By Cheryl Sullenger
Washington, D.C. – In advance of next week’s 47th memorial of the Roe v. Wade decision that decriminalized abortion in the U.S., Operation Rescue has released a powerful video featuring 100 medical emergencies at abortion facilities documented in 2019. This video tears the façade off the Abortion Cartel’s favorite rhetoric that abortion-related complications and hospitalizations are rare.
The video, which features brief clips from actual 911 calls, documents 35 abortion-related hemorrhages – by far the most common abortion complication – all of which resulted in emergency transport to a local hospital emergency room. There were 39 incidents for which no specific causes for the medical emergencies were available.
Other abortion complications included five women with uterine perforations, two women who choked on their own vomit during a surgical abortion, and others who required hospitalization for severe pain, infection, and seizures. One woman spent time in the ICU, one was forced to have a hysterectomy to save her life, and one abortion patient tragically died.
Tia Parks died on June 8, 2019, the day after a surgical first trimester abortion at Preterm, an abortion facility in Cleveland, Ohio. Preterm staff failed to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy, which ruptured after the abortion. Parks suffered internal hemorrhaging that killed her.
The video is also highly relevant to an abortion case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on March 4, 2020. That case, June Medical Services LLC v. Gee, involves a Louisiana state law that requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a state-authorized hospital within 30 miles of the abortion center.
Life Legal Defense Foundation and the Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief on behalf of Operation Rescue in that case, and used information compiled by Operation Rescue to argue in support of Louisiana’s hospital privilege requirement.
“Based on the number and severity of the 100 medical emergencies we documented last year, and the hundreds we verified before that, it is only prudent to ensure that an abortionist can qualify for hospital privileges,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “If an abortionist cannot qualify for hospital privileges yet continues to conduct abortions, he or she is placing the lives of women at risk.”
The medical emergencies depicted in the video do not represent a comprehensive list of abortion-related injuries and other complications.
“The 100 emergencies at abortion facilities are just the ones we learned about and were able to document through 911 records, photos taken at the scene, or eyewitness accounts,” said Newman. “We believe this is just the tip of a very ugly iceberg. Abortionists want everyone to think abortion is one of the safest procedures, but in truth, it carries life-threatening risks that threaten women on a daily basis. The public has a right to know the truth about the dangers of abortion.”
Visit Operation Rescue’s website, Abortion911.com, for more about these and other abortion-related medical emergencies and patient deaths.
