The Horror of Substandard Medical Care in Georgia, Part I

About this time last year, Atlanta Women’s Medical Center injured a woman. The state investigated and found the center had violated a number of regulations including failing to meet the requirements of its elevator waiver, failure to properly monitor patients and chart their medical condition, and failure to properly sterilize instruments. While the Center was not penalized in any significant way when the Healthcare Facility Regulation Division issued its report in January of this year, the state did deny the renewal of their elevator waiver on August 30, 2012 and ordered the center to “ensure AWMC is in compliance with all of the rules and regulations governing ambulatory surgical centers”.

Brian Looby, Division Chief of Healthcare Facility Regulation affirmed the decision on October 1, and the decision was affirmed for a third time November 8, 2012 by Avery Flower, Deputy Division Chief of the Healthcare Facility Regulation Division. Yet, Atlanta Women’s Medical Center continues performing abortions and has not been “in compliance with all of the rules and regulations governing ambulatory surgical centers” since August 30, 2012. Yesterday, November 16, 2012 another woman was injured at the Atlanta Women’s Medical Center. According to the ambulance dispatcher, they did not tell him there was no elevator in the building. Some twenty five minutes later, the patient was brought down stairs in what looked like a chair.

We do not know, yet, the extent of the injury to the patient. What we do know however, is that another woman was injured by a facility clearly out of compliance with the laws of this state. Despite having a number of strong laws on the books that govern how those in the medical profession are to comport themselves, Georgia has chosen to ignore those abortionists that violate those same laws and in the coming days I will give concrete examples of how the state of Georgia is another Pennsylvania.

Two years ago, there was a late term abortionist in that state that operated what even the Pennsylvania District Attorney called a “house of horrors”. To say that the condition of that center was squalid is more than an understatement. There had been complaints initiated with the State that were ignored year after year until 2010 and by then things were so bad even the Drug Enforcement Agency begged for action by the state. The horror of abortion in Georgia rises to that level in my opinion. The stories I am hearing from patients who have been harmed and from former staff of these dens of death are stuff horror stories are made of.

I believed Governor Deal had no idea of the extent of the issue in this state. So I attempted to meet with him and/or his Chief of Staff. My meeting request was denied and the scheduler for his Chief of Staff never bothered to return any of my numerous calls. It is now not hard for me to imagine he does know and is choosing to do what so many others have done and are doing, ignoring the fact that Georgia women are being injured at the abortionists' hands.

Since Roe v. Wade established abortion in America, there have been more than 1.2 million abortions in Georgia. I do not know how many of these women came out of an abortion den diseased because many of these doctors operate in unsanitary blood spattered environments. I do not know how many women will never be able to have children because the doctors did not exercise a minimum standard of care and perforated her uterus or bowels or one of the other common injuries women face at their hands. What I do know is that the hands off abortionists policy of the State of Georgia has allowed thousands of women to be injured. I can only pray that one of them was not your mother, daughter, aunt, niece or cousin. I can only pray that you will join us in calling for these abortionists to be brought into compliance with the laws of the state so that more women will not be subjected to the horror that is substandard medical care in Georgia.

Eric Holder’s Connection to Georgia – An Endgame Maneuver?

Georgia has many good laws on the books, some of which seek to ensure the services provided are not compromising a woman’s health – the Woman’s right to Know is one such law. Another law attaches criminal penalties to any physician that performs "a second trimester abortion outside of a licensed hospital, a licensed ambulatory surgical center, or a health facility licensed as an abortion facility by the Department of Community Health". It was this provision of Georgia law that sent Michelle Wolven of Eagle Watch and I on a quest to find the legal basis for late term abortionist Tyrone Malloy’s performing second trimester abortions in Georgia. While searching for licenses, we stumbled upon a connection between Attorney General Eric Holder and Tyrone Malloy. It seems his wife and sister-in-law own the property out of which Malloy was indicted for Medicaid fraud.

Some have questioned why a big deal is being made of this fact. After all, they say, landlords typically do not know what their tenants are doing. Perhaps that is true in the typical landlord/tenant relationship. But this landlord is married to the Attorney General of the United States. And this Attorney General launched a task force to crack down on Medicaid fraud, the very act for which this tenant was indicted. The Attorney General has not prosecuted one abortion provider through this task force. And this Attorney General, after being contacted for comments about his wife’s relationship with the indicted doctor, changed tax and deed records, removing his wife’s name. These aggressive steps to remove his wife’s name from the records cause us to ask why. Is there a bigger picture we are missing – other than the obvious conflict of interest?

I think so. Shortly after President Obama won his first term in office the abortion community gave him a 100 day plan. In that plan they requested the President “Establish parity between the income level at which a woman is eligible for pregnancy care and the income level at which she is eligible for family planning services under Medicaid”. They explained that “Bans on public funding for abortion services have severely restricted access to safe abortion care for women, disproportionately affecting poor women, women of color, and certain immigrant women. The President’s budget should strike language restricting abortion funding for (i) Medicaid-eligible women and Medicare beneficiaries (Hyde amendment); (ii) federal employees and their dependents (FEHB program); (iii) residents of the District of Columbia; (iv) Peace Corps volunteers; (v) Native-American women; and (vi) women in federal prisons”. (Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration, page 6). Clearly the abortion industry is asking for removal the Hyde Amendment that prohibits billing taxpayers for abortions.

Tyrone Malloy's case could be the first of many to try and do so. By appealing to Georgia’s Supreme Court he immediately challenged his indictment, refusing to enter a plea, and questioning the constitutionality of the laws under which he was indicted. I can only wonder if Malloy's indictment is being used by the abortion industry and the Attorney General to achieve what Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said was one of the purposes of the Roe v. Wade case i.e. “that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.” (Place of Women on the Court, New York Times Magazine, July 7, 2009). I can only wonder if this is the case the Obama Administration is promoting, through the longtime family friendship of the Attorney General with abortionist Malloy, to implement the request made by the abortion lobby in the 100 day plan given to the President at the start of his Presidency. I pray that pro-life attorneys are gearing up to stop this latest attack on use of taxpayer money to fund abortion giants like Planned Parenthood. I pray that pro-life Congressmen of every stripe are prepared to address this attack by strengthening our laws against endgame maneuvers such as these. I pray that taxpayers are alert and will push back against the use of tax dollars to target "poor women, women of color, and certain immigrant women". I pray we are all alert and fighting back against the termination of innocent lives.

Electing Republicans - Are They Friends or Foes of Abortion?

In the forty years since the legalization of abortion in 1973, there have been five Republican and three Democrat Presidents. In fact Roe was decided when Richard Nixon was president and he not only supported it but initiated the population control agenda that has been steeped in the industry since its inception. At least three of the five Republican Presidencies were undergirded with a Republican Senate and House for parts if not all of their terms. During this same time period, Republican Presidents appointed, and the Congress confirmed many of the Supreme Court Justices, appointments most thought would ensure the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Yet we have had fifty five million babies die at the abortionist’s hands and, it is hard to see any progress at a federal level to stem the tsunami that has consumed 1.2 million or more babies every year since 1977.

Around the country, states have more Republican Governors than ever before if not in history certainly in recent times. And, the number of Republican lead state houses has increased giving Republicans more leverage than ever. Yet, fifty five million babies have died at the abortionists’ hands and progress at the state level has not stemmed the tsunami that consumes 1.2 or more babies every year since 1977. The abortion industry has enjoyed hands off practices for almost forty years. Even states that have enacted solid pro-life legislation such as Georgia have taken a step back and turned a blind eye to the laws on the books. Putting on the uniform of the Republican Party has served no purpose other than getting candidates elected. Once elected, these candidates who pledged to show leadership, who pledged to end abortion, become a part of the political establishment repeatedly allowing abortionists to operate at the edge or outside the law.

I was horrified when I read about Kermit Gosnell and his house of horrors last year. Despite years of complaints to the state from physicians, patients and others, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania turned a blind eye and allowed Gosnell to operate each and every day for more than fifteen years, injuring women, murdering babies (he induced labor, delivered live babies and then snipped their spinal cords with scissors) and finally murdering women. Only then, did the Commonwealth move to clean up abortion in that state. Only time will tell if they really cleaned it up or again are turning a blind eye.

And what about Georgia, the state in which I live? Since 1973 1,206,940 babies have died by abortion. For most of those years, the state was led by a Democrat Governor and legislators that proudly support abortion and those who promote it. When Republican Sonny Perdue road in on the wave of pro-life and other votes, suddenly for the first time in more than 180 years, a Republican was leading the state and quickly the Senate and House followed suit, with more Republicans being elected or Democrats switching party. Good news for the pro-life community right? Not so much. The horror that is abortion in Georgia is unfolding every day and the picture is murky, shedding little light on how many of the abortionists in this state are even in business!

As was the case in Pennsylvania, there is a trail of injured women all across the state. Reports of squalid conditions, terrorized women, and passing infections through dirty instruments are common here. Calling state agencies such as the Department of Community Health or Department of Public health to get answers to the simplest of questions has become a morass of lawyers, dragging the questioners deeper and deeper into the darkness that is abortion in this state.

I cannot imagine that Governor Deal knows how ugly abortion in Georgia is. After all, his election was all about being pro-life. So I have requested a meeting with him to report what we are finding and to see if something can’t be done to reign in the lawlessness in which abortion in this state rests.

In the meantime, I think every pro-life abolitionist should begin to examine the strategies being used to end abortion in America. Perhaps putting on the Republican suit is not working - especially for the 55 million babies that have died at the abortionist' hand. Perhaps we need a new strategy that will rip open the bloated and innocent blood filled belly of the abortion industry.