had trouble finding a place to provide abortions? Trouble getting enough money to pay for it? Something else? We don't know. And the specific causes matter. Access to abortions is not geographically uniform. But this was Philadelphia, not some small rural town. The fact that someone might have trouble find a place elsewhere doesn't mean that they had trouble finding a place in Philadelphia. And the money issue isn't relevant here either: this doctor wasn't doing charity abortions, he was turning a considerable profit from these women. They had money to pay for an abortion, or they wouldn't have ended up with him at all.

 

[bookitty]

It's not very relevant. First off, their definition for "late" is 16+ weeks, but in this case we're talking 24+ weeks, and that makes a huge difference, especially in regards to their leading cause (not knowing you're pregnant). Secondly, in reference specifically to the part you bolded, we don't know what they mean by "hard to make arrangements for abortion". Does that mean that they had trouble finding a place to provide abortions? Trouble getting enough money to pay for it? Something else? We don't know. And the specific causes matter. Access to abortions is not geographically uniform. But this was Philadelphia, not some small rural town. The fact that someone might have trouble find a place elsewhere doesn't mean that they had trouble finding a place in Philadelphia. And the money issue isn't relevant here either: this doctor wasn't doing charity abortions, he was turning a considerable profit from these women. They had money to pay for an abortion, or they wouldn't have ended up with him at all.

The real question is why these women were at this clinic at all. If they had access and the ability to afford a first trimester pregnancy, there is no reason for them to end up here.

 

[kellyb]

It's not very relevant. First off, their definition for "late" is 16+ weeks, but in this case we're talking 24+ weeks, and that makes a huge difference, especially in regards to their leading cause (not knowing you're pregnant). Secondly, in reference specifically to the part you bolded, we don't know what they mean by "hard to make arrangements for abortion". Does that mean that they had trouble finding a place to provide abortions? Trouble getting enough money to pay for it? Something else? We don't know. And the specific causes matter. Access to abortions is not geographically uniform. But this was Philadelphia, not some small rural town. The fact that someone might have trouble find a place elsewhere doesn't mean that they had trouble finding a place in Philadelphia. And the money issue isn't relevant here either: this doctor wasn't doing charity abortions, he was turning a considerable profit from these women. They had money to pay for an abortion, or they wouldn't have ended up with him at all.

16+ weeks includes 24+ weeks, although I agree that it's more likely than not that most 16+ weeks abortions probably happen before 24 weeks, making the demographic different.

Regarding the leading cause (not knowing you're pregnant) I'd guess a lot of that is actually denial. But I can't prove it.

A lot of the factors are going to be overlapping, too. A woman could half way be in denial, and half way unable to come up with the cash for an early abortion she wanted to hide. With teenagers, maybe at some point they can't hide it from their parents any more and the parents help come up with the megabucks for the "24.5 week" abortions.

It wasn't a matter of too few abortion providers in the area, but it wasn't probably as simple as women being all lazy about getting their early abortions, either. It's probably some sad, complicated story behind most of the cases.

What I really want to know is how the doc's reputation as the go-to guy for illegal abortions traveled around to where he was getting out of state cases coming in. There aren't enough women needing illegal abortions for this to just become common knowledge among women, I don't think.

 

[Mycroft]

The real question is why these women were at this clinic at all. If they had access and the ability to afford a first trimester pregnancy, there is no reason for them to end up here.

Why do you believe they didn't have access?

This is planned parenthood in Philadelphia:

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-center/centerDetails.asp?f=2516

This is the office where Dr. Kermit Gosnell worked from:

http://local.yahoo.com/info-12221134-women-s-medical-society-philadelphia

The distance between them is only a few miles.

http://www.mapquest.com/#dfc03fc4e59c10f4b59a25ba

 

[kellyb]

The real question is why these women were at this clinic at all. If they had access and the ability to afford a first trimester pregnancy, there is no reason for them to end up here.

My strong suspicion is that most of the time, it was a mixture of these three factors all happening at the same time to different extents:

* 71% Woman didn't recognize she was pregnant or misjudged gestation
* 48% Woman found it hard to make arrangements for abortion
* 33% Woman was afraid to tell her partner or parents

 

[Emet]

Why do you believe they didn't have access?

This is planned parenthood in Philadelphia:

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-center/centerDetails.asp?f=2516

From your PP link:

Abortion Referral

This health center doesn’t provide abortion services — but we can help you. Call us for a referral list of health care providers in your area that offer abortion services.

 

[Mycroft]

From your PP link:

Good catch.

Planned parenthood where abortions are performed:

144 Locust Street Philadelphia, PA 19107

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-center/centerDetails.asp?f=3360&a=91460&v=details

Driving directions from Dr. Kermit Gosnell's clinic to Planned Parenthood clinic:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sou....677068&sspn=55.411532,79.013672&ie=UTF8&z=15

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

In other abortion threads there are people who think a woman should be allowed to abort a foetus at any time during pregnancy because of a woman's right to body integrity. When it was suggested such horrible things as described in this thread would become more common it was argued that there wouldn't be very much change in the number of such abortions.

I wonder how many women would have such late term abortions if they were legal?

Perhaps we are not as civilised as we like to think we are?

 

[kellyb]

In other abortion threads there are people who think a woman should be allowed to abort a foetus at any time during pregnancy because of a woman's right to body integrity. When it was suggested such horrible things as described in this thread would become more common it was argued that there wouldn't be very much change to the number of such abortions.

I wonder how many women would have such late term abortions if they were legal?

Perhaps we are not as civilised as we like to think we are?

Is there a chance that black-market illegal abortions/professional infanticides are just as prevalent in the UK, but the perps haven't been caught yet?

 

[Ziggurat]

It wasn't a matter of too few abortion providers in the area, but it wasn't probably as simple as women being all lazy about getting their early abortions, either. It's probably some sad, complicated story behind most of the cases.

I'm not suggesting it is anything like laziness, and I'm sure there are an endless number of messy and tragic reasons that would lead to such a decision. My point is that there's no reason to think that what drove these women to him was a lack of abortion providers doing legal abortions, or a lack of money to pay for abortions. What led these women to him was that they wanted illegal late-term abortions. There's no reason to think that more access to legal abortions would have changed that. Legalizing 24+ week abortions might have, but I don't think that's going to happen, and I haven't seen anyone here willing to argue that it should.

What I really want to know is how the doc's reputation as the go-to guy for illegal abortions traveled around to where he was getting out of state cases coming in.

Indeed, that is one of the troubling questions. Along with the question of whether or not this is a truly isolated case, or whether there are other such clinics still out there.

There aren't enough women needing illegal abortions for this to just become common knowledge among women, I don't think.

You mean you hope. I hope so too. But maybe that's not true.