As Arizona battles over the status of abortion laws within the state, the Los Angeles Times highlighted an abortion business still open in Phoenix. Though the facility is portrayed glowingly — as liberating and empowering women from the burden of their children — many of the key details were disturbingly left out, and many details included in the article are just as disturbing.
Setting women free… from children
Camelback Family Planning is described as a “haven” for women in Arizona, being run by “a crew of defiant women who don’t suffer fools and have a penchant for breaking into spontaneous dance.” Many abortion facilities in the state have stopped committing abortions, due to an 1864 law protecting preborn children. But while court battles leave the legality of abortion in Arizona unclear, Camelback has continued to commit abortions — with a disturbing point of view towards motherhood and children. “We set women free all day long,” said Rose Lopez-McKinnon, a 63-year-old registered nurse.
Some of the women featured in the article have legitimate issues. One, a mother of five already, said having another child would mean buying another car — she felt she couldn’t afford that or the child, so she sought out an abortion. “We are barely getting by. We have two car payments. We have insurance payments,” the woman said. “Then we have to buy groceries for five freaking kids, and they eat a lot.”
Another woman had struggled with addiction while raising a five-year-old daughter. She had been sober for a month before realizing she was pregnant again, and feared another baby would destroy her sobriety.
These are not women who are choosing abortion just because they feel like it; they are choosing abortion because they are scared, desperate, and feel they have no other choice. And that fear and desperation is validated by the employees at Camelback, who kill their children, collect their money, and send the women on their way. But abortion does not set women free or empower them. Abortion is a sign that society has failed women, children, and families.
Both of these women could have been directed to resources to help and better support them, so they didn’t feel that their only choice was between their life and the life of their preborn child. But abortion facilities don’t financially benefit when women choose life … and in these cases, did nothing to address the issues these women were facing. Instead, they took a vulnerable, innocent life, and sent these mothers back into their same circumstances.
A checkered past
Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick, the abortionist in charge at Camelback, is described as “a no-nonsense 57-year-old family physician with purple scrubs, salt-and-pepper locks and turquoise glasses.” She also had a negative description of parenthood, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“We are giving them their life back,” Goodrick said of pregnant women. “Parenthood is not for the faint of heart. It can be romanticized in Hollywood … the joy of motherhood and babies. But what if you’re not capable of taking care of yourself? It’s not something you can impose on someone.”
And Goodrick has big plans for the future, too; the Los Angeles Times reports she wants more than just Camelback. “Regardless of what happens, she and a fellow doctor plan to open a clinic in Indio,” the Times reported. “It’s about a four-hour drive from Camelback Family Planning. She plans to call it Desert Crossing.”
What is left out of Goodrick’s background, and her plans for the future, is her less-than-stellar medical background. She has previously demanded that doctors all support abortion, arguing that intentionally taking a human life is the same thing as removing a gall bladder. Even more disturbingly, she has a history of rule-breaking, and complained about being required to have the necessary emergency equipment in her facility, in case one of the women she’s treating has a medical emergency.
Furthermore, Goodrick had her medical license restricted because it was discovered that she was abusing prescription drugs, like fentanyl, while committing abortions. Her facility was also found in a Live Action investigation to be breaking the law by committing sex-selective abortions — something that is a felony in Arizona.
Goodrick also exhibited carelessness with controlled substances, regularly leaving bottles of medications like Percocet and Oxycodone openly lying around the facility, rather than locking them up securely as required.
None of this was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times’ profile.
Dehumanizing vulnerable human beings
Every single exam room encourages women to vote for abortion rights, and the staff isn’t above taking things even further. Lopez-McKinnon, the nurse quoted earlier as setting women free through abortion, encouraged women to vote by dehumanizing their preborn children.
“Make sure you vote,” she was quoted as saying. “Are you registered? Because that piece of goo has more rights than you do.”
The piece of so-called “goo” is a human being, even in the first trimester. New life is present at the moment of fertilization, and within that very moment, the baby already has his or her own unique DNA strand, completely separate from his or her mother. The child’s sex, hair color, eye color, and countless other traits have already been determined. The baby’s heart will start beating within just three weeks, and brain waves can be measured and recorded by six weeks. Before eight weeks gestation, the baby can hiccup, and by nine weeks, he or she can suck their thumb, swallow, sigh, stretch, and sense light touch. All major organs are formed before the first trimester is complete.
This is a human being, not a “piece of goo,” and the humanity of the preborn is based on scientific fact. Calling preborn children things like “pieces of goo” is a clear effort to cloud the debate and hide the reality of a child’s humanity from the mother. And by saying things like “that piece of goo has more rights than you do,” is not only ridiculously inaccurate, but further paints the preborn child as an enemy out to destroy his mother’s life.
Women, and their children, deserve better than this.
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