Women suffer abuses at abortion clinics

...Women are being physically injured, sexually assaulted, or raped by abortionists, Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics (see link #1 below) told Religion Today.

...There are "hundreds of horror stories," Crutcher said. Based in Denton, Texas, he researched the situation for his 1996 self-published book Lime 5: Exploited by Choice (Life Dynamics, Inc.). "Lime 5" is a pseudonym assigned by an abortion clinic to a patient.

...Almost all the information in the book was gained by sifting through public records such as newspaper reports, death certificates, court data, and reports by medical examiners, Crutcher said. Much of it involves case histories of women who were injured or died as a result of an abortion.

...Abortion clinics are "grossly under-regulated," Crutcher says. What he refers to as the "abortion industry" professes to be self-policing, he said, but has yet to "even approach minimal safety standards, and American women are being butchered because of it." Few abortion facilities meet the health standards that regulate other medical facilities, and veterinary clinics come under closer scrutiny than abortion clinics, he said. "We wouldn’t allow these people to operate on our dogs and cats."

...Problems at some clinics include unqualified staff, improper equipment, improper use of anesthesia, inadequate medical examinations, lack of functioning emergency equipment or staff with CPR training, and unsanitary conditions, Lime 5 says. To compound the problem, there is no definitive way to have accurate information on the subject under the current reporting system, Crutcher said.

...Pro-choice advocates have lobbied to keep the procedures loosely regulated so it will remain affordable, but that sets up fertile ground for abuses, Crutcher wrote.

...Crutcher's book recounts records of more than 100 cases of purported irresponsibility and incompetence leading to injuries to women. He has received few challenges to the book, which he attributes to the thoroughness of its documentation. Detractors have cited the limited number of reported cases of abuse versus the millions of successful abortions performed, but Crutcher says he suspects what he found was only the tip of the iceberg, limited by his small staff and budget. The actual occurrence of abuses, he suspects, is "staggering."

...The increasing demand for fetal tissue for use in medical research is what drives the demand for late-term abortions, Crutcher said. "It is altering the way abortions are being done. Clinics are trying to produce more intact fetuses. It is driving their desire to keep partial-birth abortions legal." Of the three kinds of late-term abortions -- saline, DNE, and DNX (partial-birth) -- the first two kinds destroy the fetus "so there is less tissue to sell. Only partial-birth abortion provides an intact fetus that can be sold."

...The contention that partial-birth abortions preserve the health of the mother "is laughable," Crutcher says. "If the mother's health is truly at stake, why would a doctor order a procedure that takes two to three days and requires a very risky breach delivery? The motive for partial-birth is money, not the safety of the mother."

...Crutcher produced a video that interviews a pro-life "spy" who purchases fetal tissue from abortion clinics. The video alleges that, in some cases, live babies are born by mistake but quickly killed. The spy reportedly decided to work with Life Dynamics after witnessing a set of twins who were alive outside the mother drowned by the doctor. The tape also includes an interview with Eric Harrah (see link #2 below), former owner of a string of abortion clinics who became a pro-life advocate. Harrah now alleges some of the same abuses that Crutcher recounts.

..."When I founded Life Dynamics in 1992, my goal was to create the most innovative and aggressive pro-life organization in America," Crutcher said. "That has now become a reality, and we are proud that pro-abortion activists routinely call Life Dynamics the group they fear the most."

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