Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion chain known for its widespread health and safety violations, has quietly opened a new facility in Virginia, hoping to be a mecca for abortion-seeking women in the South.
Noting that many southern states have laws protecting preborn children, Amy Hagstrom Miller — the owner, founder, and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health — said her business is looking to attract abortion-minded women. “We didn’t open this only because of Florida,” she said in an interview with the Guardian. “We opened this clinic because we know how many people are traveling from the region.”
In 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned in the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling. Rather than choosing to offer legitimate health care to pregnant women instead of abortion, Hagstrom Miller closed her facilities in states like Texas, a decision which she said nearly bankrupted her.
“Those operational things are real. They can take down – I mean, they almost did take down – one of the most stable, independent providers in the country,” she said. “I had to spend our organization’s reserves to do all that stuff, which kept me from being able to open something in Kansas or figure out how to help people in southern Illinois.”
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Despite this, Whole Woman’s Health is still opening new abortion facilities — like one in New Mexico, which opened with a goal of committing 75 abortions per week.
The Guardian noted that Meera Shah, a Planned Parenthood abortionist, is also serving as the Virginia facility’s medical director. Shah expressed outrage over the notion that a patient with an ectopic pregnancy traveled to Virginia for treatment. “You know, she could have ruptured,” Shah said. “The zip code in which you live really determines the type of healthcare that you’ll receive. And it shouldn’t be that way.”
But if Shah’s story is true, then this patient was an obvious victim of medical neglect, as treating an ectopic pregnancy is not considered an abortion in any state; each state allows interventions for miscarriage, ectopic pregnancies, and other pregnancy-related emergencies.
Shah herself was sued by a patient to whom she gave abortion drugs; Shah asked the woman the date of her last menstrual period and did not perform an ultrasound to confirm how far along in the pregnancy she was. It turned out the woman was nearly full-term, and delivered a fully-formed baby boy.
“Plaintiff went into full labor in the early morning hours of May 5, 2020,” the lawsuit noted. “Plaintiff experienced extreme and painful accelerated changes to her body, including a vaginal laceration or tear, as the delivery progressed. At approximately 3:00 am, while sitting on the toilet, Plaintiff gave birth to a fully formed, stillborn baby boy named J.T.”
According to the suit, this patient “was shocked and traumatized when she saw the lifeless, fully-formed baby in the toilet covered in mucous, blood, and the placenta.”
Planned Parenthood staffers, rather than making the patient their highest priority, tried to convince her not to call the police, and to dispose of J.T.’s body. They also refused to bring her to an emergency room, and instead took her across county lines to be examined at Planned Parenthood’s White Plains facility.
This kind of negligence or mistreatment is seemingly common with Whole Woman’s Health; numerous locations have had large numbers of health and safety violations. One location in Texas had 17 pages worth of deficiencies cited in a single inspection. So while Hagstrom Miller says she is “much more engaged and hopeful than I have felt in a long time,” and frames her facilities as a godsend for pregnant, desperate women — the better question would be whether even more women will be injured and maimed at her facilities in the future, and then covered up?
