In a pro-abortion puff piece funded by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund, STAT News interviewed long-time abortionist Dr. Wesley Adams, who last year opened a new abortion facility in Bristol, Virginia, on the Tennessee border after Tennessee passed laws protecting preborn children from abortion.
The article holds Adams up as “a conservative, gun-toting doctor” who ‘defends’ “abortion access in Appalachia.”
Conservatives and abortion
The tone of the article is reminiscent of that of Vice President Kamala Harris when she tries to convince pro-life Christians that they can be pro-abortion without ‘abandoning their faith.’ Writer Eric Boodman tries to convince conservatives that they can support abortion without having to identify as liberal.
Boodman writes of Adams: “He’s deeply conservative and deeply committed to abortion rights.” He notes that Adams is “pro-gun and anti-illegal immigrant” and that he opposes affirmative action and student debt relief. And (like Planned Parenthood’s false 3% abortion claim to try to win conservative support) Boodman notes that Adams doesn’t just commit abortions, he delivers babies, helps initiate adoptions within his community, and only would commit abortions up to 13 weeks, six days.
Adams allegedly also told women hesitant about abortion to wait 24 hours to make a final decision — something most abortion supporters are against, but which Boodman passes off as seemingly ‘paternalistic’ but “just what he was comfortable with himself.”
“[O]n many issues, he has bootstrap Republican leanings,” wrote Boodman, as if to say that any and all conservatives should support abortion and could do so without losing their conservative identity.
Abortion facility sued
But in Bristol, Virginia, the idea of an abortion business in a building that straddles the Virginia-Tennessee border did not go over well.
Adams’ new facility, Bristol Women’s Health, was sued by its landlords, property owners Chase and Chadwick King of Kil Delta LLC, who claim they were unaware abortions would be committed at the “medical clinic” when they agreed to lease the space.
Adams’ business partner in the endeavor is the woman known as “The Abortion Queen,” Diane Derzis, who believes God has called her to the baby-killing business, and who used to run the “Pink House” – Mississippi’s only abortion facility, which is now a consignment store.
In May, a judge removed the Adams and Derzis as defendants in the case — but they both maintain that they believe abortion is healthcare and should not be stigmatized. Boodman explained that the pair believes (emphasis added):
Abortion is a normal part of medicine, and should be treated that way. It isn’t, though. It gets separated out, distanced from “normal” care, as if in moral quarantine. States regulate clinics down to the width of their halls. Tissue that’s nearly identical to surgical waste tossed out by hospitals instead has to go to funeral homes. Providers have to fill out special paperwork to prescribe abortion pills, though they’re safer than Tylenol. The stigma creates an imbalance: In 2016 and 2017, 72% of OB-GYNS encountered patients seeking abortions, but only 24% performed them — and that was while Roe was still law.
The only portion truthful here is that most OB/GYNs do not commit abortions.
In March of 2020, Live Action News documented the steady decline in abortion providers over the last three decades, and a 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation survey reported that 23% of OB/GYNs now work in practices that provide abortion. The survey results also reported that “The majority of OBGYNs who do not offer abortions refer their patients to other providers for this service, but just over one in ten (13%) neither provide nor refer for abortions.”
Preborn humans are not medical waste
The dehumanizing language used toward preborn children in this puff piece cannot be overlooked.
Preborn babies are not “[t]issue that’s nearly identical to surgical waste tossed out by hospitals.” Preborn babies look nothing like medical waste; they look like embryos and fetuses in their appropriate stages of human development, as can be seen in the images below.
While several states have passed or tried to pass laws requiring that fetal remains receive a proper burial, most abortion businesses dispose of the bodies in horrific ways. They are flushed down toilets, incinerated, and tossed in with medical waste as if they are nothing more than garbage.
Preborn baby at 6-7 weeks
An aborted fetus’s leg with thigh bone protruding. 8 weeks gestation. Photo courtesy of prolifesociety.com and imagesofabortion.com.
Countless OB/GYNs don’t participate in induced abortion, which is intentional killing. Even if a pregnancy has to end for medical reasons, the baby never has to be intentionally killed prior to delivery.
Abortion pill is not safer than Tylenol
In addition, the abortion pill is not safer than Tylenol, despite the abortion industry’s and Boodman’s claim. As previously reported by Live Action News, it’s a “statistical shell game.”
“[A] 2016 study sought to analyze trends in acetaminophen-related adverse events, and tracked the rate of annual ER visits relative to annual sales of the drug,” explained Live Action researcher Bettina di Fiore. “It found that, for the year 2012 (the most recent year covered by the study), there were 282.1 acetaminophen-related ER visits for every 1 (one) million units sold. Assuming typical dosage to be equivalent to two tablets, this means that .056% of doses sold resulted in a hospital visit (282.1/500,000 = .00056).”
She continued, “A recent study conducted by the abortion industry itself found an ER and urgent care visit rate of 6%. That’s 107 times greater than the rate for acetaminophen/Tylenol, which again, is actually a low number if we were to compare equivalent populations.”
Willingness to risk women’s health and break the law
Adams’ newest facility opened without him in July 2022 before it was sued about six months later. Boodman states that another abortionist took over, but then left, leaving the business without an abortionist for a “few months.” But he wrote, “If, like most of the clinic’s patients, you were really early in your pregnancy, you were fine. You could come in, see a clinician over Zoom, and take abortion-inducing pills.” This means there was no appointment to check a woman’s gestational age — as is true for nearly all abortion pill appointments in the U.S. today — which leaves women at even greater risk of complications.
Multiple studies report that six percent of women who have taken the abortion pill have required a visit to urgent care or the emergency room. The further along in pregnancy, the greater the risk of complications or incomplete abortion. But Bristol Women’s Health preferred Zoom appointments regardless of the risk to women. As Boodman explained, even with the availability of Zoom appointments, “a few people came in despite the receptionist’s warnings, only for the ultrasound machine to read them as too far along for pills. They had to be turned away.”
It’s an admission that Bristol Women’s Health was or is willing to sell the abortion pill to vulnerable women beyond the FDA’s limit of 10 weeks or outside of state law.
Bristol Women’s Health appears to be open as the lawsuit proceeds. It states on its website that it believes “Every woman has the right to an abortion” and “No woman can call herself free until or unless she decides when or whether to become a parent.” But abortion doesn’t make women equal or free. It belittles them and leaves many of them living in an emotional prison of immense guilt and remorse. No one has the right to kill an innocent human being and no woman should be expected or encouraged to abort her baby.
