Abortion doctors face stigma from the medical community and society, protests and pressure from pro-lifers, and the emotionally disturbing aspects of the abortion procedure which often includes sorting through individual body parts, i.e., arms, legs, etc. So why do they do it? For some, the motive may be as simple as making money. Here are some quotes from abortion providers, from now and in the past, that indicate how profitable abortion can be.
1.) “It started out as a financial thing. But I got heavy into the [abortion rights] movement and realized there was a lot of need for physicians…. My income will go up, but I earn it. I work hard for what I do, and I am proud of what I do.” (1)
At the time the abortionist made this statement, he had over 10 malpractice suits. He eventually lost his license after killing a woman in a botched abortion. He was also accused by clinic workers of killing a baby born alive after an abortion.
The article also described him as an avid gambler.
“There’s something about when you walk in and you hear the one armed bandits going cha –ching, cha–ching,” he said on a recent Tuesday night before losing $1500, “I love the action.”
2.) From a former clinic worker:
Every single transaction that we did was cash money. We wouldn’t take a check, or even a credit card. If you didn’t have the money, forget it. It wasn’t unusual for me to take $10,000 or $15,000 a day to the bank – in cash….(2)
This quote was from 1990, when the average first trimester abortion cost about $250-$300. Now, a first trimester abortion costs $400-$500.
3.) From another abortionist, who runs the “services” at one clinic:
I practice medicine not to make a living and yet I like to make money at it. We made a lot of money in abortions. …. …. We did set up a very good program. But then I could see from the point of view of management that they were less interested in the best program than in the best paying program. For the first two or three months I didn’t do any of the abortions… Then I suddenly realized I had all the headaches because whenever they ran into trouble I got involved. I took over gradually and work two days a week and I found that I work very hard, but it made an awful lot of money.(3)
4.) Merle Hoffman, onetime founder and director of an abortion clinic, talked about the money she made in various interviews. One article said:
….she doesn’t think material possessions are unfeminist, either. Impeccably coiffed – signaling more Upper East Side doyenne than die-hard boomer activist — she wears an enormous glittering ring she designed with the symbol of Choices, combining the caduceus and infinity symbols.(4)
Hoffman herself says:
If there’s a 1 percent at this point, feminists should be part of that 1 percent until we get to 50-50, or 60-40,” Hoffman says. “Why not? I trust myself with power.(4)
Abortion also allowed Hoffman to buy:
A 4000 square foot wooden structure with an indoor pool and a retractable glass roof, on 6 acres of mountainous land with a pond.(5)
She later added a stable of horses.
5.) From a former abortionist:
Along the way you find out you make a lot of money doing abortions… In my practice, we were averaging between $250 and $500 for an abortion, and it was cash. That’s the only time as a doctor you can say, either pay me up front or I’m not going to take care of you. It’s totally elective… Either you have the money or you don’t. And they get it.”(6)
6.) From a former clinic worker who ran 4 abortion clinics and owned 2:
“I have seen doctors walk out after three hours work and split $4,500 between them on a Saturday morning. More, if you go longer into the day, of course. The doctor walks in, sees the patient for the first time, pats her on the leg, says, Hi, baby, how are you? You call them ‘baby’ so you don’t have to remember their name….And he doesn’t really ask her any questions. It’s just get the abortion done. If he discovers that she may be further along than anyone thought she was, they stop right there, collect the money, and then finish the procedure…If abortion is such a good thing, why don’t they go ahead and do the abortion then, and trust you to pay the $200 later? That’s not the way it is.”(7)
The same clinic worker also took part in an interview where she said:
Q.: What is the governing force behind the abortion industry?
A.: Money. Is a very lucrative business. It is the largest unregulated industry and our nation. Most of the clinics are running chains because it’s so profitable.(8)
7.) The Boston Phoenix had an interview with Dr. William Raushbaum, now deceased. Raushbaum did late-term abortions. When asked what it was like working in a high-volume abortion clinic, he said:
You would go home with a g*damn barrel of money.(9)
8.) From an abortionist who is still practicing and has done more than 20,000 abortions. He describes opening up his first abortion clinic:
It was a cash business. The price was right for the service provided…But we had volume. The receptionists at the desk collected the fees, and when the cash boxes overflowed, as they did nearly every day, they filled the drawers…counting it was time consuming; sometimes it didn’t get done right away. When the banks weren’t open, we just closed off a room and put the none-too-neat piles of money in it. By the end of the weekend, you’d open a door and walk into a sea of money.(10)
9.) Another former abortionist said:
I had so much money, I would go out to lunch sometimes, out of boredom, and buy a new automobile. Sometimes I would leave in the afternoon, and I would fly to another city to have dinner. I had money coming out of my ears. I couldn’t spend it fast enough.(11)
10.) Author James D Slack talked about the money made by “Michelle”, who owns two abortion clinics:
By every definition, however, Michelle is the quintessential capitalist. She currently charges $500 for a medical (drug) abortion up to the seventh week; $425 for first trimester surgical abortion with a light anesthetic and $475 for one with a heavy anesthetic; and for a second trimester abortion, about an additional hundred dollars per week and maxing out at $1100. After hours (privacy) abortion start around $625, maxing out around $1300. All fees are paid in advance. With an estimated 3000 clients annually from just one of her clinics, some with second trimester abortions, it is likely that she grosses more than 1.5 million. Assuming this is the same at the “Western” clinic she probably grosses around $3 million yearly.(12)
Footnotes
- Dr. Tommy Tucker, quoted in Jim Yardley “Abortion Doctor Says It’s the Cause, and the Cash, that Keep Him Driving” (Atlanta, Georgia) Journal May 16, 1993.
- Former clinic worker Nina Whitten in David Kuperlian and Mark Masters “Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet” New Dimensions, 1990
- Abortion clinic employee quoted in Magda Denes, PhD. In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death in an Abortion Hospital (New York: Basic Books inc 1976)
- Irin Carmen Abortion pioneer: Defend rights or lose them Salon MONDAY, JAN 2, 2012
- Merle Hoffman Intimate Wars: the Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Board Room (New York: Feminist Press, 2012) 99
- Dr. Anthony Levantino. His testimony can be found here
- Carol Everett. Her testimony which can be found here
- “What I Saw in the Abortion Industry” Human Life Alliance Advertising Supplement. See here
- “Cruel to be kind, In the twilight of his career, a late-term-abortion doctor tells all” The Boston Phoenix: December 5 2003
- Don Sloan, M.D. and Paula Hartz. Choice: A Doctor’s Experience with the Abortion Dilemma. (New York: International Publishers 2002) 44
- Paul deParrie The Rescuers. (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt Publishers, 1989) p 123
- James D Slack Abortion, Execution, and the Consequences of Taking Life (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2009) page 48
