On Monday morning, Operation Rescue, in a piece titled, “One Hour From Death: Abortion Patient Warns of Incompetence, Squalor at North Carolina Abortion Mill,” shared the story of “Amanda” and her abortion experience at the Hallmark Women’s Clinic in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with abortionist Melvin L. Henderson.
In no way is the piece’s title an exaggeration. Actually, “incompetence” and “squalor” may be putting Henderson’s actions lightly. It is a helpfully detailed account of Amanda’s experience but is extremely disturbing, and some readers may have difficulty reading the whole thing.
The facility and abortionist are licensed in North Carolina. The procedure was legal, though Amanda’s story reads as if it were an illegal, back-alley abortion story that an abortion advocation might share as an argument to legalize the procedure.
Though Amanda had described herself as “pro-life” she was in an abusive relationship with the father of her baby and had accused him of rape. An abortion was presented as the answer to her problems, and she listened to that advice.
The abortion ended up causing more problems, though. What was supposed to be a quick procedure turned into an excruciating affair lasting several hours. It didn’t help that both the outside and inside of the facility were dirty and had little privacy.
Although Henderson cautioned Amanda not to go to the hospital, she had enough sense to have her mother take her after she was finally released from Hallmark. Amanda was so scared, she warned her mother she would be dead if her mother waited until after work to take her.
Here is the extent of Amanda’s injuries after her abortion from Henderson:
To Amanda’s shock, an ultrasound discovered that Henderson had left her whole baby inside. Because air was detected in her chest cavity, the doctors at the hospital suspected a uterine tear. Amanda was told she would be in surgery for about 45 minutes to repair the tear and remove her dead baby.
However, once surgeons began, they didn’t stop operating for 7½ hours.
They were shocked to discover that the reason Amanda had not been bleeding was because she was hemorrhaging internally.
If she had waited even another hour to get to the emergency room, Amanda would have died from severe blood loss.
Surgeons also discovered that there were actually four perforations in her uterus consisting of three large tears – bigger than a silver dollar — and one that was smaller. They also discovered that her intestine and colon had been lacerated and her bladder was seriously bruised.
They called in a specialist and converted their laparoscopic procedure into a full abdominal surgery that required an 8½ inch vertical incision.
Amanda’s uterus was so mangled that the doctors couldn’t believe that Henderson had actually used ultrasound guidance during the abortion. After assessing the extensive internal damage, they wondered if he was actually a doctor or just some quack posing as one.
There was no saving Amanda’s womb, and she was given a full hysterectomy at age 31. It took 32 staples to close the surgical incision.
Amanda also suffers from nightmares in which she begs Henderson, “Please, stop.”
While Amanda is lucky to be alive and has healed from her medical problems, the emotional scars are still there. And why wouldn’t they be? Operation Rescue goes into immense detail about how Amanda really did beg Henderson to stop because she was in so much pain. And the treatment she received from a nurse is even worse:
“Look here, ma’am, you need to shut up before you scare the other women out of the clinic,” said the nurse who was operating the ultrasound machine while holding her down on the table with a firm arm across the torso.
…
Desperate and without thinking, Amanda grabbed the nurse’s arm in an effort to release some of the pain.
“Don’t you ever touch me!” yelled the nurse. Amanda felt humiliated, but the pain didn’t subside.
Normally we would question the nurse’s bedside manner, but this is the abortion industry we’re talking about.
Amanda’s story is all too horrific, but it’s not something out of a horror movie – it was a real-life nightmare for Amanda.
As tragic as Amanda’s story is, and as horrific as Henderson sounds, he isn’t the only one. The “house of horrors” that Amanda experienced in North Carolina parallels the kind of so-called treatment convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell gave to the women and babies born alive from abortions who were supposed to be under his care at his “house of horrors” in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
And those who have formerly worked in abortion facilities themselves share similar practices in place with former Texas abortionist Douglas Karpen. Others have told of meat market-like conditions from a Planned Parenthood in Delaware.
The more of these stories we build up and write about more we realize that Gosnell and Karpen may not be the ‘outliers’ we’ve been led to believe they are.
Abortion advocates claim to advocate for women, yet this is what they have fought so hard to legalize.
