Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Posted on 06/16/2003 2:35:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
[Note to reader: Copies of any of the articles or other documents cited below, if not linked to an internet source, are available on request to NRLC at mailto:Legfederal@aol.com.]
Some journalists (and some others) are so attached to comforting myths about partial-birth abortion that they just won't let them go -- even after they have been thoroughly discredited by other journalists, and even after they have been forcefully repudiated by leading spokespersons for the abortion industry.
Worse, some of the offenders, when they are challenged for disseminating long-debunked misinformation, simply restate the misinformation without in any way addressing the substance of the challenge, or fail to respond at all.
From the time that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was first introduced in June, 1995, until early 1997, the leading pro-abortion advocacy groups vigorously asserted that the abortion method that the bill would ban was employed only hundreds of times annually, and only or nearly only in medically acute circumstances. (Typical of innumerable such claims: "The procedure, dilation and extraction (D&X), is extremely rare and done only in cases when the woman's life is in danger or in cases of extreme fetal abnormality." (Planned Parenthood of America news release, Nov. 1, 1995). "This particular procedure is used only in about 500 cases per year, generally after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and most often when there is a severe fetal anomaly or maternal health problem detected late in pregnancy." (National Abortion Federation factsheet, downloaded February 27, 1997)
From day one, supporters of the bill vigorously challenged these claims and provided documentation -- mainly, statements by abortionists in their own writings or in interviews with various publications -- that showed that the partial-birth abortion method was employed thousands of times annually, mostly on healthy babies of healthy mothers. In particular, bill supporters often cited the explicit statements of Dr. James McMahon, who developed the partial-birth abortion, and Dr. Martin Haskell, who drew it to public attention by writing an instructional paper explaining how to perform the procedure. In 1993, Haskell told American Medical News that 80% of his partial-birth abortions were "purely elective.") See the first NRLC factsheet sent to reporters on the issue, on June 21, 1995.
Nevertheless, the abortion lobby's claims were adopted and reported -- not as disputed claims, but as fact -- countless times by major U.S. broadcast and print news outlets, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, Time, ABC News, National Public Radio, and many, many others.
But by late 1996 and early 1997, this misinformation campaign collapsed under the weight of journalistic and congressional investigations. I will cite just a few of these sources here.
On September 15, 1996, the Record (Bergen-Hackensack, New Jersey) published a report by staff writer Ruth Padawer, based on separate interviews with two abortionists at a single abortion clinic in Englewood, who independently told her that they perform over 1,500 partial-birth abortions annually in that facility -- triple the nationwide figure given out by pro-abortion advocacy and industry groups. As to why they performed these procedures, the Record reported what the abortionists said: "'We have an occasional amnio abnormality, but it's a minuscule amount,' said one of the doctors at Metropolitan Medical, an assessment confirmed by another doctor there. 'Most are Medicaid patients, black and white, and most are for elective, not medical, reasons: people who didn't realize, or didn't care, how far along they were. Most are teenagers.'"
The September 17, 1996 edition of the Washington Post contained the results of an investigation conducted by reporters Barbara Vobejda and David M. Brown, M.D., who interviewed several doctors (not those in New Jersey), and concluded: "Furthermore, in most cases where the procedure is used, the physical health of the woman whose pregnancy is being terminated is not in jeopardy. . . . Instead, the 'typical' patients tend to be young, low-income women, often poorly educated or naive, whose reasons for waiting so long to end their pregnancies are rarely medical."
The abortion lobby's misinformation campaign collapsed entirely in February 1997, when Ron Fitzsimmons --- who was then and is now the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers (an association of hundreds of abortion providers) -- gave a series of well-publicized interviews. In those interviews, Fitzsimmons said the claim that the partial-birth abortion procedure was used rarely and mostly in acute medical situations was merely a "party line" (his term) developed by opponents of the bill, and was false. Fitzsimmons also expressed regret about his own previous (albeit minor) role in propagating what he called a "party line," explaining, "[I] lied through my teeth."
The truth was that "in the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along, Fitzsimmons said." (The New York Times, Feb. 26, 1997.)
After Fitzsimmons spoke, other representatives of the abortion industry also refuted the mythology. Renee Chelian, the president of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, said, "The spin out of Washington was that it was done for medical necessity, even though we knew it wasn't so." For more such quotes, see "Pro-choice advocates admit to deception," by Ruth Padawer (The Record, Bergen-Hackensack, NJ, Feb. 27, 1997).
Even before Fitzsimmons blew the whistle on the disinformation campaign, the PBS program "Media Matters" (in January, 1997) devoted a segment to examining how the news media had been very gullible in accepting what turned out to be wildly erroneous and self-serving claims from the abortion lobby. In this program, Washington Post medical writer David Brown, M.D., is shown saying that based on the Post investigation of the use of partial-birth abortion, "Cases in which the mother's life were at risk were extremely rare . . . Most people who got this procedure really were not very different from most people who got abortions."
The entire transcript of the "Media Matters" segment makes for very instructive reading.
For further information published in 1997 on the collapse of the pro-abortion misinformation campaign, see an NRLC memo issued at the time, a column by John Leo in U.S. News & World Report showing how the truth about partial-birth abortion was deliberately concealed, an article by Matthew Scully in the National Review giving many examples of how the news media had accepted the abortion lobby's manufactured claims about partial-birth abortion, and a column by political analyst Charles E. Cook published in Roll Call: The Newspaper of Capitol Hill.
NEW INFORMATION?
What new information has come to light since February 1997 only confirms that the partial-birth method is usually used in circumstances not involving any acute threat to the mother or grave disorder of the baby.
Kansas became the only state to enact a law that requires reporting of partial-birth abortions separately from other abortion methods. The first year the law was in effect (1999), Kansas abortionists reported that they performed 182 partial-birth abortions on babies who were defined by the abortionists themselves as "viable," and they also reported that all 182 of these were performed for "mental" (as opposed to "physical") health reasons. See pages 10-11 of the Kansas Health Department report.
In January 2003, the Alan Guttmacher Institute –- an affiliate of Planned Parenthood -– published a survey of abortion providers that estimated that 2,200 abortions by the method were performed in the year 2000. While that figure is surely low for reasons discussed by NRLC elsewhere, it is more than triple the number that AGI estimated in its most recent previous survey (for 1996).
In March, 2003, Ron Fitzsimmons -- still the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers -- was asked if he wanted to withdraw the assessment he gave to The New York Times in 1997 (quoted above). He said, "No, no, no, no. I'm not recanting any of that stuff. In terms of when it's done or how it's done, nothing has changed, as far as I know." Informed of a news story that asserted that the method is used mostly to save a mother's life or in cases of fetal deformity, Fitzsimmons said, "It's amazing that a lot of people still think that, despite the evidence to the contrary."
SO, IS THE MYTHOLOGY DEAD?
To summarize what appears above: The claim that the abortion method banned by the pending bill, partial-birth abortion, is performed mainly or only in medically acute circumstances, was definitely discredited by February 1997 if not earlier -- disproved by congressional investigators and by journalists for top newspapers, and repudiated by spokespersons for the abortion industry itself.
So is the mythology dead?
Not by a long shot. Even though it takes no more than a few minutes with Google to easily find information such as that cited above, and much more like it, some reporters, editorial writers, and pundits refuse to let go of the blatant misinformation. They are once again propagating the myth that most (or all) partial-birth abortions are performed because of grave threat to the mother or major fetal disorders. Moreover, in most cases so far, those propagating the myths have refused to either run corrections or provide documentation of their claims -- or even, in some cases, to respond at all.
Here is a sampling of recent sightings of the long-discredted mythology, by no means exhaustive, compiled on June 11, 2003:
[NOTE: All of the quotations below were in the voices of the newspapers themselves. That is, it is the newspaper, or the reporter or commentator, who is making the assertion -- NOT some attributed source.]
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
From news analysis, "California abortion rights threatened," by Bob Egelko, March 15, 2003:
[Regarding the abortion method that would be banned by the bill under consideration in Congress:] "It is generally performed late in pregnancy after discovery of damage to or abnormalities in the fetus."
[Egelko wrote to me on June 5, "I believe my article was accurate," but has refused to provide any authority for the assertion or to address any of the documentation cited. No response from editors or "reader's representative."]
THE BOSTON GLOBE
From "Senate OK's ban on a late-term form of abortion," by Susan Milligan, March 14, 2003:
"Because of fetal abnormalities or medical conditions threatening a woman, doctors employ the technique between the 20th and 26th weeks of a pregnancy when the head of the fetus is enlarged and unable to easily pass through a woman's dilated cervix."
[On June 4, 2003, the Globe ombudsman, Christine Chinlund, wrote that new guidelines had been adopted, among these, "the Globe would not say or imply that the procedure known as partial birth abortion is used only when medically necessary -- thus recognizing that [it] is also used by healthy women who carry a healthy fetus. I also believe that any mention of the bill's lack of an exemption for the health of the mother should be accompanied by a mention of the exemption that does exist to protect the life of the mother." [full statement available on request]
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
From news story, "Anti-abortion lobby counting on victories in 108th Congress," by Pamela Brogan, December 17, 2002. "A so-called partial-birth abortion is defined generally as a late-term abortion procedure in which the fetus is aborted after it is partly outside the mother's body. It is usually performed in cases when the mother's life is threatened or the fetus is deformed." [This dispatch appears, with a different headline, here.)
[On Feb. 20, 2003, after repeated requests, Brogan sent an e-mail purporting to quote three sources in support of her claim, but in each case the sources could not be found to say what she quoted them as saying; details on request. No response from her editors to multiple communications; details on request.]
MIAMI HERALD (EDITORIAL)
From editorial, "A Flawed Bill," June 6, 2003, "Invariably, in the extremely rare situations when the procedure is used, extraordinary circumstances are involved: The rape of a mentally incapacitated women incapable of knowing even the consequences of the act; the brutal assault of a 12-year-old child by a relative; a woman weakened by an illness whose life would be endangered by carrying a pregnancy to full term."
[On June 12, the paper posted a portion of my letter challenging the statement, but omitted my quotation from Ron Fitzsimmons of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers.]
THE GUARDIAN (U.K.)
On June 6, 2003, The Guardian published two articles by its correspondent in Washington, D.C., Suzanne Goldenberg, concerning certain pro-life issues currently under consideration in our federal and state legislative bodies: "US abortion ban sets stage for court battle," and "When does life really begin?" In the article "When does life really begin?," Goldenberg wrote: "The ban on 'partial-birth abortions' --- which are generally performed in the second or third trimester of pregnancy if the foetus is so malformed it would die at birth, or if continued pregnancy puts the woman's life at risk --- is a huge setback for the pro-choice lobby." In "U.S. abortion ban sets stage for court battle," Goldenberg wrote that the partial-birth abortion method "is a last resort used during the final stages of pregnancy when the foetus is fatally malformed. Rightwingers call it partial birth abortion, but the procedure is only generally used for hydrocephalic babies and involves collapsing their enlarged skulls."
[No response, no correction]
PROFESSOR GEORGE LAKOFF, author, linguist
George Lakoff, professor of linguistics at Berkeley, on "To the Point," a program produced at KCRW-FM in Los Angeles and broadcast on various NPR stations, June 10, 2003.
Asked by the host, Warren Olney, to analyze the term "partial-birth abortion," Lakoff replied as follows -- this is a verbatim transcription from the Real Player file posted at the KCRW website:
"Partial-birth abortion is not a medical description. The medical procedure, as I understand it, is a procedure that applies in a quarter to one-half of all cases [sic -- he apparently meant to say one-quarter or one-half PERCENT of all abortions], and these are cases too in where the fetus is not viable, is not likely to live a life -- perhaps doesn't have a brain -- and where the mother's health or life would be in danger . . . You have an unviable child, one who can't really live. Also, there would be a health and endangerment of the mother's life. So the term 'partial-birth abortion' sort of hides the issues that are really there in that operation."
********
To be continued, I'm afraid.
The gist of one poster's arguments was actually fairly logical. I say this because it took me many long years of careful reflection to reach a stand on the issue myself. Although I'm preaching to the choir here, the argument boils down to "you're either killing an innocent human or you're not". The details of the argument regularly get bogged down in the details of when an embryo or fetus "becomes human". This is where most rational people embroil themselves, I believe.
But if you search and search for the answer, the only conclusion one can come to is- there is no "magical point" when an embryo becomes human. Therefore, it is either human upon conception or it doesn't become human until it leaves the womb completely- umbilical cord cut. To try and define some point in between is simply farcical.
When I was younger, I was torn on this issue. As I stated before, after many years of consideration, all doubt has been removed from my mind. I am, of course, against abortion. But interestingly enough, most people who support abortion to some degree (ie in the first trimester) have zero tolerance for 3rd trimester abortions. At that point, it is total nonsense to argue that what lies in the womb is anything but human.
But the hardcore abortion advocate must defend this procedure. The only way to do so is to argue that what lies in the womb at 36 weeks or what lies half in and half out of the birth canal is NOT human. It's the only logical way to go. If it's not human, it's not murder. If it's not human, it's just a lump of flesh. On the thread in question at DU, someone actually defended this argument. It was horrifying to me that someone could actually come right out and say that "until the umbilical cord is severed, the thing in question is not human and therefore does not receive the same rights as other humans.
It gives me hope that at least as far as that extreme argument goes- even democrats en masse do not agree with it.
I wish we could win this war in one fell swoop. It cannot be apparantly. To win in small battles seems to be the best approach. We are winning. This is the way to go. Establish this argument and the rest logically follows even if it takes a bit of time. Those who advocate the "until the umbilical cord is cut" argument will eventually be "outed" and marginalized. Most decent people, regardless of political affilitation, do not agree with that and in the end we will win.
When I taught school (sixth grade) in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1970, I had one black student. It tears at my heart to see the statistical probabilities that Angela is likely to have had one or more abortions, based on the stats for black women in America. That girl was a beautiful, bright young person, timid and unsure of herself, but willing to try to please her teacher that believed in her.
During the year I had the honor to be her teacher, she blossomed into a young lady more sure of her abilities and a willing aid to other students who didn't catch on as quickly as she. The flowering was more because Angela had it in her, than any effort I put in to the metamorphosis.
I believe Angela would have been as good a Mother as her Mother, with more to give to her children than her Mother could give to her since Angela surpassed her Mother's education by finishing the sixth grade.
It is a shameful blight on America that there is so high a chance Angela's children were not given the time to blossom as she did or add to the wealth of humanity in her race.
Flame away if you will, folks, for my bringing up race, but I think of Angela every time I read the statistics for abortion in the black community. America needs more Angelas from whom to derive our collective humanity. I fault those, black and white, who may have led her astray, to kill her own children before they were born to us all. ... Then again, perhaps Angela's children are, as we discuss this topic, obtaining the education, working, and maintaining the families that bless us all with more Angelas. God let it be so.]
Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
They are both good arguments. But for me, as I said, after long consideration, I have concluded that the "human or not" argument carries more weight in the end. It seems to me that as you say, as science progresses it also gives us better means to state definitively when a fetus becomes human. But at the same time, the frontiers of science also push back the boundaries of what is considered "viable".
At some point in the future, viable will be the "moment of conception". In other words, there will exist the technology to take that fertilized embyro from the mother immediately and painlessly after conception and to continue its growth independent of her. At that point, it becomes an unreasonable option for her to simply abort it for the sake of aborting it. Since this point in technology is obviously approaching (whether it takes a decade or a century), the argument will eventually be made that since the viability of the fetus is the issue (the direction we are headed now) then abortion is never morally correct since viability begins at conception.
I disagree with the "point of humanity" argument. There is simply no point one can gesture towards that is not entirely arbitrary at which a fetus becomes "human". To hear pro abortion people talk, until it becomes legally "human", it is no more than a lump of flesh- a dog or a cat, for example. This is demonstrably not true. The newly conceived embryo has its own genetic destiny. It has its own DNA (the gold standard nowadays for capital punishment cases), its own blood type (independent of the mother) and its own raison d'etre (to grow and develop). It did not ask to be there in the womb. It was invited.
There might have existed a time when democrats could argue that young women were simply ignorant of the cause and effects of sexual congress. This can no longer be argued effectively by those same democrats because of their very own efforts to educate the public about sex. They hand out condoms at schools- there is simply no excuse for having an unintended pregnancy through consensual sexual acts. The dems have undermined their own reasoning via their prescriptions. If young people today don't know that sex makes babies- they never will.
But to close down my remarks, I agree with you. To kill a human in lieu of having to go to the trouble of actually taking 9 months to bear it is simply not on. The lesser harm is obviously for the woman to "endure" the pregnancy. Giving a child up for adoption even is not the end of the world. Jeez, to hear the dems talk, to be adopted or raised in an orphanage is a fate worse than death. I think if I found myself in an orphanage I would count myself lucky that my bio-mother didn't simply kill me, allowing as it's a perfectly legal solution...
This is technically correct but it is not the nature of the argument as we face it today. Practically nobody argues that a human outside the womb is not human although many people argue that a human with one foot in the womb or with umbilical still attached is not human.
You and I do not disagree. I was simply stating the argument as it is contemporarily framed.
Hmmm. Define infanticide. I see only homicide. You're either killing a person for no just cause or not. I, personally, believe in the death penalty for murder. I don't agree with drawing lines between murder of a "grown up" and murder of an infant. It's murder or it aint. That's just me though.
As far as the embryocide or not goes- you get right back into the circular argument of when it's a human or not. If you're going to pick some arbitrary value that occurs somewhere during gestation, then humanity has no "fixed" value- it is constantly changing according to the latest gadget. This is obviously absurd. That leaves us with the extreme pro-abortion argument "it aint human until the umbilical is cut" or its human at the moment of conception. The moment of conception is also the logical extropolated point of the arbitrary "viability" argument as well (because technological progress pushes this boundary ever backwards) so it seems that conception is the inevitibale lowest common denominator argument.
We will reach a point where people will have to deal with the fact that nature has intended sex for creating other humans and not primarily for pleasure. Sex is the act of creating another human. We are rational, we will have to learn this lesson. That we find it pleasurable is entirely a pleasant accident but one we will have to discipline ourselves to deal with. The same as I must discipline myself from ridding my environment of democrats...
When you hear the argument that 'you can't enslave a woman by forcing her to carry unwanted children conceived by consensual sex', remember the legal counter is 'the free individual is responsible for exposing self to the consequences of ones own chosen behavior.'
It is MURDER
Dr. George Tiller, is a specialist in the above practice. He has more experience than anyone in the nation, perhaps the world. He "works" in the heartland of our nation.
From http://www.drtiller.com/mainpg.html
Women's Health Care Services is a professional organization dedicated to providing expert, confidential, and respectful abortion care. We have a national and international reputation for providing the highest quality abortion services in a safe and caring environment. Kindness, courtesy, justice, love and respect are the cornerstones of our patient-provider relationships.
We have an unparalleled record of safey in late abortion services and we have more experience in late abortion services over 24 weeks than anyone else currently practicing in the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Australia.
"Women and Families are intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and ethically competent to struggle with complex health issues -- including abortion -- and come to decisions that are appropriate for themselves."
-- George R. Tiller, M.D., DABFP Medical Director Women's Health Care Services, P.A.
OFFICE HOURS: Women's Health Care Services, PA, is staffed by medical and administrative personnel Tuesday through Saturday. Telephones are answered by administrative staff Monday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday from 7 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday mornings. The clinic is closed approximately one Saturday a month, Sundays, and on major holidays.
Our Medical Director
Dr. George Tiller, M.D., DABFP
Dr. George Tiller has provided abortion services since 1973. He pioneered the use of sonogram imaging during surgery and other procedures that have been adopted as the standard of care for abortion providers nationwide.
Dr. Tiller is a Diplomat of the American Board of Family Practice Physicians. His vast experience over three decades of family medicine practice, both inpatient and outpatient, help him bring the excellence of diversity into focus on this very specialized area of medicine and women's health care. He has received numerous awards including the National Abortion Federation's highest honor, the Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award and the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights' Faith and Freedom Award.
CURRICULUM VITAE 1963 - 1967 University of Kansas School of Medicine 1967 - 1968 Internship U.S. Naval Hospital - Camp Pendleton, California 1968 - 1969 Naval Aero-Space Medical Institute Flight Surgeon Course 1969 - 1970 U.S. Navy Flight Surgeon - Oakland, California 1970 - present Private Practice/Family Medicine - Wichita, Kansas 1975 - present Director/Owner Women’s Health Care - Wichita, Kansas 1980 - 1991 Team Physician, Wichita Wings, Major Indoor Soccer League 1987 - 1990 Medical Director, Women’s Alcoholism Treatment Services - Sedgwick County Health Department - Wichita, Kansas
WESLEY MEDICAL CENTER - WICHITA, KS 1970 - 1975 Chairman, Medical Records, Utilization, Pharmacy Committee - Department of Family Practice 1974 - 1980 Executive Committee Medical Staff 1979 President, Medical Staff
ORGANIZATIONS OF MEDICAL INTEREST 1968 - present American Medical Association 1973 - 1976 Medical Advisory Board - Kansas Planned Parenthood| 1973 - present American Academy of Family Physicians 1978 - present National Abortion Federation member 1978 - present Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights member 1980 - 1987 Kansas NARAL Board Member 1985 - 1986 NARAL - Tribute Committee 1985 - present Medical/Legal consultations on abortion issues 1986 - present National Organization for Women 1987 - 1992 Member, Impaired Physicians Committee of Kansas Medical Society 1989 - present Co-Founder/Member, ProChoice Action League 2002 Foundation Board, National Coalition of Abortion Providers 2002 Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, Board Member TEACHING EXPERIENCE 1970 - present Clinical Instructor Family Medicine Residency, Wesley Medical Center/HCA Wesley 1973 - 1975 Volunteer Community Supervising Physician - Family Practice Residency - Wesley Medical Center 1976-Present Clinical Instructor, Department of Family and Community Medicine - Wichita State Branch, University of Kansas School of Medicine Present University of Kansas School of Medicine - Wichita State Branch / HCA Wesley Medical Center PRESENTATIONS AND LECTURES 1982 “Augmented D & E for Late Mid-Trimester Abortion” 1984 “Seeing is Better Than Feeling (Routine Ultrasound in the First Trimester)” 1985 “Induction Abortion as an Outpatient” - Family Practice Grand Rounds 1988 “1st Trimester Abortion With and Without Ultrasound - A Comparison of 16,000 Patients” - National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting 1988 “Fruits, Spheres and Soundwaves - Ultrasound and Abortion in the First Trimester” - Family Practice Lecture Series 1989 “Transvaginal Ultrasound in the First Trimester: An Asset or a Liability?” - National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting 1990 “Pre-op and Intra-operative Ultrasound in the First Trimester” - National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting 1992 “Empowering Physicians/Operation Rescue Survival” - National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting 1993 "Fetal Indications Termination of Pregnancy as an Outpatient: Experience With 240 Patients at 19 to 31 Weeks Duration” - National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting 1993 “Spirituality and Abortion Services” - Keynote Speaker at Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights of Minnesota Annual Meeting 1993 “Spirituality and Abortion Providers” - National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting Panel Discussion 1994 “Fetal Indications Termination of Pregnancy Program, January 1989-December 1993 Study" 1995 “Emerging Technologies: The Impact of Medical Abortion” - National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting Panel Discussion 1996 “Presentation of the Stillborn/Our Experience With 1000 Fetal Indications Terminations of Pregnancy” - Abortion Matters: Amsterdam, Netherlands (March) 1996 “Gifts of Understanding and the Pyramid of Reason” - Region IV Meeting of National Association of Genetic Counselors Kansas City, MO (March) 1996 “Presentation of the Stillborn/Our Experience With 1000 Fetal Indications Terminations of Pregnancy” - National Abortion Federation Meeting, San Francisco, CA (April) 1997 “Emotional Care of the Fetal Indications Termination of Pregnancy Patient” - National Abortion Federation Risk Management Meeting: St. Louis, MO (September) 1997 “Report to Providers: Experience with 1274 Fetal Indications Termination of Pregnancy Patients as Outpatients 1989-1997" - Private Communication with Referral Sources 1997 “Clinic Experience with Kansas Legislators” - Clinic Tour (October) 1999 "Understanding the 'Late' Abortion Patient" - Jane Fund, Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts, Worcester, MA (January) 1999 "Understanding the 'Late' Abortion Patient" - Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts, Amherst College, Amherst, MA (January) 1999 "Understanding the 'Late' Abortion Patient" - National Network of Abortion Funds, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI (June) 1999 "40 Times Safer Than Full Term Delivery: 2730 Late Term Abortions with our new WHCS MOLD (Misoprosotol, Oxytocin, Laminaria, Digoxin) Protocol" - Planned Parenthood of Australia, Abortion Affairs, Coolum, Australia (November) 2000 "A Physician's Perspective on Personal and Clinic Violence" - Medical Students for Choice, National Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA (April) 2000 "Second Trimester Abortion: An Overview of Philosophy, Approach to the Patient, and Technique Considerations" - Medical Students for Choice, National Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA (April) 2000 "40 Times Safer Than Full Term Delivery: 2730 Late Term Abortions with the WHCS MOLD (Misoprostol, Oxytocin, Laminaria, Digoxin) Protocol" - National Abortion Federation Risk Management Meeting, Palm Springs, CA (September) 2000 Co-Chair, National Abortion Federation Risk Management Meeting, Palm Springs, CA (September) 2000 "40 Times Safer Than Full Term Delivery: 2730 Late Term Abortions with the WHCS MOLD (Misoprostol, Oxytocin, Laminaria, Digoxin) Protocol" - National Society of Genetics Counselors, Savannah, GA (November) 2000 "Late Abortion as Day Surgery: A Review of 3845 Cases" International Society of Abortion Doctors, Paris, France (November) 2001 "Liberty and Justice for All? A New Supreme Court" - National Coaliation of Abortion Providers, Washington, D.C. (March) 2001 "A Review of Second and Third Trimester Termination of Pregnancy" - Medical Students for Choice, National Meeting, Chicago, IL (April) 2001 "Grand Rounds Fetal Indication Termination of Pregnancy: A Rational Approach" - Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (September) 2001 "Grand Rounds Fetal Indication Termination of Pregnancy: A Rational Approach" - National Abortion Federation Risk Management Meeting, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (September) 2001 "Technical Aspects of Fetal Indications Termination of Pregnancy" - National Society of Genetic Counselors, Washington, D.C. (November) 2002 The Effect of Previous Caesarian Section on Induction Termination of Pregnancy by the WHCS MOLD Technique: A Review of 4487 Late Abortion Patients. National Abortion Federation Annual Meeting. San Jose, CA (April) 2002 A Provider's Perspective: Medical Students for Choice. San Jose, CA (April)
ACCREDITATION 1973 - 2005 Diplomat, American Board of Family Practice 1989 - present Associate, American Society of Addiction Medicine
AWARDS 1973 - 1978 Active Teacher in Family Practice Award - American Academy of Family Practice 1992 Person of the Year, You Make a Difference Award - Planned Parenthood of Nebraska 1993 Faith and Freedom Award - Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights 1994 Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award - National Abortion Federation 1997 25 year membership award, American Academy of Family Physicians, Chicago, IL 1999 Reproductive Freedom Award - Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts, Massachusetts NARAL, Tapestry Health System 1999 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Women's Health Care
Meet Our Chaplain
George Gardner
The Chaplaincy program is designed to bring spiritual resources to those who come to the Clinic for help and assistance. Spiritually, abortion is acceptable in ten of the world's religions and in Christianity many denominations affirm and uphold the right of a woman to make the choice of abortion.
The Chaplaincy program works with people from all religious backgrounds as well as those who are not a part of a spiritual tradition. The program offers individual counseling, group counseling and the celebration of spiritual sacraments such as baptism of the still born fetus and blessings for the aborted fetus. The program works with many different religions and is prepared to do, or arrange for, religious services from any spiritual religion.
The services of Women's Health Care Serves is a coordinated effort so that every patient and significant other can experience the healing of body, mind and spirit.
WOMEN'S HEALTH CARE SERVICES, P.A. 5107 East Kellogg Wichita, Kansas USA 67218 316-684-5108 800-882-0488 Toll Free in US 316-684-0052 Fax
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