The abortion industry has long claimed that abortion is like any other medical procedure. Yet abortion — the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human being in the womb — does not treat a disease, and is only considered successful if a human being dies. It should be obvious that killing humans is not health care, as the video below demonstrates.
In addition to this, the abortion industry refuses to be held to the same health standards as other outpatient surgical facilities.
This National Health Care Quality Week, a light must be shone on the abortion industry. If abortion were actually health care, then at the very minimum, it would not balk at following requirements that protect women’s health and safety.
What are admitting privileges?
Ambulatory surgical centers are a growing trend in the health care industry and are expected to bring in revenue of up to $55 billion by 2025. These are surgical centers that perform endoscopies, colonoscopies, plastic surgeries, and other procedures, but they do not have emergency rooms or intensive care units as hospitals do. Because of this, Shannon Pettypiece of Bloomberg News has said that patients should make sure that any ambulatory or outpatient surgical center they may use has accreditation and certification. They should know how far away the hospital is if something goes wrong during their procedure. Because complications can arise, these centers must have admitting privileges to a local hospital.
The American Association for the Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgical Facilities has adopted admitting privileges as a standard of care. This is because admitting privileges help to ensure doctors at these centers have adequate credentials, thereby preventing dangerous doctors from performing surgeries. Admitting privileges also protect patients who suffer complications by ensuring they are admitted to the hospital by the same doctor who performed the surgery and knows exactly what went wrong. This preserves the continuity of care. Without admitting privileges, a patient could suffer abandonment in which the abortionist sends them to the hospital and leaves the doctors there with no information on that patient’s injuries.
Admitting privileges are expected of outpatient surgical facilities performing routine procedures like colonoscopies. Why are abortion facilities not held to the same standard?
Louisiana, admitting privileges, and litigation
Admitting privileges were brought to the forefront of the abortion debate when pro-life Louisiana Democrat Senator Katrina Jackson introduced a 2014 law (Act 620) requiring abortionists to obtain admitting privileges. Abortion — no matter when it is committed — carries potentially serious health risks for women, including hemorrhaging, fertility loss, perforated uterus, and death.
In June, late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart “mangled” two women so badly at his Maryland clinic that emergency room staff were left traumatized. Abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted of killing babies who survived his abortions, as well as involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of Karnamaya Mongar who received an overdose of anesthesia during an abortion at his Philadelphia clinic. But abortion is dangerous regardless of who is committing the act. Women are injured during abortions and suffer complications at abortion facilities across the country on a regular basis.
Even the abortion pill comes with major risks and has been found to be four times more dangerous than first-trimester surgical abortions. Bad doctors make abortion even more dangerous, and the state of Louisiana seems to be a hotbed for them.
READ: Health care saves. Abortion kills. No one should ever equate the two.
Abortion businesses in Louisiana have been found stocked with dirty surgical instruments and expired medications. These facilities hired an ophthalmologist and a radiologist to commit abortions, for unstated reasons. However, there is a shortage of qualified and experienced physicians willing to commit abortions. As reported by Grazie Pozo Christie for Townhall, a lack of emergency IV fluids in one Louisiana facility caused severe complications for at least one woman. Louisiana abortion businesses have also protected child abusers, in what the Fifth Circuit called a “horrifying… protection of rapists.”
This blatant neglect for women and girls is what led Sen. Jackson to author Act 620 and Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, a pro-life Democrat, to sign it into law. Act 620 required admitting privileges for abortion facilities and ensured hospitals would check abortionists’ credentials before allowing them to obtain those privileges, which would guarantee that qualified doctors were hired. The law passed, but abortion businesses sued, claiming the law caused an “undue burden” on women seeking abortion. Planned Parenthood said it was a “terrible and dangerous abortion restriction” and NARAL Pro-Choice America said it was a “clinic shutdown law.” The case made it to the Supreme Court in June Medical Services v. Russo and the commonsense law was shockingly struck down.
“Wherever the particulars of this requirement are imposed on outpatient surgical facilities that do not perform abortions, there is no litigation arguing that it imposes an undue burden on patients’ ability to obtain outpatient surgeries,” James Thunder noted in The American Spectator. “Moreover, wherever doctors who perform surgical abortions have, or could obtain, ‘admitting privileges,’ there is not litigation arguing that it imposes an undue burden on patients’ ability to obtain abortions.”
It appears admitting privileges are only meant to protect certain patients from harm, and this does not include abortion patients.
If the abortion industry truly believes that abortion is just another type of surgery, it should have zero qualms about following the same rules as other surgical centers. Such rules are not a burden on patients, but a responsibility of facilities — many of which don’t want to be bothered. As usual, the abortion industry shows that it not only does not value innocent human life, but also does not value women’s safety. It will always put profits over people. It’s time to hold this corrupt industry accountable.
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