{"id":185741,"date":"2018-07-30T10:35:22","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T15:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=185741"},"modified":"2018-07-30T16:42:06","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T21:42:06","slug":"abortion-patients-report-injured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-patients-report-injured\/","title":{"rendered":"Former abortion worker: We ‘don’t report it’ when patients go home injured"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hellen Pendley, who worked in an abortion<\/a> facility in Georgia, told her story<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0a conference called \u201cMeet the Abortion Providers,\u201d sponsored by the Pro-Life Action League.\u00a0According to Pendley, incomplete abortions — in which the abortionist leaves part of the baby or placenta in the mother\u2019s uterus — occurred frequently in her facility. This is a dangerous complication, because it can lead to serious infections. At best, this means a repeat aspiration procedure. At worst, it can lead to septic shock and death. But\u00a0Pendley said her facility covered up these complications by hiding injured women’s charts from inspectors:<\/p>\n

I kept a file in my office; it was separate, it was under lock and key and absolutely no one had access to that but me. Those were our \u201cproblem patients.\u201d Those were pulled out, they were purged from the normal filing system because we did not want an inspector to come in and routinely pull\u00a0<\/em>records and pull those records. Those were the women that we knew we sent home bleeding, the women\u00a0<\/em>that we knew we sent home with a problem. They were the ones that we knew we were going to hear\u00a0<\/em>from again.<\/em><\/p>\n

Both the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the CDC supposedly keep track of complications, but much has been written about the uselessness and inaccuracy of their records. As John M. Thorp, Jr. and Clarke D. Forsythe pointed out<\/a> in The Washington Times, both agencies rely solely on abortion providers for their data, and reporting is completely voluntary. Only 26 states require abortion facilities to make any reports at all, and there are no guidelines in any state to ensure the reports are made accurately. Generally, abortion facilities report complications only if they choose to.<\/p>\n

READ: Brothers of 24-year-old botched abortion victim demand answers<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pendley said when she began working at the facility, she asked employees how they gathered data for their statistics, and they told her, “we guess.” Pendley noted, “… [W]hen you stop and look at CDC statistics, other statistics that you come across showing just how safe legal abortion is, you need to understand who reports those statistics.”<\/p>\n

In the chain of abortion facilities where Pendley worked, the director ordered workers not to report any complication that did not result in hospitalization:<\/p>\n

I have a memorandum that came from our national director of this particular company, and in that memorandum she states, \u201cYou do not report it if it\u2019s not a hospitalization. I don\u2019t care how many times you perforate a uterus, you pack them, you massage the uterus, you give them some [medicine] and you send them home, but you don\u2019t report it.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

READ: Botched abortion shows dangers of a troubled abortion industry<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pendley describes how one of the abortionists at her facility perforated the uterus of a 14-year-old girl so severely that he pulled her bowel into it. This is a devastating complication that could easily lead to death from blood loss or massive infection. Incredibly, instead of treating the complication or even alerting the girl\u2019s parents, he sent the girl home with her bowel in her uterus.<\/strong> Pendley said that she doesn’t know if the girl survived.<\/p>\n

These complications are known possibilities in multiple abortion procedures, especially late-term abortions, like a dilation and evacuation, or D&E. A woman risks a perforated or lacerated uterus or cervix, hemorrhage, cervical damage, and scar tissue — and if she survives, these complications can negatively affect future pregnancies.<\/p>\n