This case is disgusting. I'm pro-choice, but this procedure is not reasonable. Anyway, not all shady abortion practitioners are outed so publically. Two physicians lost their licenses in MD last quarter. I just got my MD Medical Board bulletin last weekend. It's the best little bit of schadenfreude that we experience as physicians. We all pour through it looking to see if we know someone who screwed up (hopefully not for patient care issues, but there are usually lots of drug or alcohol abuse problems or physicians dinged for dating their patients.) One abortion provider actually killed a patient by not monitoring her correctly after providing anesthesia. The other would initiate the procedure in MD or DE and have the patient finish the procedure across state lines. I'm not sure what the benefit was since the procedure is legal. Maybe he was billing in both states for the same procedure? They didn't specify the full extent of the problem, but it got his license pulled. He probably had his license revoked in Delaware as well, since states have reciprocal agreements to enforce each other's medical board decisions. Lots of other shady things were in this issue, but I won't go into them.

Luckily, Pennsylvania has the death penalty. If it's not administered here, it's hard to imagine why they have such a statute.

They might have had valid reasons for going that long - they couldn't get an abortion at reputable places, they couldn't afford it, this was a last resort, things of that nature.

It's unfortunate that those who may actually need these procedures more often (lower socioeconomic status and all the sexual and opportunity-based implications that may have) usually have the hardest time being able to access them in safe and reputable conditions.

From what I read in the DA's report, it appears that it was indeed a facility of absolute last resort. It catered to very very very poor women, as well as immigrant women, some of whose English was not good, or had been used to unclean medical facilities. One of the former employees testified that there were a lot of African women who went there, many of whom had been victims of FGM. In the rare event that a white woman came in, there was a different waiting room and a different procedure room from the one used on women of color.

Basically, you have a lot of women who didn't know their bodies for whatever reasons; it's also believed that many of them didn't even know how far along they were.

If you can use Shady McQuack at 8 months, you could have used him at 3.

Either way, there is NO valid reason for aborting/murdering a viable baby. Period.

And you want your CHOICE? You got it, and you CHOSE to get nekkid. Choice made. That's my version of pro-choice.

My thoughts exactly. Couldn't have said it better. We make mistakes and the innocent have to suffer. And I have to believe that the way these innocent children were murdered was particularly heinous.

That's the thing--regardless of where one lies on the pro-choice/pro-life spectrum, everyone can agree that the manner in which these procedures occurred were barbaric to say the least.

Add to that the fact that this was done after viability, in situations where it was probably NOT to save the life of a mother, increases the ridiculousness of this situation.

This is easy enough to say when one is a member of the majority and has broader access to a number of medical procedures, elective or otherwise, but according to the court documents, this case is not as cut and dry as it would be if you or I were to go to Planned Parenthood or another reputable gynocological clinic to seek reproductive medical treatment (for any variety of procedures).

Women of lower socioeconomic status have limited access to these types of resources, including regular gynocological visits, prenatal care, etc., and abortion is not really an exception in that regard. Because they more than likely did not have health insurance (or did not have a plan that covered abortion as a valid medical procedure), they would need to save up the money to pay for the procedure ahead of time. Because they need to save up (and an abortion, IIRC, is a fairly expensive procedure), they get later and later into their pregnancies before they can do it, which leads to higher instances of illegal abortions.

Add on to it that women of lower socioeconomic status are also more likely to be victims of sexual abuse and assault and that makes the lines extremely blurry.

I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that the type of procedures the "doctor" was performing should be legal or were not disgusting, more that his victims included both the babies delivered and the mothers, no matter how willing the participant. His alleged actions were reprehensible and if found guilty he should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

No. I am saying that when something is illegal, someone will still provide a means to do it. This is true for drugs, alcohol, smoking, abortion, whatever. There is no statement there about whether it is right or wrong, just that it happens and that I'm not surprised.

It's amazing we're still even having these types of conversations today, when legalized abortion has been such a huge boon to upper-middle-class white conservative America in terms of limiting things like crime and poverty-stricken social classes.

It's kind of a forest/trees thing on some level.

Either way - I don't think there are many who advocate any of these tactics (scissors? I honestly had to check to make sure it wasn't a tabloid/internet invention) - it's almost like a bad movie or video game. Unconscionable on every level, and sort of hard to even integrate into a rational mindset. Regardless of the social and legal forces that drove this into existence, what this 'clinic' did was horrible.

If it was consensual, then yes, I would agree with you but in a lot of cases today especially talking about rampant rape and abuse, women aren't being given that choice.

What do you mean here? Just that it's amazing that some people still don't have access, either financially or geographically?

Especially the women who were going to this clinic...from what I've read, many of these women were drug addicts, very young, and victims of domestic violence. This wasn't just a group of irresponsible young things who forgot to take the pill.

This just makes me want to cry... :(