On April 30, 2016, the Family Planning Associates Medical Group (FPA) in Chicago called a private ambulance service for an injured patient — while using the 911 system to request the police to respond to peaceful pro-life demonstrators.
Operation Rescue reports that records they obtained reveal that “no 911 call was placed to summon emergency medical help for the suffering patient.” Instead the abortion clinic opted “to delay patient’s emergency care by calling private ambulance service for assistance instead of 911.”
Why? Because, as Operation Rescue states, “More and more, abortion facilities attempting to conceal the fact that they have injured abortion patients by avoiding 911.” No report to 911 means no public record that the incident ever occurred.
According to the website AbortionDocs.com:
Family Planning Associates Medical Group is an abortion chain founded by Edward “Fast Eddie” Allred, inventor of the “assembly-line abortion.” Various chain locations have been sued for multiple patient deaths and botched abortions.
The website contains documentation on the shoddy care this abortion facility offers to women.
A Chicago Police Department event query published by Operation Rescue shows that on the same day an injured abortion patient was transferred by a private ambulance, an FPA abortion facility volunteer called 911 to report an “incident” between a pro-life demonstrator and clinic escorts — but police left the scene without charging anyone with a violation, according to Operation Rescue’s reports.
Operation Rescue president Troy Newman believes the tactic of calling 911 on peaceful pro-lifers is often meant to deflect attention away from the fact that an abortion patient was just sent to the hospital. “They know when police arrive, it will be harder for pro-lifers to document the emergency because they will be tied up dealing with the police,” he said.
On FPA’s website, they assure their patients that abortion is “safe” and that they are trained to properly handle complications, writing:
We have a team of medical professionals at FPA who are well trained and have many years of experience providing abortion care. While complications are rare, they are possible and we are prepared to handle these situations.
Family Planning Associates is a member of the National Abortion Federation (NAF). Therefore, FPA is supposed to adhere to NAF’s emergency procedures, detailed in their 2016 Clinical Policy Guidelines:
Protocols for the management of medical emergencies must be in place. These protocols must include indications for emergency transport and written, readily available directions for contacting external emergency assistance (e.g., an ambulance).
All staff must know their appropriate roles in the management of medical emergencies.
Emergency supplies must be in known, appropriate locations and regularly updated.
When abortion procedures are being performed, at least one medical staff member with health care provider level basic life support (BLS) training must be present.
Pro-lifers who pray outside abortion facilities are often the only witnesses to emergency transports from these so-called “safe and legal” abortion facilities. Although there is little oversight or reporting of abortion-related complications, Operation Rescue notes that abortion centers do their best to hide them from the public.
“The incidents documented by pro-life activists in front of abortion facilities are important to understanding the extent of patient care issues that currently exist,” said Newman. “But even so, through our research, we understand that we are only seeing a small fraction of the serious abortion complications that are inflicted on women every day. Conditions and practices at American abortion facilities are much worse than most people think.”
Read Operation Rescue’s full report here.
