When Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, people hoped it would provide a safe, legal, rare option for women without options. Decades later, abortion is still legal, but it’s not rare, and in many cases, it’s not safe at all.
Per Operation Rescue, a young Kalamazoo Michigan mother tragically died as a result of a botched abortion at a Planned Parenthood facility, and it appears the local medical examiner’s office is trying their best to cover it up. As Operation Rescue’s account notes on the death of Cree Erwin-Sheppard:
After a delay of over eight months, the Calhoun County Medical Examiner’s autopsy report is filled with strategic redactions that obscure the most pertinent parts of the report, including most of the cause of death determination.
In fact, just reading the redacted autopsy report, submitted by Elizabeth A. Douglas, MD, one would never know that an abortion was involved, much less Planned Parenthood.
While important information in the autopsy report was blacked out to remove any mention of an abortion, the toxicology reports noting trace amounts of Methadone and other pain/anti-convulsant drugs was left completely unredacted.
“It is my opinion that there is an effort on the part of the Calhoun County Medical Examiner’s office to protect Planned Parenthood while wrongly blaming Erwin-Sheppard for her own death,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “The way the autopsy report is censored, it falsely leads one to believe that unprescribed drugs caused her death, while the fact that her uterus was perforated is completely expunged from the record. Planned Parenthood corruption appears to have infiltrated the Medical Examiner’s office.”
The good folks at Operation Rescue dug deeper. They obtained a copy of Erwin-Sheppard’s unfulfilled prescription slip, as well as a copy of the unredacted autopsy report. They determined that the young mother died as a result of complications arising from a uterine perforation, either after the abortion or during the insertion of an interuterine device. The autopsy is shockingly short on specifics.
Read more here. None of this passes the smell test. In fact, it seems highly likely that the medical examiner’s office is doing their best to protect Planned Parenthood.
They wouldn’t be the only ones. In 2011, a Philadelphia abortionist named Kermit Gosnell was convicted of murdering three infants who were born alive, and for committing manslaughter in the case of an abortion patient who died in his care. The arrest was the result of a 2010 raid that revealed a literal house of horrors. The scene was described in a chilling way:
When the team members entered the clinic, they were appalled, describing it to the Grand Jury as ‘filthy,’ ‘deplorable,’ ‘disgusting,’ ‘very unsanitary, very outdated, horrendous,’ and ‘by far, the worst’ that these experienced investigators had ever encountered. There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, where they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets. All the women had been sedated by unlicensed staff – long before Gosnell arrived at the clinic – and staff members could not accurately state what medications or dosages they had administered to the waiting patients. Many of the medications in inventory were past their expiration dates… surgical procedure rooms were filthy and unsanitary… resembling ‘a bad gas station restroom.’ Instruments were not sterile. Equipment was rusty and outdated. Oxygen equipment was covered with dust, and had not been inspected. The same corroded suction tubing used for abortions was the only tubing available for oral airways if assistance for breathing was needed…”[33]
[F]etal remains [were] haphazardly stored throughout the clinic– in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers… Gosnell admitted to Detective Wood that at least 10 to 20 percent… were probably older than 24 weeks [the legal limit]… In some instances, surgical incisions had been made at the base of the fetal skulls. The investigators found a row of jars containing just the severed feet of fetuses. In the basement, they discovered medical waste piled high. The intact 19-week fetus delivered by Mrs. Mongar three months earlier was in a freezer. In all, the remains of 45 fetuses were recovered … at least two of them, and probably three, had been viable.”
In the wake of this horrible tragedy, which was largely ignored by the mainstream media, several states moved to put in place common sense safety standards for abortion clinics. The practical effect of such legislation would be that abortion clinics be held to the same standards as hospitals.
Safety standards in the interest of public health are usually music to liberal’s ears. This is the sort of thing liberals are usually gung ho for, but because abortion is their Holy Grail, they fought back and won. In his majority opinion striking down an abortion safety law in Texas, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that these restrictions were not a good faith effort to avoid such disasters, but that they were in fact an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion.
In this instance, liberals are total hypocrites. Those of us on the pro-life side are told that if abortion were made illegal, women would resort to desperate means and injure themselves. Yet every time someone attempts to impose a legal standard of care that would protect unfortunate young women like Cree Erwin-Sheppard, we’re told it’s an undue burden. Abortionists are let off the hook, and women like Cree-Erwin Sheppard pay with their lives.
That begs the question: Do pro abortion advocates really care about women, or do they care about perpetuating a culture of irresponsibility and death?
AAN Staff
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