Planned Parenthood of Spokane has decided to appeal the audit which found it overbilled Medicaid over a period of at least three years, rather than pay the $629,000 which DSHS says it owes taxpayers.
Neither Planned Parenthood nor its attorney responded to inquiries, but DSHS spokesman Jim Stevenson told AIW late today that a notice of appeal was received by the government.
Planned Parenthood, the largest single provider of abortions in Washington, and the country, faces the risk of keeping the financial scandal in the news by appealing the ruling. But, on the other hand, paying the bill means admitting to the overbilling and potentially inviting further scrutiny into their finances and those of their affiliates across the state.
Details to follow as they become available.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
PP Silent on Plans to Repay Medicaid on Eve of Deadline
Today is the day that Planned Parenthood of Spokane either has to send a check for $629,000 to the Department of Social and Health Services for the overbillings found in the recent audit, or file an appeal.
Repeated inquiries to both Planned Parenthood and the group's attorney, David B. Robbins, have gone largely ignored. We have left numerous messages with Anna Franks, the acting president of PP of Spokane, asking what they plan to do. Ms. Franks, who runs PP of Central Washington, took over PP of Spokane about the same time the financial scandal became publicized, though she claimed the one thing had nothing to do with the other, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review.
While Ms. Franks repeatedly described the audit as "routine" in her sole public statement on the issue, she has declined interviews, and claimed she was "strongly" considering appealing the findings. She did not give any indication as to which of the five separate categories of overbilling she disputed.
While Mr. Robbins is an expert at defending clients accused of Medicaid fraud, he suggested we not read too much into that, claiming he is equally experienced at helping clients with more basic Medicaid overbilling issues. (That was the only correspondence we received from him that even partially constituted an answer to our questions.)
We will find out by the end of the day whether DSHS has received a check, but either way, we are still eagerly anticipating word from Washington Medicaid director, Doug Porter, as to whether or not the state is going to bring fraud charges against Planned Parenthood, whether they are investigating other PP affiliates in the state for similar patterns of overbilling, and whether or not they are extending the overbilling investigation for Spokane beyond the period of the audit, which just covered three years from 2004 to 2007.
Repeated inquiries to both Planned Parenthood and the group's attorney, David B. Robbins, have gone largely ignored. We have left numerous messages with Anna Franks, the acting president of PP of Spokane, asking what they plan to do. Ms. Franks, who runs PP of Central Washington, took over PP of Spokane about the same time the financial scandal became publicized, though she claimed the one thing had nothing to do with the other, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review.
While Ms. Franks repeatedly described the audit as "routine" in her sole public statement on the issue, she has declined interviews, and claimed she was "strongly" considering appealing the findings. She did not give any indication as to which of the five separate categories of overbilling she disputed.
While Mr. Robbins is an expert at defending clients accused of Medicaid fraud, he suggested we not read too much into that, claiming he is equally experienced at helping clients with more basic Medicaid overbilling issues. (That was the only correspondence we received from him that even partially constituted an answer to our questions.)
We will find out by the end of the day whether DSHS has received a check, but either way, we are still eagerly anticipating word from Washington Medicaid director, Doug Porter, as to whether or not the state is going to bring fraud charges against Planned Parenthood, whether they are investigating other PP affiliates in the state for similar patterns of overbilling, and whether or not they are extending the overbilling investigation for Spokane beyond the period of the audit, which just covered three years from 2004 to 2007.
Blog Mentioned in Wash. Times, PP Spokane Overbilling Gets National Attention
The Washington Times yesterday published a story on the DSHS audit of Planned Parenthood of Spokane, including the requirement to repay $629,000 by today. The story appeared in Amanda Carpenter's daily Hot Button, and cited this blog as the original source.
Perceptively, the Times linked the Spokane audit with the massive case of Medicaid fraud that Planned Parenthood was comitting over the course of many years in California.
There are two notable differences between the California case and the Spokane case. First, the California fraud primarily involved the 340B Drug Discount Program, in which PP purchased huge quantities of drugs at enormous discounts -- about $2 per unit for oral contraceptives and the abortifacient 'morning-after pill' -- under the federal 340B program, and then illegally billed Medicaid at standard rates, about $20, when the law clearly required them to bill at "acquisition cost".
The Spokane audit didn't contain any findings of 340B Medicaid fraud, but we are conducting a separate investigation of that. What we do know so far is that there was at the very least some confusion between the federal government and the Washington State government as to whether or not Planned Parenthood of Spokane was enrolled in the program.
The second difference was that in California, PP shockingly and successfully lobbied the state Medicaid department, known as Medi-Cal, to call off the audit before it was completed. This was revealed in the lawsuit. You are not supposed to be able to lobby to get an audit stopped, but there have been widespread allegations of corruption in California, and critics argue that the Medi-Cal bureaucracy is filled with individuals friendly with and sympathetic to DSHS.
The same allegations have been made about Washington, but it does at least appear that they were unable in this state to get the audit canceled.
Interestingly, Washington State's Medicaid director, Doug Porter, was the chief executive of Medi-Cal before he came here in 2000. The lawsuit, which has been explained in detail here, doesn't cover the period of Mr. Porter's tenure.
Perceptively, the Times linked the Spokane audit with the massive case of Medicaid fraud that Planned Parenthood was comitting over the course of many years in California.
While PPINW mulls an appeal, P. Victor Gonzalez, a former vice president of finance and administration at Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, is pursuing a whistleblower lawsuit against PPLA on grounds that he was fired for speaking out about "illegal accounting, billing and donations practices of Planned Parenthood."
He is seeking $1.2 million in damages and says he has evidence that PPLA overbilled the state close to $180 million.
A state audit released in 2004 of Planned Parenthood of San Diego lends some credence to Mr. Gonzalez's allegations. It found the state made $5.2 million in overpayments in 2003.
There are two notable differences between the California case and the Spokane case. First, the California fraud primarily involved the 340B Drug Discount Program, in which PP purchased huge quantities of drugs at enormous discounts -- about $2 per unit for oral contraceptives and the abortifacient 'morning-after pill' -- under the federal 340B program, and then illegally billed Medicaid at standard rates, about $20, when the law clearly required them to bill at "acquisition cost".
The Spokane audit didn't contain any findings of 340B Medicaid fraud, but we are conducting a separate investigation of that. What we do know so far is that there was at the very least some confusion between the federal government and the Washington State government as to whether or not Planned Parenthood of Spokane was enrolled in the program.
The second difference was that in California, PP shockingly and successfully lobbied the state Medicaid department, known as Medi-Cal, to call off the audit before it was completed. This was revealed in the lawsuit. You are not supposed to be able to lobby to get an audit stopped, but there have been widespread allegations of corruption in California, and critics argue that the Medi-Cal bureaucracy is filled with individuals friendly with and sympathetic to DSHS.
The same allegations have been made about Washington, but it does at least appear that they were unable in this state to get the audit canceled.
Interestingly, Washington State's Medicaid director, Doug Porter, was the chief executive of Medi-Cal before he came here in 2000. The lawsuit, which has been explained in detail here, doesn't cover the period of Mr. Porter's tenure.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Will Planned Parenthood Financial Scandal Put "Take Charge" Renewal At Risk?
This is the year that the state Medicaid program which has been called Planned Parenthood's private slush fund comes up for renewal again. While many critics consider the review of any program that supplies half of that controversial organization's revenue little more than a formality, the recent financial audit finding Planned Parenthood of Spokane guilty of five separate categories of overbilling Medicaid could make it awkward to rubber-stamp the program this fall. The abortion chain was told to repay $630,000.
The state government has not said whether the group is still engaged in these types of overbilllings today, and has thus far declined to answer questions as to whether other PP affiliates in the state are guilty of the same practices. They have also not indicated thus far what they have concluded as to whether the overbillings were deliberate, rising to the level of fraud. So far no fraud charges have been filed.
The "Take Charge" program was started in 2001, at the beginning of George W. Bush's first term. An experimental program, it required the permission of the federal government to get started, and needs the feds' review for re-authorization every three years. The initial trial ended in 2006, when it was renewed, despite objections.
"Free Birth Control For a Year"
The premise of the program is simple. Extend Medicaid coverage for birth control to more people by relaxing the income qualification threshold. The result is free birth control for a year for qualifying individuals, mostly women.
It is a fundamental and unquestionable dogma of the sexual left that putting women with dark skin on birth control is A Very Good Thing. Taking oral contraceptives is perhaps the closest thing our cultural Marxists have to a sacrament.
While theoretically any health care provider can sign up to be a "Take Charge Provider" -- i.e., someone who signs individuals up for the program, administers an exam, and provides them with birth control -- it didn't take long for Planned Parenthood affiliates across the state to position themselves as the primary face of the initiative.
Half of Planned Parenthood Clients are Take Charge
A review of Planned Parenthood of Western Washington's finances since 2000 shows a doubling of the revenues since the program began, from about $15 million a year, to about $40 million in revenues each year today! Their annual report freely admits that half of their clients are Take Charge enrollees.
We have conducted an exhaustive review of the Take Charge program, including interviews with Washington State and federal officials who oversee it. The overall objective of the program is to reduce the financial burden on Medicaid of all the birth expenses it pays for. If all these women who end up having babies at Medicaid's expense could be put on birth control, the thinking goes, Medicaid will save money.
Has it worked out that way? You be the judge: just before the program began, in 2000, Medicaid was paying out $200 million for childbirth expenses. Five years later, when the program came up for review and was approved for 3 more years, you might expect that this number had gone down. In fact, that figure had jumped 50% to a staggering $300 million!
The number of births paid for by Medicaid had gone up from about 33,000 to 40,000.
Program Has Led to Expansion of State Abortion Chain
Unfortunately, not all pregnancies end in birth. What about abortion? Since Take Charge began, while the overall abortion rate has declined slightly, the rate amongst Medicaid-eligible Washingtonians has jumped from just over 40% of all abortions to just under 60%.
As we've noted, the largest single gateway for Take Charge clients is Planned Parenthood. Not only have they made literally tens of millions of dollars off the program from birth control sales, their abortion business has mushroomed. They are doing 50% more abortions now than just 3 years ago. While they refuse to make abortion figures for 2000/2001 available, by any estimate they are doing more than twice as many abortions as they were when Take Charge began.
Brian Cutler, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, even admitted to us that they had used the windfall revenue from Take Charge to "upgrade" existing clinics -- including adding "abortion services" -- and to open new ones. In other words, Take Charge money has been used to open abortion clinics.
We confronted state DSHS and federal HHS officials who oversee this program with all this information. The state government has shown little to no interest in addressing our concerns. The federal government did hold a conference call with us to discuss the matter, but provided no meaningful assurances as to how this situation would be remedied.
Breaking the Law?
As if this were not enough, there are two additional matters. Federal law requires that these kinds of experimental programs, known as "Section 1115 Waivers", must be revenue neutral. In other words, the cost of the program -- all that "free" birth control -- must be balanced by savings in terms of births avoided. Nowhere in the Take Charge Final Report presented to the federal government in 2006 did the report's author, Dr. Leslie Cawthon, provide a figure indicating the financial cost of the program, let alone demonstrate its revenue neutrality.
Requests for these figures have been unmet. DSHS may have opened itself up for a lawsuit. We will be following up on this.
Finally, we have asked the federal government point blank: is the goal of the program to reduce the cost to Medicaid by reducing the number of births, or reducing the number of pregnancies? Clearly the former can be achieved through abortion, Planned Parenthood's specialty. The latter cannot. If the only measure is cost, since abortions are cheaper than childbirth, then the current situation would be perfectly acceptable to them. No-one was willing to provide a definitive answer to this question. This is an outrage.
We have called on the government to make it explicit that the cost-saving goals of the program must not be met through abortion. The only way to do this is to require unequivocally that no Take Charge provider can also be an abortion provider.
A long-serving state senator from Western Washington told us off the record that DSHS was so corrupt and "in bed with" Planned Parenthood that there was simply no chance that any program providing so much revenue to the abortion chain would be cut. We shall see soon enough if known Medicaid abusers get their primary source of revenue rubber-stamped.
The state government has not said whether the group is still engaged in these types of overbilllings today, and has thus far declined to answer questions as to whether other PP affiliates in the state are guilty of the same practices. They have also not indicated thus far what they have concluded as to whether the overbillings were deliberate, rising to the level of fraud. So far no fraud charges have been filed.
The "Take Charge" program was started in 2001, at the beginning of George W. Bush's first term. An experimental program, it required the permission of the federal government to get started, and needs the feds' review for re-authorization every three years. The initial trial ended in 2006, when it was renewed, despite objections.
"Free Birth Control For a Year"
The premise of the program is simple. Extend Medicaid coverage for birth control to more people by relaxing the income qualification threshold. The result is free birth control for a year for qualifying individuals, mostly women.
It is a fundamental and unquestionable dogma of the sexual left that putting women with dark skin on birth control is A Very Good Thing. Taking oral contraceptives is perhaps the closest thing our cultural Marxists have to a sacrament.
While theoretically any health care provider can sign up to be a "Take Charge Provider" -- i.e., someone who signs individuals up for the program, administers an exam, and provides them with birth control -- it didn't take long for Planned Parenthood affiliates across the state to position themselves as the primary face of the initiative.
Half of Planned Parenthood Clients are Take Charge
A review of Planned Parenthood of Western Washington's finances since 2000 shows a doubling of the revenues since the program began, from about $15 million a year, to about $40 million in revenues each year today! Their annual report freely admits that half of their clients are Take Charge enrollees.
We have conducted an exhaustive review of the Take Charge program, including interviews with Washington State and federal officials who oversee it. The overall objective of the program is to reduce the financial burden on Medicaid of all the birth expenses it pays for. If all these women who end up having babies at Medicaid's expense could be put on birth control, the thinking goes, Medicaid will save money.
Has it worked out that way? You be the judge: just before the program began, in 2000, Medicaid was paying out $200 million for childbirth expenses. Five years later, when the program came up for review and was approved for 3 more years, you might expect that this number had gone down. In fact, that figure had jumped 50% to a staggering $300 million!
The number of births paid for by Medicaid had gone up from about 33,000 to 40,000.
Program Has Led to Expansion of State Abortion Chain
Unfortunately, not all pregnancies end in birth. What about abortion? Since Take Charge began, while the overall abortion rate has declined slightly, the rate amongst Medicaid-eligible Washingtonians has jumped from just over 40% of all abortions to just under 60%.
As we've noted, the largest single gateway for Take Charge clients is Planned Parenthood. Not only have they made literally tens of millions of dollars off the program from birth control sales, their abortion business has mushroomed. They are doing 50% more abortions now than just 3 years ago. While they refuse to make abortion figures for 2000/2001 available, by any estimate they are doing more than twice as many abortions as they were when Take Charge began.
Brian Cutler, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, even admitted to us that they had used the windfall revenue from Take Charge to "upgrade" existing clinics -- including adding "abortion services" -- and to open new ones. In other words, Take Charge money has been used to open abortion clinics.
We confronted state DSHS and federal HHS officials who oversee this program with all this information. The state government has shown little to no interest in addressing our concerns. The federal government did hold a conference call with us to discuss the matter, but provided no meaningful assurances as to how this situation would be remedied.
Breaking the Law?
As if this were not enough, there are two additional matters. Federal law requires that these kinds of experimental programs, known as "Section 1115 Waivers", must be revenue neutral. In other words, the cost of the program -- all that "free" birth control -- must be balanced by savings in terms of births avoided. Nowhere in the Take Charge Final Report presented to the federal government in 2006 did the report's author, Dr. Leslie Cawthon, provide a figure indicating the financial cost of the program, let alone demonstrate its revenue neutrality.
Requests for these figures have been unmet. DSHS may have opened itself up for a lawsuit. We will be following up on this.
Finally, we have asked the federal government point blank: is the goal of the program to reduce the cost to Medicaid by reducing the number of births, or reducing the number of pregnancies? Clearly the former can be achieved through abortion, Planned Parenthood's specialty. The latter cannot. If the only measure is cost, since abortions are cheaper than childbirth, then the current situation would be perfectly acceptable to them. No-one was willing to provide a definitive answer to this question. This is an outrage.
We have called on the government to make it explicit that the cost-saving goals of the program must not be met through abortion. The only way to do this is to require unequivocally that no Take Charge provider can also be an abortion provider.
A long-serving state senator from Western Washington told us off the record that DSHS was so corrupt and "in bed with" Planned Parenthood that there was simply no chance that any program providing so much revenue to the abortion chain would be cut. We shall see soon enough if known Medicaid abusers get their primary source of revenue rubber-stamped.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Spokesman-Review Publishes Misleading Story on Spokane Planned Parenthood Audit
Last Thursday, the Spokane Spokesman-Review published a report on the finalized audit of Planned Parenthood of Spokane (PPS) by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). The audit was first publicized on this blog. As we reported, the audit included a repayment bill of $629,000 plus interest.
John Stucke, the Spokesman-Review reporter, was able to secure an interview with Washington State's Medicaid director, Douglas Porter. Whereas our report relied on the written report, Mr. Stucke's story relied heavily on his interview with Mr. Porter. It was, perhaps, not unreasonable for Mr. Stucke to trust Mr. Porter's explanations, but it turns out that resulting article was very confusing.
In the Spokesman Review piece, which was subsequently picked up and retransmitted by the wire services, Mr. Porter claimed that the audit primarily found that Planned Parenthood "required unnecessary office visits by its poorest patients."
"At Planned Parenthood," said Mr. Porter, "Medicaid [birth control] patients were coming in every month," instead of every 6 to 12 months.
What is odd, though, is that the written audit report makes no mention of this issue. Rather, it called out 5 categories of overbilling, only one of which pertained to office visits, and the issues there were billing certain types of visits, like picking up a prescription, under more lucrative billing codes, or billing for visits for which there existed no chart notes.
Mr. Stucke indicated to us that he did not press Mr. Porter on this apparent discrepancy between this part of his interview and the written report. We have contacted Mr. Porter's office ourselves, but have been redirected through the public disclosure office. We have been promised a response, and will report on on our findings if and when that response arrives.
Those familiar with Planned Parenthood's clinical practices would be surprised to hear claims that the organization was guilty of spending too much time with birth control clients. Critics have long charged that the organization hands out birth control "like they were chicklets", and one reason the abortion business is so popular with the young and promiscuous is because they are a quick, easy, and "non-judgmental" source of protection from the consequences of "weekend fun".
Any time a health care provider is accused by an insurer of billing too many office visits, they usually jump to a standard defense that "this is what proper health care requires" and accuse the insurer, public or private, of not paying for proper care. Even Planned Parenthood itself, never one to miss a rhetorical opportunity, failed to make this claim.
The Spokesman Review did correct one thing since we contacted them. They originally titled the piece: "Clinic overbilled Medicaid," as is still evident from the URL. We pointed out that Planned Parenthood of Spokane operates five separate clinics. The headline was changed to "Planned Parenthood overbilled Medicaid."
Another odd thing about the Spokesman-Review report was that, at the very end, it did report that Mr. Porter said the audit found that "drug prescriptions were being changed by unauthorized staff," and that Mr. Porter considered this to be of "equal" importance to the too-frequent-visit issue. Yet the newspaper only dedicated one more sentence to the issue, the last -- and least read -- line of the whole article.
John Stucke, the Spokesman-Review reporter, was able to secure an interview with Washington State's Medicaid director, Douglas Porter. Whereas our report relied on the written report, Mr. Stucke's story relied heavily on his interview with Mr. Porter. It was, perhaps, not unreasonable for Mr. Stucke to trust Mr. Porter's explanations, but it turns out that resulting article was very confusing.
In the Spokesman Review piece, which was subsequently picked up and retransmitted by the wire services, Mr. Porter claimed that the audit primarily found that Planned Parenthood "required unnecessary office visits by its poorest patients."
"At Planned Parenthood," said Mr. Porter, "Medicaid [birth control] patients were coming in every month," instead of every 6 to 12 months.
What is odd, though, is that the written audit report makes no mention of this issue. Rather, it called out 5 categories of overbilling, only one of which pertained to office visits, and the issues there were billing certain types of visits, like picking up a prescription, under more lucrative billing codes, or billing for visits for which there existed no chart notes.
Mr. Stucke indicated to us that he did not press Mr. Porter on this apparent discrepancy between this part of his interview and the written report. We have contacted Mr. Porter's office ourselves, but have been redirected through the public disclosure office. We have been promised a response, and will report on on our findings if and when that response arrives.
Those familiar with Planned Parenthood's clinical practices would be surprised to hear claims that the organization was guilty of spending too much time with birth control clients. Critics have long charged that the organization hands out birth control "like they were chicklets", and one reason the abortion business is so popular with the young and promiscuous is because they are a quick, easy, and "non-judgmental" source of protection from the consequences of "weekend fun".
Any time a health care provider is accused by an insurer of billing too many office visits, they usually jump to a standard defense that "this is what proper health care requires" and accuse the insurer, public or private, of not paying for proper care. Even Planned Parenthood itself, never one to miss a rhetorical opportunity, failed to make this claim.
The Spokesman Review did correct one thing since we contacted them. They originally titled the piece: "Clinic overbilled Medicaid," as is still evident from the URL. We pointed out that Planned Parenthood of Spokane operates five separate clinics. The headline was changed to "Planned Parenthood overbilled Medicaid."
Another odd thing about the Spokesman-Review report was that, at the very end, it did report that Mr. Porter said the audit found that "drug prescriptions were being changed by unauthorized staff," and that Mr. Porter considered this to be of "equal" importance to the too-frequent-visit issue. Yet the newspaper only dedicated one more sentence to the issue, the last -- and least read -- line of the whole article.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Planned Parenthood Responds to Audit ... Sort Of
Acting President of Planned Parenthood of Spokane, Anna Franks (pictured right with husband), today finally responded to the news, first published on this blog, that her organization was found guilty of 5 separate categories of overbilling Medicaid, and was ordered to repay at least $630,000. The statement was released through the organization's Seattle attorney, David B. Robbins.Ms. Franks repeatedly referred to the audit as "routine". Most of the release was a regurgitation of the "dates and dollars" of the audit.
Beyond trying to cast the audit as "routine", she said:
"It was clear in the audit findings that services had been provided; however the State auditor thought the documentation was incomplete."This, in fact, is not true. It's interesting that Ms. Franks raised the issue of whether they had billed for services that were never rendered, because so far this hasn't been discussed. The fact is, it's pretty much impossible for an auditor to determine if services were rendered, without interviewing clients, etc., which was beyond the scope of this type of investigation. All the auditor can do is see if there are chart notes corresponding to services that were billed. The existence of chart notes does not, however, prove that the services were actually provided, of course.
And in fact, much of the findings in the audit were that PP Spokane billed Medicaid for services for which there were no supporting chart notes. They did not, interestingly, discuss whether or not the procedures had actually taken place. Perhaps that is still under investigation.
As for the supposedly "routine" nature of the audit, again we think Ms. Franks protests too much. There's nothing routine about a $630,000 bill. There's nothing routine about doling out birth control without a prescription. There's nothing routine about billing Medicaid for condoms at three times the legal rate. There's nothing routine about billing Medicaid for doctor's visits that were never documented. There's nothing routine about unbundling abortion services.
As for the future, all she said was that "PPINW is strongly considering an appeal of the audit findings."
Ms. Franks, meanwhile, has declined to answer questions from the media, including the Spokane Spokesman-Review. Some critics believe this sort of defensive behavior does not bespeak confidence.
AIW
has also attempted repeatedly to solicit information from her attorney, Mr. Robbins (pictured left), but his responses have been unhelpful at best, rude at worst. At first he simply demanded to know "who pays you?". We thought he might at least tell us when he had been hired by Planned Parenthood Spokane, but he dismissed the question with a "of what relevance is that?"He did suggest, though, that his presence as an attorney for Planned Parenthood should not be interpreted as a sign that they fear a fraud charge. All of this behavior is raising more questions than it is answering.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Victim of Planned Parenthood of Central Washington's Abortion Mill Shares Her Story
A brave Pasco woman has spoken out and shared the story of how Planned Parenthood of Central Washington's Kennewick clinic engaged in horribly unethical, perhaps illegal, medical practices in carrying out an abortion on her that they knew she didn't want, when she was just 16. Read all about it here in this extensive interview.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Planned Parenthood Spokane Slapped with $700,000 Bill from Audit
This is an AIW Exclusive.
Planned Parenthood of Spokane (PPS) has been caught overbilling Medicaid for condoms, charging for contraceptives without a prescription, "unbundling" abortion claims, and claiming patients were having doctor visits when they were just picking up a prescription.
All of this is in an audit of the organization just completed by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). And as a result, PPS has been ordered to reimburse the government $630,000 plus interest for the overpayments. The audit did not get into the question of whether the overbilling was part of a systematic fraud scheme, but it also was clear that if this practice continued PPS would lose its Medicaid billing priveleges.
The audit found 5 categories of overbilling:
1) Numerous examples of billing Medicaid for oral contraceptives either without any underlying prescription for the drugs, or where the prescription was completely invalid, e.g., "Continue with drug XYZ".
2) Many cases where male condoms were billed at some nicely rounded up price instead of the actual acquisition price, as has been required since 2003. For example, in some cases they billed Medicaid $3.00 where the invoices clearly showed that PPS paid $0.84. In other cases, they billed $2.00 where the invoice showed the acquisition price was $0.56.
3) Unbundling post-abortion antibiotics and billing them to Medicaid under Family Planning, which is strictly prohibited.
4) Billing office visits to pick up a prescription or get an injection as "Evaluation and Management" -- a sit-down consult with a doctor or ARNP, and which have a higher reimbursement rate, in some cases double.
5) Billing for pregnancy tests which were done when the client never even suspected she was pregnant, and without any indication of medical necessity.
The audit covered the three-year period from Spring 2004 through Spring 2007, and made a point that it didn't claim to have been exhaustive, meaning that PPS shouldn't assume that they are free and clear if they are guilty of additional overbilling from this period not discovered in the audit.
The audit didn't address the question of whether these practices were going on prior to 2004, or after 2007, including up to the present, or the question of whether it was systematic and intentional, thus rising to the level of fraud.
If it's any indication, though, PPS has lawyered up and hired a fancy Medicaid fraud expert from Seattle to defend itself. The audit was addressed to David B. Robbins, with Bennett Bigelow& Leedom. Mr. Robbins was "selected for inclusion in the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Best Lawyers in America 2008 Edition," according to his website. That can't be cheap.
The audit itself also didn't deal with the question of who is going to ensure that these overbillings are not going on right now.
There is also the question of whether these practices are common to the other Planned Parenthood affiliates in the state, including PP of the Great Northwest (formerly Western Washington), and PP of Central Washington, and whether this audit will trigger audits of the sister organizations.
The audit made it into the news back in June when it was reported in the Spokane Spokesman-Review. The organization's then president was removed, and the group is reportedly being run by Anna Franks, president of Planned Parenthood of Central Washington, which is right now trying to expand into Pasco. But there's nothing to indicate that her practices are any different from the Spokane-centered affiliates.
A $700,000 bill would be a bitter pill for most "non-profits", but with over $11 million the bank, PPS can easily afford it. How did a supposed not-for-profit get into such a comfortable financial situation? Some critics argue that this huge cash reserve has been generated through schemes uncovered in this audit, and that there is more to be discovered.
In 2005, for example, they reported $2 million in profits off of total revenue of $6 million. That's a 33% (net) profit margin for a non-profit.
Some might argue that Medicaid billing is complicated and errors are inevitable. But no organization on earth should have more expertise in how to bill Medicaid correctly for contraceptives than Planned Parenthood.
In the days ahead, this blog will be contacting representatives of Planned Parenthood for comment, as well as representatives of the government to get answers to some of these questions.
The audit didn't mention what prompted the government to initiate this investigation in the first place.
View the Audit Documents here.
Planned Parenthood of Spokane (PPS) has been caught overbilling Medicaid for condoms, charging for contraceptives without a prescription, "unbundling" abortion claims, and claiming patients were having doctor visits when they were just picking up a prescription.
All of this is in an audit of the organization just completed by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). And as a result, PPS has been ordered to reimburse the government $630,000 plus interest for the overpayments. The audit did not get into the question of whether the overbilling was part of a systematic fraud scheme, but it also was clear that if this practice continued PPS would lose its Medicaid billing priveleges.
The audit found 5 categories of overbilling:
1) Numerous examples of billing Medicaid for oral contraceptives either without any underlying prescription for the drugs, or where the prescription was completely invalid, e.g., "Continue with drug XYZ".
2) Many cases where male condoms were billed at some nicely rounded up price instead of the actual acquisition price, as has been required since 2003. For example, in some cases they billed Medicaid $3.00 where the invoices clearly showed that PPS paid $0.84. In other cases, they billed $2.00 where the invoice showed the acquisition price was $0.56.
3) Unbundling post-abortion antibiotics and billing them to Medicaid under Family Planning, which is strictly prohibited.
4) Billing office visits to pick up a prescription or get an injection as "Evaluation and Management" -- a sit-down consult with a doctor or ARNP, and which have a higher reimbursement rate, in some cases double.
5) Billing for pregnancy tests which were done when the client never even suspected she was pregnant, and without any indication of medical necessity.
The audit covered the three-year period from Spring 2004 through Spring 2007, and made a point that it didn't claim to have been exhaustive, meaning that PPS shouldn't assume that they are free and clear if they are guilty of additional overbilling from this period not discovered in the audit.
The audit didn't address the question of whether these practices were going on prior to 2004, or after 2007, including up to the present, or the question of whether it was systematic and intentional, thus rising to the level of fraud.
If it's any indication, though, PPS has lawyered up and hired a fancy Medicaid fraud expert from Seattle to defend itself. The audit was addressed to David B. Robbins, with Bennett Bigelow& Leedom. Mr. Robbins was "selected for inclusion in the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Best Lawyers in America 2008 Edition," according to his website. That can't be cheap.
The audit itself also didn't deal with the question of who is going to ensure that these overbillings are not going on right now.
There is also the question of whether these practices are common to the other Planned Parenthood affiliates in the state, including PP of the Great Northwest (formerly Western Washington), and PP of Central Washington, and whether this audit will trigger audits of the sister organizations.
The audit made it into the news back in June when it was reported in the Spokane Spokesman-Review. The organization's then president was removed, and the group is reportedly being run by Anna Franks, president of Planned Parenthood of Central Washington, which is right now trying to expand into Pasco. But there's nothing to indicate that her practices are any different from the Spokane-centered affiliates.
A $700,000 bill would be a bitter pill for most "non-profits", but with over $11 million the bank, PPS can easily afford it. How did a supposed not-for-profit get into such a comfortable financial situation? Some critics argue that this huge cash reserve has been generated through schemes uncovered in this audit, and that there is more to be discovered.
In 2005, for example, they reported $2 million in profits off of total revenue of $6 million. That's a 33% (net) profit margin for a non-profit.
Some might argue that Medicaid billing is complicated and errors are inevitable. But no organization on earth should have more expertise in how to bill Medicaid correctly for contraceptives than Planned Parenthood.
In the days ahead, this blog will be contacting representatives of Planned Parenthood for comment, as well as representatives of the government to get answers to some of these questions.
The audit didn't mention what prompted the government to initiate this investigation in the first place.
View the Audit Documents here.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Seattle Area Late-Term Abortion Clinic in Financial Scandal?
This blog has spent a long time investigating the finances of Cedar River Clinics, which runs three late-term abortion clinics in Western Washington. Cedar River runs clinics which do abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy -- and those are just the ones they admit to! -- in Renton, Yakima, and Tacoma. While our investigation is still ongoing, it's now time to publicize what we know so far.
Cedar River, which also goes by the moniker of Feminist Women's Health Center, is registered as a non-profit, or 501(c)3. This means their tax returns are available, by law, for public scrutiny.
From those tax returns, we learn that they have annual revenues of just over $5 million per year. From documents accompanying their tax returns, we know that they have 5,700 abortion customers a year. According to a Yakima Herald article, they have more than 7,000 clients total per year. Previous IRS filings and reports put their client volume closer to 6,000. 7,000 unduplicated clients seems unlikely, given that unlike Planned Parenthood, Cedar River's business is almost exclusively abortion related. The higher figure would mean that somewhere between 1,700 and 2,000 clients were there for birth control alone. That is unlikely. So we're going with 6,500 unduplicated clients per year.
Dividing the $5m revenue across 6,500 clients gives an average revenue per client of $770. This is the number to focus on. This number is extraordinarily high.
If you compare it to the now defunct Aradia abortion clinic in downtown Seattle, that clinic reported revenues per client near $350. (About $1 million in program service revenue, and just under 3,000 clients).
Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country provide a very valuable reference point. Laughably, but conveniently for these purposes, Planned Parenthood is also a 501(c)3 with public tax returns. Planned Parenthood of Western Washington is notoriously aggressive when it comes to revenue generation, but even they only report $200 revenue per client ($22 million over about 110,000 unduplicated clients), and that includes the $7 million in allegedly illegal profits from 340b Medicaid overbilling fraud! Other Planned Parenthood operations in Washington State show similar revenues per client.
So how does Cedar River come up with $770 in revenue per client? Are they just catering to the rich and famous? Clinic CEO Beverly Whipple claims that they are mostly serving the low-income and indigent, to the tune of 65% of the total clients.
We don't see any legitimate way to explain this figure.
What is more, this abortion chain claims that they are writing off almost half their would-be revenues due to unpaid bills. In other words, their revenues should be closer to $9.5 million. The $5 million in revenues is just the actually realized revenue. That would put the claimed revenue per client at about $1,450!
Of further interest is the fact that for several years, the way in which they were accounting for this on their annual tax returns to the IRS (known as 990s) was highly suspicious. They were actually claiming $9 million in revenue and a single line-item of negative revenue called "Contracts and Other Allowances" in the amount of $4 million.
When we contacted them about this, they said that "Other Allowances" was the amount they were writing off in unclaimed revenue, or unpaid bills. Experts we spoke to informed us that it's not illegal to operate this way, listing a "woulda-coulda-shoulda" idealized figure for your top-line revenue and then subtracting the difference between that and actual revenue, but it is unusual, and it's not clear what purpose it serves.
Additionally, Ms. Whipple told us they started doing this because they changed accountants. When I pointed out to her that the tax returns clearly listed the same Yakima accounting firm of Alegria & Company before and after they started reporting in this way, she had no comment.
Also of interest is a blantant mistake on their 2005 return which they corrected after we brought it to their attention: they accidentally listed the $5+ million writeoff under their management expenses rather than their operational expenses. This made it look like they were spending close to 60% of their expenses on management! Which would make them the worst
"charity" on earth. When we asked them about this, they admitted it was a mistake, and actually refiled their taxes to correct the mistake!
Also, in their most recent tax returns, since we started asking them about the reasons for listing $9 million in revenue and $4-5 million in "unpaid bills" as a single expense, they switched back to the more "natural" way of reporting their finances.
Last year we decided that all these financial shenanigans and unanswered questions deserved the attention of the authorities. We filed a complaint with the Washington State Attorney General's office Charities Division. Unfortunately, this just consisted of the AG's office forwarding a letter to Beverly Whipple.
Ms. Whipple's response was astonishing, and seemed to suggest a certain lack of fear of the authorities.
First, she said if we didn't "understand" the finances of non-profit health care she didn't "have the time to explain it" to us.
Second, she indicated she was aware that we had made inquiries into her finances through other branches of the state government. There is no legal way she should have had any knowledge of these inquries. It would seem that Ms. Whipple has friends in DSHS who are illegally tipping her off, with names.
Third, she issued a threat that she would characterize any further inquiries into her affairs as harassment. What wasn't clear was whether this threat was aimed at us or at the AG's office! But the AG's office said there was nothing further for them to do here!
We are going to continue to press this investigation. Does Ms. Whipple really want to meet us in court and go through a discovery process whereby all her secrets will be revealed? It is our intention to find out how they are making such large amounts of money per client, who in DSHS is feeding them information, and why they seem fearless of being prosecuted.
Stay Tuned!
Cedar River, which also goes by the moniker of Feminist Women's Health Center, is registered as a non-profit, or 501(c)3. This means their tax returns are available, by law, for public scrutiny.
From those tax returns, we learn that they have annual revenues of just over $5 million per year. From documents accompanying their tax returns, we know that they have 5,700 abortion customers a year. According to a Yakima Herald article, they have more than 7,000 clients total per year. Previous IRS filings and reports put their client volume closer to 6,000. 7,000 unduplicated clients seems unlikely, given that unlike Planned Parenthood, Cedar River's business is almost exclusively abortion related. The higher figure would mean that somewhere between 1,700 and 2,000 clients were there for birth control alone. That is unlikely. So we're going with 6,500 unduplicated clients per year.
Dividing the $5m revenue across 6,500 clients gives an average revenue per client of $770. This is the number to focus on. This number is extraordinarily high.
If you compare it to the now defunct Aradia abortion clinic in downtown Seattle, that clinic reported revenues per client near $350. (About $1 million in program service revenue, and just under 3,000 clients).
Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country provide a very valuable reference point. Laughably, but conveniently for these purposes, Planned Parenthood is also a 501(c)3 with public tax returns. Planned Parenthood of Western Washington is notoriously aggressive when it comes to revenue generation, but even they only report $200 revenue per client ($22 million over about 110,000 unduplicated clients), and that includes the $7 million in allegedly illegal profits from 340b Medicaid overbilling fraud! Other Planned Parenthood operations in Washington State show similar revenues per client.
So how does Cedar River come up with $770 in revenue per client? Are they just catering to the rich and famous? Clinic CEO Beverly Whipple claims that they are mostly serving the low-income and indigent, to the tune of 65% of the total clients.
We don't see any legitimate way to explain this figure.
What is more, this abortion chain claims that they are writing off almost half their would-be revenues due to unpaid bills. In other words, their revenues should be closer to $9.5 million. The $5 million in revenues is just the actually realized revenue. That would put the claimed revenue per client at about $1,450!
Of further interest is the fact that for several years, the way in which they were accounting for this on their annual tax returns to the IRS (known as 990s) was highly suspicious. They were actually claiming $9 million in revenue and a single line-item of negative revenue called "Contracts and Other Allowances" in the amount of $4 million.
When we contacted them about this, they said that "Other Allowances" was the amount they were writing off in unclaimed revenue, or unpaid bills. Experts we spoke to informed us that it's not illegal to operate this way, listing a "woulda-coulda-shoulda" idealized figure for your top-line revenue and then subtracting the difference between that and actual revenue, but it is unusual, and it's not clear what purpose it serves.
Additionally, Ms. Whipple told us they started doing this because they changed accountants. When I pointed out to her that the tax returns clearly listed the same Yakima accounting firm of Alegria & Company before and after they started reporting in this way, she had no comment.
Also of interest is a blantant mistake on their 2005 return which they corrected after we brought it to their attention: they accidentally listed the $5+ million writeoff under their management expenses rather than their operational expenses. This made it look like they were spending close to 60% of their expenses on management! Which would make them the worst
"charity" on earth. When we asked them about this, they admitted it was a mistake, and actually refiled their taxes to correct the mistake!
Also, in their most recent tax returns, since we started asking them about the reasons for listing $9 million in revenue and $4-5 million in "unpaid bills" as a single expense, they switched back to the more "natural" way of reporting their finances.
Last year we decided that all these financial shenanigans and unanswered questions deserved the attention of the authorities. We filed a complaint with the Washington State Attorney General's office Charities Division. Unfortunately, this just consisted of the AG's office forwarding a letter to Beverly Whipple.
Ms. Whipple's response was astonishing, and seemed to suggest a certain lack of fear of the authorities.
First, she said if we didn't "understand" the finances of non-profit health care she didn't "have the time to explain it" to us.
Second, she indicated she was aware that we had made inquiries into her finances through other branches of the state government. There is no legal way she should have had any knowledge of these inquries. It would seem that Ms. Whipple has friends in DSHS who are illegally tipping her off, with names.
Third, she issued a threat that she would characterize any further inquiries into her affairs as harassment. What wasn't clear was whether this threat was aimed at us or at the AG's office! But the AG's office said there was nothing further for them to do here!
We are going to continue to press this investigation. Does Ms. Whipple really want to meet us in court and go through a discovery process whereby all her secrets will be revealed? It is our intention to find out how they are making such large amounts of money per client, who in DSHS is feeding them information, and why they seem fearless of being prosecuted.
Stay Tuned!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Bellevue's Slaughterhouse: "It's all for the women"
[I met Wendy Elizabeth Leigh (a pen name) a few weeks ago. We talked by phone a few times, exchanged emails, and finally met in my office. She shared her story with me. It was, as you can imagine, very emotional and draining for her - and me. I asked if she would be willing to share it with you in writing. She agreed. We hugged as she left, but I wondered: How many times has her story been lived by other women? And how many yet to come? When will our neighbors eyes be opened to recognize that we need not scan the horizon of history, or news from foreign nations to find evil? We live in the killing fields. - Dan Kennedy, Human Life of Washington]
by Wendy Elizabeth Leigh
I came to Bellevue, Washington in the summer of 1973, just after Roe V. Wade. I was 19 and in the middle of a divorce with 2 small children and I needed a job. Having never worked before, but with some medical receptionist training, I went to apply at a medical office next door. The doctor was younger; mid thirties. The interview was going well, I thought, as I didn't have any experience. "How do you feel about terminations?", he asked. "I don't know what that is.", I answered sheepishly. "Well, we are a family practice office; that includes doing abortions two days a week... how would you feel about doing that?" He studied my face waiting for my answer. "Aborting babies? I'm not sure I can do that." - fearful I had just cost myself the job. "Oh, NO!" he explained, "We don’t do that! A baby is something that weighs nine pounds, has blond hair, blue eyes and bounces on a grandpa's knees. What we do here is simply dispose of tissue… Just a blob of tissue. I am the son of a Baptist minister; if this were wrong I wouldn't be doing it! Just remember...we do what we do for the women." I needed this job. I knew what I needed to say...and I said it. "Well, it's better than being an unwanted and unloved child like I was. "You're hired". I was excited to realize I was about to earn my first paycheck. What I failed to understand at that moment is what working for this doctor was going to cost me.
Even though my training was front office skills like making appointments, transcription, etc., I was hired to work in the back office lab. The three days a week of true family practice was mundane stuff. Taking blood pressures, helping with kids exams, re-setting exam rooms after patients had been seen. The real job was Tuesdays and Saturdays. These two days always began with the doctor coming out into the waiting room full of frightened or nervous women. He would always jump up on the receptionist counter and give his "pep talk".... always giving his "disclaimer" that he was the son of a Baptist minister..."
My training had been simple enough. The doctor's head nurse showed me how to sterilize instruments, arrange the procedure trays to the doctor's liking and how to set up the buckets of red liquid to soak instruments before going into the steaming chamber along with filling syringes; small and big. I was comfortable so far. It was explained to me that first "termination day" that I was also going to be responsible for disposing of the contents of the large, white suction machine before me. I watched dutifully as the nurse wrapped the jars with a sterile drape; securely taping the ends. "We don't want to upset these poor women who are going through enough already!" Then came the unexpected threat, "Just remember one thing; it's your job if even one woman finds even one drop of blood on the toilet when you flush the jars!" Message received.
And so it began. The women were scheduled like clockwork. A finely tuned operation. Five rooms loaded up with women of every description. Some looking very poor and desperate; most looking very wealthy...and very blaze'. The first abortion was in the exam room right next to the lab. When I heard the doctor turn on that suction machine and I heard the horrific sounds... a slurping, gulping...high pitched... like a vacuum cleaner with something stuck in the hose, it was shocking and awful! But, there were worse things yet to come. Soon after... the used tray was shoved at me. "Here ya go!", the nurse said, laughing... was that a snicker?
When I lifted the drape off the tray, it didn't seem that bad. Not too much blood I thought, I can do this...but as I began to do one tray after another I quickly learned that not all trays would be the same...and I began to systematically gag. Especially when I would unscrew the vaginal speculum and "blobs of tissue" would fall into my bare hands. I was never instructed to use or offered gloves. It was beyond disturbing... I had to find a way to endure this, so I would just turn my head away and quietly whisper, "I'm just washing dishes,..Just washing dishes..."
But by far, the worse part of the job was emptying those jars every day, and more than once, "tissue" by the handfuls plopped in the toilet every time making quite a splash. I hated having to wipe the blood off with toilet paper, so I quickly learned to lay the jar opening down close to the bowl and gently pour. The most unnerving part was spying out the hallway to make sure I didn't run into any of the women leaving after having their "procedures". I had been warned of that as well. They clearly didn't want these women knowing what we were doing to dispose of the "fetuses".
Part of my duties in setting up the trays was the preparation of the syringes. The small ones were atropine; the numbing agent for the cervix as I recall. But the big ones? I had to press them for an explanation. Well, we also do "saline procedures"; but I was told I would have no part in those since I was "new at this". It took some time before someone finally explained it. This doctor also did later term abortions removing the amniotic fluid and replacing it with saline to kill the "fetus". A small piece of some kind of seaweed was placed in the vaginal cavity to assist dilation and then these women were sent to a local motel room specially set up for this doctor's patients. Several beds in one room. The women were sent there to get bed rest and wait until they went into labor and then they were to meet the doctor at the hospital to deliver. I tried to imagine these women (8 beds to my recollection) all lying there waiting...what did they talk about? I decided I could not let my mind go there.
After a couple of months I finally stopped gagging. I took an almost robotic attitude about what I was doing...and kept reminding myself. "We do this for the women". But there was one part of the daily "ritual" in the office I could never quite reconcile in my mind with that statement - the "Count and the Amount" celebration at the end of the day. How many?/How much? After all, women were "done and gone", we all met in the reception area for the day's tally. I would always stand back in awe and watch. Piles of cash...always cash...no checks accepted. We were doing an average of 50 women two times a week. The price varied according to how far along women were: between $200-$500 a head. At an average of $350, that was $17,500 a day, times two: $35,000 a week for a total of over $140,000/month NOT including the other 3 days/week...and this was 1973! The goal was to make enough money to pay for the new building under construction that was to be a full time abortion clinic set to open at the end of the year...just in time for Christmas! The holidays were busier, they said. So, this day's end celebration always had a happy air to it.... for them. I witnessed high fives with the office manager and the doctor...and his nurse.... they were especially friendly. Later I was told she was the doctor's girlfriend and I should watch out and not make her mad; especially no flirting with the doctor. "You are too young and cute for your own good", the manager warned, "Watch out!" No problem there. There was something about this man... it was "all for the women.”
About six months had gone by and while I would love to say it began to get to me...it did not. I actually got very accustomed to it all. Until that day...
I am ashamed I have forgotten her name. I will never forget her face. She was blond, blue-eyed...and probably bounced on her grandpa's knee. And afraid. Very afraid. She had lied about her last period. She had a "tipped uterus". The doctor failed to recognize she was not the usual 8-10 weeks. She was 17 weeks pregnant. The doctor attempted to do the usual dilation "D & C" suction procedure... it went very wrong...horribly wrong.
My first clue was that the trays that I had waiting were backing up in the lab. No new trays that always "flowed like clock-work" were coming at me. I could actually hear voices "buzzing" in the waiting room. The front door of the office was opening and closing...and often. Angry voices at the front reception desk began to drift back down the hallway to me. I stood in the open door way...listening... what was going on? The exam room at the far end of the hall suddenly flew open and the head nurse came charging down the hall at me demanding I go in and "assist doctor..." I quickly did as I was told.
My accruing complacency was summarily shattered by what I witnessed when I stepped into that room. I stepped back against the door I had just closed behind me. The nice white exam room was awash in blood...splattered blood. Like some perverted artist who had dipped his paint brush in a gallon of crimson red paint and hap-haphazardly flung it all up and down the walls and across the ceiling... and this poor girl! She was laying there in obvious shock; shaking violently.. and splattered all over with her own blood…and her baby’s! Doctor was in his customary position with forceps in both hands swearing up a storm and feverishly attempting to extract - "it".
He seemed oblivious to me. My first instinct kicked me into action. I rushed to the sink and grabbed some paper towels. I leaned down close to this girl's ear and began to whisper comforting reassurances to her. Words truly failed me as I tried to gently wipe the splattered blood from her face. All I could muster was to simply say repeatedly, "I'm sorry. I’m so sorry” She had no response. Save the silent messengers pooling in her eyes and running down the sides of her face into her damp, bloody hair. Suddenly now, I was in pain! The door had opened and I felt a clinched hand firmly grabbing my elbow; nails digging into my flesh. "Come with me!" came a growling in my ear through clinched teeth. I was in trouble...but for what?
The doctor's girlfriend dragged me back into the lab and shut the door behind her. She erupted into an effusive, explosive rebuke. "WHAT did you think you were doing?! I sent you in there to assist the doctor, NOT the patient! Have you ever heard the word LIABILITY!?... ‘I'm sorry!?...I'm sorry’... was THAT your idea of assisting the doctor...talking to the patient like we had done something WRONG!?"
Just as suddenly as it had begun. It was over. The door opened and the doctor darted in. He didn't seem interested in joining in on her verbal assault. He reached up and threw open a cupboard door grabbing a small, white, garbage bag. He opened it with one hand and in the other hand held a small "single version" of the Gomco unit suction machine.... and without any hesitation or reservation, unceremoniously dumped the contents of the jar into the bag. He ordered his nurse to go prepare the patient for transport by ambulance for an emergency surgery procedure to complete her "termination".
He scurried around the lab grabbing some instruments from one of my clean trays, I was not happy. I would have to redo that whole tray... then...suddenly... that didn't matter. My eyes were fixed on the doctor...as he systematically began to "inventory parts"... body parts... NO!... BABY PARTS!... One perfect little leg...snapped off at the hip... then the other... one perfect little arm...snapped off at the shoulder...then the other... I could not even speak... I almost fainted with what came next! The entire spine...all vertebrae in-tack with the spinal cord and little wire like nerves dangling from both ends... no skin in sight...just bloody parts torn out of the back of this little child! "Good!", he declared with great relief. "I have everything here but the head and the trunk!” My stunned disbelief was interrupted with the doctor's hurried instructions as he rushed to peel off his grotesquely sullied, white medical jacket and doing a quick look in the mirror hanging by! the lab door and straightening his now disheveled tie, he flew out the back door to his car! "Don't touch that tray until I call you from the hospital to give you the 'all clear'...got it!" As he exited... I was clear... I waited for the call.
Over the next several minutes, I listened as women were rescheduled. Some leaving in tears...a few...a precious few, deciding not to reschedule. Were some babies saved that day? I will never know... all I remember is the waiting. I watched in disbelief as the nurse and office manager enjoyed the customary McDonald's Big Macs, fries and colas that I had to go get two times a week, as we were so busy "helping the women" we were not allowed to take a lunch hour. It was my job to walk the 2 blocks down the road and get take-out for us to gulp down in between each procedure. (I have not been able to eat a Big Mac since then.) My stomach that day was so nauseous I felt like I had morning sickness. Watching those two devour their food like nothing had happened was too much. But no time to indulge myself. The phone rang. It was doctor giving me the OK to clean up and call it a day. He sent word that all was successful.
I approached that single, stainless steel, medical tray with great trepidation. I knew this was going to be bad...messy. I reached out with my left hand and ever so slowly picked up the very soiled drape covering the instruments. I gulped with one eye closed and head turned sideways before looking... I was dreading this. As I held the drape to peer over the top of it... I felt something drop into my right hand that was resting open under the drape. I scarcely recall the gore of the instruments for the vivid, so indescribable... horrid recollection. I cast my eyes down; head tilted to the side to see what was in my hand. There...it... was.... One tiny little foot snapped off at the ankle... Perfect...and with five miniature little toes! Everything suddenly went into slow motion...and I could not hear anything around me... until... there was that brash and haughty office manager: she grabbed the foot out of my hand and flung open one of the counter drawers grabbing a stainless! steel, metric ruler. "COOL!" she exclaimed with gleeful delight! "THIS one was a whooper!"... And incredulously began to place the frail, little remnant on the ruler to measure it! All I remember is her face…eyes lit like fire... I think she said it was 5 cm. I just recall checking years later and realizing it was larger than the little foot pins pro-life supporters wear.
I thought I would vomit that day, even without lunch. I begged off completing my usual shut down procedures of the lab and said I had to get out of there and go home. I was clearly very ill. The office manager barely noticed and doctor's girlfriend was now there in the mix engaged in the speculations of that tiny foot. I slipped out the back door and relished the fact that I had Sunday off before I had to return.
Monday came too soon. I had a physical to do on a five-year-old little boy who had just moved into the area and needed to be seen before he could go to school. My job was to prick his index finger and draw one small drop of blood to get a reading on the health of his blood. That was all it took... the room began to spin...I stepped back, leaning against the wall, shell-shocked – like I had just witnessed a horrible crime! Suddenly the doctor was at my side throwing off his latex gloves and demanding I join him in his office!
I was ready. I knew what was coming... but this time I would have a few words to say for myself! I had barely gotten in the room and taken a chair when he began his tirade rebuking me for being so "unprofessional". I summarily interrupted and told him I didn't think I could do this anymore after what had happened on Saturday. He was clearly disgusted and offered me part time work for "family practice" days... Most of that conversation is a blur but I remember ending it with this: "Doctor, you said this was for the women... you said "they are just blobs of tissue! What fell off in my hand was NOT a blob of tissue!"... I hastened to finish my point before I lost it... “I can’t do this any more!” The doctor wasted no time in getting on the intercom and instructing the office manager I had quit and she should prepare my last paycheck, totally unaffected by my sudden combativeness. He tried to get me calmed down before I left his office but it was no use. I think because he didn! ’t want any scene as I left… The tears began to flow as I walked through a waiting room full of people. My last words were more to me than the puzzled spectators… "And what happened in that room was NOT for that woman!” I ran out of his office breaking into sobs as I rushed out the door, not bothering to pick up my last paycheck. I wept uncontrollably all the way home.
It would be only a few more months and I fled Washington State in the midst of my own personal crisis with my children. I wanted desperately to get away and never look back! I moved to Central California where I swore I would remain and never return to Washington State. I began engaging in reckless behavior of my own. Smoking marijuana... bars... going home with anyone who would have me...married or not.
I soon began to have a dreadful, reoccurring nightmare. I was in the bottom of a big, white toilet...suddenly huge amounts of bloody baby parts and buckets of blood began pouring down over my head, running down my face; leaving me gasping for air! "STOP, STOP. STOP!!!" , I would shout... "SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE IT STOP!!!!"...and then I would wake up panicked, helpless and soaking wet...and wailing... this went on for years.
I would find myself pregnant again 4 years later and standing in the same desperate shoes of the that tragic young lady in Washington. I was engaged. I had finally found someone to “love me”...and willing to care for my two children...even if, as I knew, he couldn't care less about them. I walked into his beautiful home that he owned out in the countryside and gave him the announcement, I was pregnant.... and without batting an eye he said, "Hold out your hand" as he reached for his wallet in his back pocket; clearly annoyed, he counted out $178 and told me in no uncertain terms, "Don't let me see your face again until this is taken care of! Go to the women's clinic on the west side of town and get this taken care of.” Funny how he knew right where to send me and with how much cash! I couldn't get there fast enough.
The woman seemed nice. That “sweet” countenance - too sweet – like I saw in Bellevue. I was immediately scheduled for an abortion. But, this had a difference. They offered sterilizations with their services. Ah, but alas, I was only 23; the minimum age requirement was 25. I knew what I was doing. I knew what this meant. It was wrong. But I could not end up with 3 children with 3 different fathers! I begged. I got a call later... it was all set...they would do it all... Women's Hospital of Oakland.
My sister who was 25, single, and unable to have children, offered at the last minute to take my baby. What?! How ridiculous would that be?, I thought. Seeing a child I had given away all the time? What if I wanted it back and she wouldn’t give it to me? No!
I showed up, and walked through the process like a zombie! I was told it was a good thing I would be "out cold" as I wouldn't feel a thing and there would be no emotional trauma for me being unconscious and all. What a stupid lie! I woke up to a nice looking doctor telling me all was well...well... except for one little complication...."You were a little further along than we anticipated... you were not 8 weeks... you were over 10 weeks... perhaps 13."... My mind flashed back to that girl in Washington... and the toilet dream continued. When I showed up at my boyfriend’s home to let him know I had followed his demands and we could go forward with wedding plans, he wasted no time making it clear where things stood. “Do you REALLY think I would marry a woman who would murder her own child?” Game over.
It was only about a year later; I couldn't take it any more. I fell on my face and cried out to God to help me! I thought I had been raised in a normal Christian home. I had accepted Jesus into my heart at ten years old: November 5, 1963. But at 18... just 2 years before Roe v Wade, I was told my dad was not my father. Then my dad walked out the door and never came back. It was all my fault. So many family secrets... but I had secrets of my own…I was emotionally unraveling on that floor! I now know my real father was my mother's pastor... and what he had done I tried to bury... he AND my mother had done something terrible to me when I was 3...but that was after my mother took me at 9 months old and left me in her car in the middle of a hot summer day, 100 plus degrees outside, windows rolled up; she left me while she went shopping. A passerby rescued me. No charges filed; the doors were not locked. Then, I had been raped at 9 years old in the middle of the night while my mot! her visited my father now living in another town. He put a pillow over my face and I was almost suffocated... Raped by my first boyfriend at 14... I wanted to die! There I was crying out to God, as I thought I was losing my mind! It would take over 30 years to realize it… I was flushing myself down that toilet!
The first Sunday after that "carpet time" with God, I began going to church...it wasn't long before I would be attending my first "Pro-Life Sunday" service. I sat in terrifying disbelief as I heard my pastor preach about what the Bible had to say about life...and when it began! I couldn't hold it in any longer. I burst into sobs and fled the sanctuary to the women's restroom just off the backend of the room. Only a swinging door between the attentive crowd and me. I slid down the wall wailing so hard as my voice reverberated off the whitewashed brick walls...and I slid down onto the floor unable to stand. I suddenly felt an arm around me, embracing me! Pastor's wife had slipped in and sat on the floor there comforting me! I wept and wailed all the harder at such mercy!... "I didn't know!... I didn't know!.... I didn't know!"... Then suddenly... my words hit my ears...and my heart... no... I didn't know... not about those babies I had flushed down the toilet for 6 months (about 1,200)... but I DID know... I DID know... my own baby was NO blob of tissue! NOT at OVER 10 weeks!"... I became hysterical... Suddenly there was another woman in the bathroom bent over and rebuking me to pipe down! I was disturbing the service! I thought pastor's wife would come to her feet and deck that woman! "JENNY!... THIS is why WE are HERE!... GET OUT!"... Jenny was an elder's wife...and very gone. As I sat there choking on my sobs, I began to wretch. Then I knew I was going to be sick. I crawled on my hands and knees into a stall...and laid my head on the nice, clean white toilet...and vomited more pain than anything else... begging God to forgive all those other trips to the toilet! I walked out of that bathroom well after the service had ended... very determined I would somehow make up to God what I had done.
I joined the pro-life group at church; one assistant pastor who led the group was clearly repulsed by me, my story...and my presence. I stopped going. But I accepted an invitation to go to schools to tell my story. I wanted to spare young girls from not just having abortions but from EVER getting pregnant!... That went well for a few months... until the day I got home after speaking at a school and I began wailing again as I had in that bathroom at church that day. I could not take the anguish any more. Revisiting the memories was also revisiting the horrible guilt! I surely had done enough to make amends... I put it all away... and walked away from pro-life ministry. That was the mid 1980's.
It would not be until the year 2000 that I found myself in Colorado Springs, and mentioning to an elder's wife the safer parts of my "pro-life story". She suggested I contact the local Pregnancy Life Center of Colorado Springs and offer to train as a volunteer; thinking that may help relieve my guilt. I did contact them and was told I would need to take the 24 week study, "Forgiven and Set-Free" as a requirement of service. I was very ready to do that but still very afraid to open up old wounds.
That class was a pure joy and delight. I was able to walk through the healing process of that study each week and see progress. I learned there I didn't have to "make amends to God; Jesus did that for me! I was also seeing opportunities to share encouragement with the 8 women in the group. One said, "If God could forgive YOU, He certainly could forgive ME!"...So it went... the last week of the group came and I was so excited. The leader of the group had prayed over us early in the study asking God to reveal to each woman what sex the aborted child was for each of us so we could give them a name. She said in all the years they had been doing this ministry, they had never seen even one woman not receive an answer. Mine was a girl; I named her Rachael Rose. She let us know we would be having a memorial service on the 24th and last week of meeting together. I could hardly wait.
During our study time, we made a keepsake booklet out of pictures in magazines, cut outs, words, phrases... what ever we could find to do a collage of our own story. I recall one particular phrase: Stop the Insanity! I placed that phrase right over a big picture of fashionable porcelain toilet! I wanted to frame mine; not put it in a binder to set on a shelf. Now it was time for the big event - the memorial service. We were each to bring a candle to light; have something to share for a few moments of dedication and remembrance and share their name...at last, a name for our babies.
I love to write poetry and had already written one for my own child. I asked our leader if I could write one for all the aborted babies I had flushed, could I read it to share? I thought, hopefully, it would help these women see that someone who had participated in what had been done to them was sorry. I was given permission. A church in the area donated the use of a small chapel on their church grounds. The chapel was beautiful, warm... the Spirit of the Lord was so strong in that room that day. We sang Amazing Grace together and after a few words by our group leader, each woman, one by one, came up and shared some thoughts, lit her candle and said the name of her baby. We would pause for a moment of silence for each one. I had been asked to go last as I had the poem to read for not only my baby but each baby's life I had flushed without a thought all those years ago.
It was finally my turn. I walked to the front. But I didn't just bring a single candle for my baby. I set out on the table that one candle but then a large multi-wicked candle...then... a small penny bank I had found when I bought the candles. It was a small trash can...silver...shinny...reflecting the light from all the candles now placed on the table of remembrance... I had also purchased a small packet of alphabet letters and put two words on the trash can lid as well as on the side of the trashcan.
It simply read:
STOP IT! 1,201
I read my poem and closed with a prayer for those women... one by one they came up to me and thanked me as they embraced me and wept on my shoulder. THANKING me?... It was amazing! I was one of last women still in the chapel after we had some fellowship and desert. I sat down in the front pew of that little chapel...just staring at the last 2 candles still left on the table.... the ones that belonged to me... I said, "Lord, I know I am forgiven... I want to FEEL set free."... "How shall I ever forget what I did?"... God's answer was immediate...Suddenly, a line from the poem I had read for those babies came to mind... and I saw in my mind's eye a huge cross. Blood was flowing from feet pierced and fixed to that cross.... blood was flowing down from those feet onto the ground. There was blood already lying there but the Blood from The Cross began to spill over and cover that blood... that is when I heard it... Just remember from this day forward... never forget...that their blood is under Mine."
Isaiah 49;15, 16 Can a mother forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the child of her womb? Even these may forget but I will never forget...
by Wendy Elizabeth Leigh
I came to Bellevue, Washington in the summer of 1973, just after Roe V. Wade. I was 19 and in the middle of a divorce with 2 small children and I needed a job. Having never worked before, but with some medical receptionist training, I went to apply at a medical office next door. The doctor was younger; mid thirties. The interview was going well, I thought, as I didn't have any experience. "How do you feel about terminations?", he asked. "I don't know what that is.", I answered sheepishly. "Well, we are a family practice office; that includes doing abortions two days a week... how would you feel about doing that?" He studied my face waiting for my answer. "Aborting babies? I'm not sure I can do that." - fearful I had just cost myself the job. "Oh, NO!" he explained, "We don’t do that! A baby is something that weighs nine pounds, has blond hair, blue eyes and bounces on a grandpa's knees. What we do here is simply dispose of tissue… Just a blob of tissue. I am the son of a Baptist minister; if this were wrong I wouldn't be doing it! Just remember...we do what we do for the women." I needed this job. I knew what I needed to say...and I said it. "Well, it's better than being an unwanted and unloved child like I was. "You're hired". I was excited to realize I was about to earn my first paycheck. What I failed to understand at that moment is what working for this doctor was going to cost me.
Even though my training was front office skills like making appointments, transcription, etc., I was hired to work in the back office lab. The three days a week of true family practice was mundane stuff. Taking blood pressures, helping with kids exams, re-setting exam rooms after patients had been seen. The real job was Tuesdays and Saturdays. These two days always began with the doctor coming out into the waiting room full of frightened or nervous women. He would always jump up on the receptionist counter and give his "pep talk".... always giving his "disclaimer" that he was the son of a Baptist minister..."
My training had been simple enough. The doctor's head nurse showed me how to sterilize instruments, arrange the procedure trays to the doctor's liking and how to set up the buckets of red liquid to soak instruments before going into the steaming chamber along with filling syringes; small and big. I was comfortable so far. It was explained to me that first "termination day" that I was also going to be responsible for disposing of the contents of the large, white suction machine before me. I watched dutifully as the nurse wrapped the jars with a sterile drape; securely taping the ends. "We don't want to upset these poor women who are going through enough already!" Then came the unexpected threat, "Just remember one thing; it's your job if even one woman finds even one drop of blood on the toilet when you flush the jars!" Message received.
And so it began. The women were scheduled like clockwork. A finely tuned operation. Five rooms loaded up with women of every description. Some looking very poor and desperate; most looking very wealthy...and very blaze'. The first abortion was in the exam room right next to the lab. When I heard the doctor turn on that suction machine and I heard the horrific sounds... a slurping, gulping...high pitched... like a vacuum cleaner with something stuck in the hose, it was shocking and awful! But, there were worse things yet to come. Soon after... the used tray was shoved at me. "Here ya go!", the nurse said, laughing... was that a snicker?
When I lifted the drape off the tray, it didn't seem that bad. Not too much blood I thought, I can do this...but as I began to do one tray after another I quickly learned that not all trays would be the same...and I began to systematically gag. Especially when I would unscrew the vaginal speculum and "blobs of tissue" would fall into my bare hands. I was never instructed to use or offered gloves. It was beyond disturbing... I had to find a way to endure this, so I would just turn my head away and quietly whisper, "I'm just washing dishes,..Just washing dishes..."
But by far, the worse part of the job was emptying those jars every day, and more than once, "tissue" by the handfuls plopped in the toilet every time making quite a splash. I hated having to wipe the blood off with toilet paper, so I quickly learned to lay the jar opening down close to the bowl and gently pour. The most unnerving part was spying out the hallway to make sure I didn't run into any of the women leaving after having their "procedures". I had been warned of that as well. They clearly didn't want these women knowing what we were doing to dispose of the "fetuses".
Part of my duties in setting up the trays was the preparation of the syringes. The small ones were atropine; the numbing agent for the cervix as I recall. But the big ones? I had to press them for an explanation. Well, we also do "saline procedures"; but I was told I would have no part in those since I was "new at this". It took some time before someone finally explained it. This doctor also did later term abortions removing the amniotic fluid and replacing it with saline to kill the "fetus". A small piece of some kind of seaweed was placed in the vaginal cavity to assist dilation and then these women were sent to a local motel room specially set up for this doctor's patients. Several beds in one room. The women were sent there to get bed rest and wait until they went into labor and then they were to meet the doctor at the hospital to deliver. I tried to imagine these women (8 beds to my recollection) all lying there waiting...what did they talk about? I decided I could not let my mind go there.
After a couple of months I finally stopped gagging. I took an almost robotic attitude about what I was doing...and kept reminding myself. "We do this for the women". But there was one part of the daily "ritual" in the office I could never quite reconcile in my mind with that statement - the "Count and the Amount" celebration at the end of the day. How many?/How much? After all, women were "done and gone", we all met in the reception area for the day's tally. I would always stand back in awe and watch. Piles of cash...always cash...no checks accepted. We were doing an average of 50 women two times a week. The price varied according to how far along women were: between $200-$500 a head. At an average of $350, that was $17,500 a day, times two: $35,000 a week for a total of over $140,000/month NOT including the other 3 days/week...and this was 1973! The goal was to make enough money to pay for the new building under construction that was to be a full time abortion clinic set to open at the end of the year...just in time for Christmas! The holidays were busier, they said. So, this day's end celebration always had a happy air to it.... for them. I witnessed high fives with the office manager and the doctor...and his nurse.... they were especially friendly. Later I was told she was the doctor's girlfriend and I should watch out and not make her mad; especially no flirting with the doctor. "You are too young and cute for your own good", the manager warned, "Watch out!" No problem there. There was something about this man... it was "all for the women.”
About six months had gone by and while I would love to say it began to get to me...it did not. I actually got very accustomed to it all. Until that day...
I am ashamed I have forgotten her name. I will never forget her face. She was blond, blue-eyed...and probably bounced on her grandpa's knee. And afraid. Very afraid. She had lied about her last period. She had a "tipped uterus". The doctor failed to recognize she was not the usual 8-10 weeks. She was 17 weeks pregnant. The doctor attempted to do the usual dilation "D & C" suction procedure... it went very wrong...horribly wrong.
My first clue was that the trays that I had waiting were backing up in the lab. No new trays that always "flowed like clock-work" were coming at me. I could actually hear voices "buzzing" in the waiting room. The front door of the office was opening and closing...and often. Angry voices at the front reception desk began to drift back down the hallway to me. I stood in the open door way...listening... what was going on? The exam room at the far end of the hall suddenly flew open and the head nurse came charging down the hall at me demanding I go in and "assist doctor..." I quickly did as I was told.
My accruing complacency was summarily shattered by what I witnessed when I stepped into that room. I stepped back against the door I had just closed behind me. The nice white exam room was awash in blood...splattered blood. Like some perverted artist who had dipped his paint brush in a gallon of crimson red paint and hap-haphazardly flung it all up and down the walls and across the ceiling... and this poor girl! She was laying there in obvious shock; shaking violently.. and splattered all over with her own blood…and her baby’s! Doctor was in his customary position with forceps in both hands swearing up a storm and feverishly attempting to extract - "it".
He seemed oblivious to me. My first instinct kicked me into action. I rushed to the sink and grabbed some paper towels. I leaned down close to this girl's ear and began to whisper comforting reassurances to her. Words truly failed me as I tried to gently wipe the splattered blood from her face. All I could muster was to simply say repeatedly, "I'm sorry. I’m so sorry” She had no response. Save the silent messengers pooling in her eyes and running down the sides of her face into her damp, bloody hair. Suddenly now, I was in pain! The door had opened and I felt a clinched hand firmly grabbing my elbow; nails digging into my flesh. "Come with me!" came a growling in my ear through clinched teeth. I was in trouble...but for what?
The doctor's girlfriend dragged me back into the lab and shut the door behind her. She erupted into an effusive, explosive rebuke. "WHAT did you think you were doing?! I sent you in there to assist the doctor, NOT the patient! Have you ever heard the word LIABILITY!?... ‘I'm sorry!?...I'm sorry’... was THAT your idea of assisting the doctor...talking to the patient like we had done something WRONG!?"
Just as suddenly as it had begun. It was over. The door opened and the doctor darted in. He didn't seem interested in joining in on her verbal assault. He reached up and threw open a cupboard door grabbing a small, white, garbage bag. He opened it with one hand and in the other hand held a small "single version" of the Gomco unit suction machine.... and without any hesitation or reservation, unceremoniously dumped the contents of the jar into the bag. He ordered his nurse to go prepare the patient for transport by ambulance for an emergency surgery procedure to complete her "termination".
He scurried around the lab grabbing some instruments from one of my clean trays, I was not happy. I would have to redo that whole tray... then...suddenly... that didn't matter. My eyes were fixed on the doctor...as he systematically began to "inventory parts"... body parts... NO!... BABY PARTS!... One perfect little leg...snapped off at the hip... then the other... one perfect little arm...snapped off at the shoulder...then the other... I could not even speak... I almost fainted with what came next! The entire spine...all vertebrae in-tack with the spinal cord and little wire like nerves dangling from both ends... no skin in sight...just bloody parts torn out of the back of this little child! "Good!", he declared with great relief. "I have everything here but the head and the trunk!” My stunned disbelief was interrupted with the doctor's hurried instructions as he rushed to peel off his grotesquely sullied, white medical jacket and doing a quick look in the mirror hanging by! the lab door and straightening his now disheveled tie, he flew out the back door to his car! "Don't touch that tray until I call you from the hospital to give you the 'all clear'...got it!" As he exited... I was clear... I waited for the call.
Over the next several minutes, I listened as women were rescheduled. Some leaving in tears...a few...a precious few, deciding not to reschedule. Were some babies saved that day? I will never know... all I remember is the waiting. I watched in disbelief as the nurse and office manager enjoyed the customary McDonald's Big Macs, fries and colas that I had to go get two times a week, as we were so busy "helping the women" we were not allowed to take a lunch hour. It was my job to walk the 2 blocks down the road and get take-out for us to gulp down in between each procedure. (I have not been able to eat a Big Mac since then.) My stomach that day was so nauseous I felt like I had morning sickness. Watching those two devour their food like nothing had happened was too much. But no time to indulge myself. The phone rang. It was doctor giving me the OK to clean up and call it a day. He sent word that all was successful.
I approached that single, stainless steel, medical tray with great trepidation. I knew this was going to be bad...messy. I reached out with my left hand and ever so slowly picked up the very soiled drape covering the instruments. I gulped with one eye closed and head turned sideways before looking... I was dreading this. As I held the drape to peer over the top of it... I felt something drop into my right hand that was resting open under the drape. I scarcely recall the gore of the instruments for the vivid, so indescribable... horrid recollection. I cast my eyes down; head tilted to the side to see what was in my hand. There...it... was.... One tiny little foot snapped off at the ankle... Perfect...and with five miniature little toes! Everything suddenly went into slow motion...and I could not hear anything around me... until... there was that brash and haughty office manager: she grabbed the foot out of my hand and flung open one of the counter drawers grabbing a stainless! steel, metric ruler. "COOL!" she exclaimed with gleeful delight! "THIS one was a whooper!"... And incredulously began to place the frail, little remnant on the ruler to measure it! All I remember is her face…eyes lit like fire... I think she said it was 5 cm. I just recall checking years later and realizing it was larger than the little foot pins pro-life supporters wear.
I thought I would vomit that day, even without lunch. I begged off completing my usual shut down procedures of the lab and said I had to get out of there and go home. I was clearly very ill. The office manager barely noticed and doctor's girlfriend was now there in the mix engaged in the speculations of that tiny foot. I slipped out the back door and relished the fact that I had Sunday off before I had to return.
Monday came too soon. I had a physical to do on a five-year-old little boy who had just moved into the area and needed to be seen before he could go to school. My job was to prick his index finger and draw one small drop of blood to get a reading on the health of his blood. That was all it took... the room began to spin...I stepped back, leaning against the wall, shell-shocked – like I had just witnessed a horrible crime! Suddenly the doctor was at my side throwing off his latex gloves and demanding I join him in his office!
I was ready. I knew what was coming... but this time I would have a few words to say for myself! I had barely gotten in the room and taken a chair when he began his tirade rebuking me for being so "unprofessional". I summarily interrupted and told him I didn't think I could do this anymore after what had happened on Saturday. He was clearly disgusted and offered me part time work for "family practice" days... Most of that conversation is a blur but I remember ending it with this: "Doctor, you said this was for the women... you said "they are just blobs of tissue! What fell off in my hand was NOT a blob of tissue!"... I hastened to finish my point before I lost it... “I can’t do this any more!” The doctor wasted no time in getting on the intercom and instructing the office manager I had quit and she should prepare my last paycheck, totally unaffected by my sudden combativeness. He tried to get me calmed down before I left his office but it was no use. I think because he didn! ’t want any scene as I left… The tears began to flow as I walked through a waiting room full of people. My last words were more to me than the puzzled spectators… "And what happened in that room was NOT for that woman!” I ran out of his office breaking into sobs as I rushed out the door, not bothering to pick up my last paycheck. I wept uncontrollably all the way home.
It would be only a few more months and I fled Washington State in the midst of my own personal crisis with my children. I wanted desperately to get away and never look back! I moved to Central California where I swore I would remain and never return to Washington State. I began engaging in reckless behavior of my own. Smoking marijuana... bars... going home with anyone who would have me...married or not.
I soon began to have a dreadful, reoccurring nightmare. I was in the bottom of a big, white toilet...suddenly huge amounts of bloody baby parts and buckets of blood began pouring down over my head, running down my face; leaving me gasping for air! "STOP, STOP. STOP!!!" , I would shout... "SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE IT STOP!!!!"...and then I would wake up panicked, helpless and soaking wet...and wailing... this went on for years.
I would find myself pregnant again 4 years later and standing in the same desperate shoes of the that tragic young lady in Washington. I was engaged. I had finally found someone to “love me”...and willing to care for my two children...even if, as I knew, he couldn't care less about them. I walked into his beautiful home that he owned out in the countryside and gave him the announcement, I was pregnant.... and without batting an eye he said, "Hold out your hand" as he reached for his wallet in his back pocket; clearly annoyed, he counted out $178 and told me in no uncertain terms, "Don't let me see your face again until this is taken care of! Go to the women's clinic on the west side of town and get this taken care of.” Funny how he knew right where to send me and with how much cash! I couldn't get there fast enough.
The woman seemed nice. That “sweet” countenance - too sweet – like I saw in Bellevue. I was immediately scheduled for an abortion. But, this had a difference. They offered sterilizations with their services. Ah, but alas, I was only 23; the minimum age requirement was 25. I knew what I was doing. I knew what this meant. It was wrong. But I could not end up with 3 children with 3 different fathers! I begged. I got a call later... it was all set...they would do it all... Women's Hospital of Oakland.
My sister who was 25, single, and unable to have children, offered at the last minute to take my baby. What?! How ridiculous would that be?, I thought. Seeing a child I had given away all the time? What if I wanted it back and she wouldn’t give it to me? No!
I showed up, and walked through the process like a zombie! I was told it was a good thing I would be "out cold" as I wouldn't feel a thing and there would be no emotional trauma for me being unconscious and all. What a stupid lie! I woke up to a nice looking doctor telling me all was well...well... except for one little complication...."You were a little further along than we anticipated... you were not 8 weeks... you were over 10 weeks... perhaps 13."... My mind flashed back to that girl in Washington... and the toilet dream continued. When I showed up at my boyfriend’s home to let him know I had followed his demands and we could go forward with wedding plans, he wasted no time making it clear where things stood. “Do you REALLY think I would marry a woman who would murder her own child?” Game over.
It was only about a year later; I couldn't take it any more. I fell on my face and cried out to God to help me! I thought I had been raised in a normal Christian home. I had accepted Jesus into my heart at ten years old: November 5, 1963. But at 18... just 2 years before Roe v Wade, I was told my dad was not my father. Then my dad walked out the door and never came back. It was all my fault. So many family secrets... but I had secrets of my own…I was emotionally unraveling on that floor! I now know my real father was my mother's pastor... and what he had done I tried to bury... he AND my mother had done something terrible to me when I was 3...but that was after my mother took me at 9 months old and left me in her car in the middle of a hot summer day, 100 plus degrees outside, windows rolled up; she left me while she went shopping. A passerby rescued me. No charges filed; the doors were not locked. Then, I had been raped at 9 years old in the middle of the night while my mot! her visited my father now living in another town. He put a pillow over my face and I was almost suffocated... Raped by my first boyfriend at 14... I wanted to die! There I was crying out to God, as I thought I was losing my mind! It would take over 30 years to realize it… I was flushing myself down that toilet!
The first Sunday after that "carpet time" with God, I began going to church...it wasn't long before I would be attending my first "Pro-Life Sunday" service. I sat in terrifying disbelief as I heard my pastor preach about what the Bible had to say about life...and when it began! I couldn't hold it in any longer. I burst into sobs and fled the sanctuary to the women's restroom just off the backend of the room. Only a swinging door between the attentive crowd and me. I slid down the wall wailing so hard as my voice reverberated off the whitewashed brick walls...and I slid down onto the floor unable to stand. I suddenly felt an arm around me, embracing me! Pastor's wife had slipped in and sat on the floor there comforting me! I wept and wailed all the harder at such mercy!... "I didn't know!... I didn't know!.... I didn't know!"... Then suddenly... my words hit my ears...and my heart... no... I didn't know... not about those babies I had flushed down the toilet for 6 months (about 1,200)... but I DID know... I DID know... my own baby was NO blob of tissue! NOT at OVER 10 weeks!"... I became hysterical... Suddenly there was another woman in the bathroom bent over and rebuking me to pipe down! I was disturbing the service! I thought pastor's wife would come to her feet and deck that woman! "JENNY!... THIS is why WE are HERE!... GET OUT!"... Jenny was an elder's wife...and very gone. As I sat there choking on my sobs, I began to wretch. Then I knew I was going to be sick. I crawled on my hands and knees into a stall...and laid my head on the nice, clean white toilet...and vomited more pain than anything else... begging God to forgive all those other trips to the toilet! I walked out of that bathroom well after the service had ended... very determined I would somehow make up to God what I had done.
I joined the pro-life group at church; one assistant pastor who led the group was clearly repulsed by me, my story...and my presence. I stopped going. But I accepted an invitation to go to schools to tell my story. I wanted to spare young girls from not just having abortions but from EVER getting pregnant!... That went well for a few months... until the day I got home after speaking at a school and I began wailing again as I had in that bathroom at church that day. I could not take the anguish any more. Revisiting the memories was also revisiting the horrible guilt! I surely had done enough to make amends... I put it all away... and walked away from pro-life ministry. That was the mid 1980's.
It would not be until the year 2000 that I found myself in Colorado Springs, and mentioning to an elder's wife the safer parts of my "pro-life story". She suggested I contact the local Pregnancy Life Center of Colorado Springs and offer to train as a volunteer; thinking that may help relieve my guilt. I did contact them and was told I would need to take the 24 week study, "Forgiven and Set-Free" as a requirement of service. I was very ready to do that but still very afraid to open up old wounds.
That class was a pure joy and delight. I was able to walk through the healing process of that study each week and see progress. I learned there I didn't have to "make amends to God; Jesus did that for me! I was also seeing opportunities to share encouragement with the 8 women in the group. One said, "If God could forgive YOU, He certainly could forgive ME!"...So it went... the last week of the group came and I was so excited. The leader of the group had prayed over us early in the study asking God to reveal to each woman what sex the aborted child was for each of us so we could give them a name. She said in all the years they had been doing this ministry, they had never seen even one woman not receive an answer. Mine was a girl; I named her Rachael Rose. She let us know we would be having a memorial service on the 24th and last week of meeting together. I could hardly wait.
During our study time, we made a keepsake booklet out of pictures in magazines, cut outs, words, phrases... what ever we could find to do a collage of our own story. I recall one particular phrase: Stop the Insanity! I placed that phrase right over a big picture of fashionable porcelain toilet! I wanted to frame mine; not put it in a binder to set on a shelf. Now it was time for the big event - the memorial service. We were each to bring a candle to light; have something to share for a few moments of dedication and remembrance and share their name...at last, a name for our babies.
I love to write poetry and had already written one for my own child. I asked our leader if I could write one for all the aborted babies I had flushed, could I read it to share? I thought, hopefully, it would help these women see that someone who had participated in what had been done to them was sorry. I was given permission. A church in the area donated the use of a small chapel on their church grounds. The chapel was beautiful, warm... the Spirit of the Lord was so strong in that room that day. We sang Amazing Grace together and after a few words by our group leader, each woman, one by one, came up and shared some thoughts, lit her candle and said the name of her baby. We would pause for a moment of silence for each one. I had been asked to go last as I had the poem to read for not only my baby but each baby's life I had flushed without a thought all those years ago.
It was finally my turn. I walked to the front. But I didn't just bring a single candle for my baby. I set out on the table that one candle but then a large multi-wicked candle...then... a small penny bank I had found when I bought the candles. It was a small trash can...silver...shinny...reflecting the light from all the candles now placed on the table of remembrance... I had also purchased a small packet of alphabet letters and put two words on the trash can lid as well as on the side of the trashcan.
It simply read:
STOP IT! 1,201
I read my poem and closed with a prayer for those women... one by one they came up to me and thanked me as they embraced me and wept on my shoulder. THANKING me?... It was amazing! I was one of last women still in the chapel after we had some fellowship and desert. I sat down in the front pew of that little chapel...just staring at the last 2 candles still left on the table.... the ones that belonged to me... I said, "Lord, I know I am forgiven... I want to FEEL set free."... "How shall I ever forget what I did?"... God's answer was immediate...Suddenly, a line from the poem I had read for those babies came to mind... and I saw in my mind's eye a huge cross. Blood was flowing from feet pierced and fixed to that cross.... blood was flowing down from those feet onto the ground. There was blood already lying there but the Blood from The Cross began to spill over and cover that blood... that is when I heard it... Just remember from this day forward... never forget...that their blood is under Mine."
Isaiah 49;15, 16 Can a mother forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the child of her womb? Even these may forget but I will never forget...
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Planned Parenthood Attempts to Open Clinic in Pasco
Many of our readers may already be aware of Planned Parenthood of Central Washington's attempt to sneak another clinic into Eastern Washington. The target this time: Pasco, Washington.
A meeting of the Planning Commission was held June 18th. (See report below.)
The citizens of Pasco and through out the state are rallying to keep Planned Parenthood OUT of Pasco. You can keep up to date with the events, hearings and rallys at a new blog that has been launched -- Protect Our Pasco.
We are in contact with many of the concerned citizens in Pasco and will keep you up-to-date at AIW and on the Protect Our Pasco site as more information is available.
Below is a report from Jim Toth of the Knights of Columbus in Pasco about the hearing before the Planning Commission:
The Knights of Columbus learned about a scheduled public hearing at Pasco City Hall via a website news article. The Pasco city web site confirmed the hearing for a special permit for a new facility in Pasco. The facility was to be operated by Planned Parenthood of Central Washington (PPCW). The hearing was scheduled for June 18th at 7 PM. The announcement on the web site indicated that all property owners within 300 ft of the proposed facility received a copy of the notice which was woefully inadequate in view of the decision of this import. PPCW already operates a facility in Kennewick. The Kennewick facility performs over 400 chemical, medical and surgical abortions each year. Contributing to the importance of the hearing was that the proposed PPCW facility is adjacent to Mark Twain Elementary school.
The point is that PPCW wished to establish a satellite facility in Pasco. Even if they claim to perform no abortions, there is every likelihood that the counseling conducted there will increase the number of abortions at their existing facility in Kennewick, and as far as anyone knows, there is nothing that would preclude performing abortions in Pasco. The 400 abortions performed in Kennewick represents an entire high school class. The Tri-Cities does not need any more abortions or pro-abortion counseling centers. The Knights took it upon themselves to publicize the hearing by distributing flyers throughout the community.
About 200 residents of Pasco attended the hearing and voiced their opposition to the permit. The hearing began at 7:30 and ended at 10:30. Everyone who attended did not speak, but a petition opposing the permit was circulated throughout the meeting for residents to sign. Promoters of the permit wore pink T-shirts and as was shown on the front page of the Tri-City Herald on June 19th, the promoters were outnumbered by Pasco residents by about a factor of seven. Those who promoted approval of the permit included employees, directors and agents of PPCW.
Those opposing the permit included psychologists, teachers, parents, engineers, scientists, physical therapists, high school students, junior high school students, business owners, accountants, real estate developers, new Pasco residents, ministers, architects, attorneys, physicians and nurses.
The Knights are proud to oppose, by peaceful means, all efforts to expand abortion in our great community.
James Toth
Washington State Council
Knights of Columbus
A meeting of the Planning Commission was held June 18th. (See report below.)
The citizens of Pasco and through out the state are rallying to keep Planned Parenthood OUT of Pasco. You can keep up to date with the events, hearings and rallys at a new blog that has been launched -- Protect Our Pasco.
We are in contact with many of the concerned citizens in Pasco and will keep you up-to-date at AIW and on the Protect Our Pasco site as more information is available.
Below is a report from Jim Toth of the Knights of Columbus in Pasco about the hearing before the Planning Commission:
The Knights of Columbus learned about a scheduled public hearing at Pasco City Hall via a website news article. The Pasco city web site confirmed the hearing for a special permit for a new facility in Pasco. The facility was to be operated by Planned Parenthood of Central Washington (PPCW). The hearing was scheduled for June 18th at 7 PM. The announcement on the web site indicated that all property owners within 300 ft of the proposed facility received a copy of the notice which was woefully inadequate in view of the decision of this import. PPCW already operates a facility in Kennewick. The Kennewick facility performs over 400 chemical, medical and surgical abortions each year. Contributing to the importance of the hearing was that the proposed PPCW facility is adjacent to Mark Twain Elementary school.
The point is that PPCW wished to establish a satellite facility in Pasco. Even if they claim to perform no abortions, there is every likelihood that the counseling conducted there will increase the number of abortions at their existing facility in Kennewick, and as far as anyone knows, there is nothing that would preclude performing abortions in Pasco. The 400 abortions performed in Kennewick represents an entire high school class. The Tri-Cities does not need any more abortions or pro-abortion counseling centers. The Knights took it upon themselves to publicize the hearing by distributing flyers throughout the community.
About 200 residents of Pasco attended the hearing and voiced their opposition to the permit. The hearing began at 7:30 and ended at 10:30. Everyone who attended did not speak, but a petition opposing the permit was circulated throughout the meeting for residents to sign. Promoters of the permit wore pink T-shirts and as was shown on the front page of the Tri-City Herald on June 19th, the promoters were outnumbered by Pasco residents by about a factor of seven. Those who promoted approval of the permit included employees, directors and agents of PPCW.
Those opposing the permit included psychologists, teachers, parents, engineers, scientists, physical therapists, high school students, junior high school students, business owners, accountants, real estate developers, new Pasco residents, ministers, architects, attorneys, physicians and nurses.
The Knights are proud to oppose, by peaceful means, all efforts to expand abortion in our great community.
James Toth
Washington State Council
Knights of Columbus
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Karen We Hardly New Ye
This post is sung to the tune of Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye and dedicated to Karen Cooper who is retiring as the head of NARAL Washington this month. It is also dedicated to all those doctors who are tempted to take up the abortionist's knife and join the war on women.
While goin' the road to Oly, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to Oly, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to Oly
A bag of cash and a drop in the eye
A doleful damsel did you hear her cry?
Karen We hardly knew ye.
With your knives and lies and lies and knives, hurroo, hurroo
With your knives and lies and lies and knives, hurroo, hurroo
With your knives and lies and lies and knives
The children how many you slew
And sold their bodies off to the U.
Karen We hardly knew ye.
Where are their eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are their eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are their eyes that were so mild
When in their youth are so beguiled?
Why do ye skedaddle from a woman and her child?
Oh Karen, We hardly knew ye.
Where are their legs that wanted to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are their legs that wanted to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are their legs that wanted to run
When you went to carry an abortionist's gun
To be sure their dancing days are done
Oh Karen we hardly knew ye.
They haven't an arm, they haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
They haven't an arm, they haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
They haven't an arm, they haven't a leg,
They're armless, boneless, motherless eggs,
They've been put in a bag and left with the dregs,
Oh Karen, We hardly knew ye.
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home
From the lunches and boardrooms and places your known
It must be lonely when your all alone
Oh Karen We hardly knew ye.
They're puttin in the knives again, hurroo, hurroo
They're puttin in the poison again, hurroo, hurroo
They're lyin' to women again,
But we'll fight for the children again and again,
Yes, we'll fight for the children again,
Karen I'm swearing to ye.
While goin' the road to Oly, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to Oly, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to Oly
A bag of cash and a drop in the eye
A doleful damsel did you hear her cry?
Karen We hardly knew ye.
With your knives and lies and lies and knives, hurroo, hurroo
With your knives and lies and lies and knives, hurroo, hurroo
With your knives and lies and lies and knives
The children how many you slew
And sold their bodies off to the U.
Karen We hardly knew ye.
Where are their eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are their eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are their eyes that were so mild
When in their youth are so beguiled?
Why do ye skedaddle from a woman and her child?
Oh Karen, We hardly knew ye.
Where are their legs that wanted to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are their legs that wanted to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are their legs that wanted to run
When you went to carry an abortionist's gun
To be sure their dancing days are done
Oh Karen we hardly knew ye.
They haven't an arm, they haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
They haven't an arm, they haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
They haven't an arm, they haven't a leg,
They're armless, boneless, motherless eggs,
They've been put in a bag and left with the dregs,
Oh Karen, We hardly knew ye.
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home
From the lunches and boardrooms and places your known
It must be lonely when your all alone
Oh Karen We hardly knew ye.
They're puttin in the knives again, hurroo, hurroo
They're puttin in the poison again, hurroo, hurroo
They're lyin' to women again,
But we'll fight for the children again and again,
Yes, we'll fight for the children again,
Karen I'm swearing to ye.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Definition of Violence Continues to Shrink
Blessings and adoration surround leader in child-killing industry.
Compassion & Choices rejoices in killing of 66 year old cancer patient.
Priestess, Catholics, Rabbi and intellectuals have a thoughtful conversation about the sweet justice of killing.
Meanwhile...
Compassion & Choices rejoices in killing of 66 year old cancer patient.
Priestess, Catholics, Rabbi and intellectuals have a thoughtful conversation about the sweet justice of killing.
Meanwhile...
Ho hum. Just another day in Washington.
GAP Comes to UW Campus
What: The Genocide Awareness Project
Where: The middle of Red Square
When: ALL DAY - Tuesday and Wednesday - May 26-27 - 8am - 5pm
Who: Students for Bio-Ethical Reform
Why: Because ABORTION is GENOCIDE and because society has decided that they do not want you to see these pictures.
How: 25 different 4ft x 8ft billboards that SHOW the UNIMAGINABLE HORROR of ABORTION
"Clump of cells"..."Blob of tissue"..."Conceptus"..."Parasite"..."Alien germ"..."Punishment"...????
It's a baby.
It is so easy to trivialize when you call it everything but what it truly is.
It's a person.
And we intend to make sure you have no refuge behind ignorance.
We intend to restore that which has systematically stripped from the innocent and helpless unborn: their HUMANITY.
There will be NO Speeches and No Presentations because the pictures tell ALL.
Representatives for the group will however be on hand to speak with anyone interested, answer questions, etc.
Please email us with questions, comments, or information on how to join our struggle at: s4ber@u.washington.edu
Where: The middle of Red Square
When: ALL DAY - Tuesday and Wednesday - May 26-27 - 8am - 5pm
Who: Students for Bio-Ethical Reform
Why: Because ABORTION is GENOCIDE and because society has decided that they do not want you to see these pictures.
How: 25 different 4ft x 8ft billboards that SHOW the UNIMAGINABLE HORROR of ABORTION
"Clump of cells"..."Blob of tissue"..."Conceptus"..."Parasite"..."Alien germ"..."Punishment"...????
It's a baby.
It is so easy to trivialize when you call it everything but what it truly is.
It's a person.
And we intend to make sure you have no refuge behind ignorance.
We intend to restore that which has systematically stripped from the innocent and helpless unborn: their HUMANITY.
There will be NO Speeches and No Presentations because the pictures tell ALL.
Representatives for the group will however be on hand to speak with anyone interested, answer questions, etc.
Please email us with questions, comments, or information on how to join our struggle at: s4ber@u.washington.edu
Friday, May 08, 2009
Pro-lifers Gain Momentum at State Level
North Dakota Rep. Dan Ruby with Elisha Lancaster
Pro-lifers demoralized by last November's election results, and the rise of the most radical pro-abortion President in US history, are taking encouragement from the successes of the North Dakota state legislature. Led by State Rep. Dan Ruby, North Dakota just passed a series of regulations designed to make it much harder to kill unborn human beings in the Roughrider State. These regulations would force the state's only abortion clinic, Red River Planned Parenthood in Fargo, to offer women ultrasounds of their unborn baby (HB 1371), to notify them that abortion ends the life of a separate human being with a beating heart (HB 1445), and to protect women coerced into abortions by boyfriends, husbands, or parents (SB 2265).
These laws don't go into effect until August 1, so it's too early to know whether Planned Parenthood will comply with them, or if it will reduce the number of abortions, which although being close to half the national average, were reported in October to be heading towards a record number for the year, near 1,400. Many believe these types of laws will make a difference because, in Washington State, for example, Planned Parenthood clinics only show pregnant clients an ultrasound if and when they sign a form indicating they have chosen abortion. Also, many women who get abortions at PP clinics report never having been given medically and scientifically accurate information about their baby.
In addition to these three regulations, North Dakota also passed a resolution, HCR 3015, stating that North Dakota would reject any federally passed so-called "Freedom of Choice Act". The fifth pro-life measure, and the one which garnered the most attention from outside the state, was an attempt to enshrine in the law the medically recognized fact that human life begins at conception. Known as the "Life at Conception Bill", HB 1572 didn't just draw attention from Washington State, but also drew an important supporter.
When pro-life Washingtonian and frozen embryo adopter, Maria Lancaster, first heard that this so-called "Personhood Bill" passed the North Dakota house by a vote of 51-41 in the Spring, she felt that her testimony could be helpful, so she packed her bags and headed to Bismarck. Mrs. Lancaster and her husband Jeff, of Issaquah, adopted a frozen embryo six years ago. That former embryo is now her beautiful 6-year-old daughter, Elisha. After taking that step, one thing led to another, and she ended up standing with President George W. Bush on the podium as he heroically vetoed legislation that would have authorized government money to be spent on destructive embryonic stem cell research. She has since co-founded Embryo Adoption Services of Cedar Park, here in Bothell, Washington.
Maria, Jeff, and Elisha Lancaster with President George W. Bush
She continued to take her expertise and experience to the halls of power when she testified before the North Dakota Senate in defense of the Informed Consent and Personhood bills. "Knowing that my daughter could have been a medical experiment instead of adopted motivates me to tell people that embryos are human," Mrs. Lancaster told Abortion In Washington (AIW).
The Personhood Bill, which wasn't actually connected with the nationwide Personhood Movement despite suggestions by naysayers, ultimately failed in the state Senate after a barrage of opposition from not only super-wealthy pro-abortion forces, but also some hesitant pro-lifers, most notably the Conference of Catholic Bishops. Questions were raised about the exact wording of the bill, and the possible consequences on issues like fertility clinic practices and miscarriages. Interestingly, the publicity didn't come until after the bill had already passed the lower chamber. Rep. Ruby told AIW that he was surprised by all the reaction, but he is undeterred. It was the first time it was tried, and the first time such legislation has been approved by any legislature in the US, and Rep. Ruby told us he hopes to reintroduce the legislation in two years, when North Dakota's citizen legislature sits again, after working on perfecting the wording and letting citizens and experts discuss it more.
The bill is intended to be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade by finally addressing the elephant-in-the-room question which Roe-based jurisprudence has consistently avoided: when does human life begin? By defining an unborn human being as a person, that individual will automatically come under the protection of the 14th amendment, effectively abolishing legal abortion. It's not clear on what grounds even a liberal Supreme Court would obviate such a law, since the medical facts seem undisputed. The only real opposition seems to be based on consequences.
"North Dakota wants to be abortion free," Mrs. Lancaster told AIW, "and Dan Ruby and his colleagues are serious about taking measures to make that happen". She tells the story of how she testified about the fact that the baby's heartbeat starts at about 17 days of life, 2 days after a pregnant woman misses her first menstrual period, and hence the earliest she could know she was pregnant or schedule an abortion. Her point was that every single abortion is done on a baby with a beating heart. She was the last of the scheduled speakers in support of the Informed Consent bill. Slated to speak immediately after her was Tim Stanley, representing the radical advocates and practitioners of abortion, Planned Parenthood.
But after her testimony, she said, Mr. Stanley got up and left. "He realized he would have just looked like an idiot, a complete fool, if he'd gone ahead and tried to claim that this was just a bunch of cells, or what they like to refer to as POC, Products of Conception," she said. "A POC doesn't have a beating heart." In fact, when the committee chair, Sen. David Nething, asked if there was anyone who wanted to speak against the legislation, there was silence. He even went so far as to ask if there was anyone who was "neutral". Again, nothing.
AIW asked Rep. Ruby if he expected Planned Parenthood, which is famous for being in conflict with the law in numerous states, to comply with the new regulations, and what the enforcement provisions were. "That is a problem", he conceded. "It's up to the State's Attorney", he added, and how frequently inspections and audits are carried out. The regs require clients to sign forms indicating they have received the offer of an ultrasound, and have been told they are killing their unborn child, but he indicated he wasn't sure if PP was simply required to keep forms "on file", or required to send them in to the state Department of Health. "I will look into it," he said. He also told us that the ultrasound bill does not go so far as to require abortion clinics to offer pregnant clients a chance to listen to their baby's heartbeat on a fetal heart monitor.
AIW contacted Planned Parenthood of North Dakota for comment. We spoke with Kathi Di Nicola, media relations director for Planned Parenthood of Minnesota and the Dakotas. She said she would try to get Mr. Stanley to call us back, but he failed to return our call by deadline. All she could tell us was that Planned Parenthood did oppose all these regulations. She wasn't, however, prepared to explain why.
Rep. Ruby said he would also be interested in investigating other regulations, such as death certificates for unborn victims of abortion, limits on how much abortionists can charge, and even investigating whether PP is engaged in Medicaid Fraud with the 340B drug discount program, as has been charged in California and Washington. But perhaps the biggest impact will come if the Personhood Bill is passed in 2011, and ultimately brings Roe v. Wade crashing down.
All this goes to show pro-lifers that even in the current climate, state-level initiatives can succeed, and can have a dramatic impact for life.
So Much for Dialogue
The Seattle area has a little know connection with Fr. Jenkins of Notre Dame University -- Rick Steves of Europe through the Back Door, a very popular travel show on public television, is married to Fr. Jenkins' sister Anne.
Rick Steves is an abortion advocate and sits on the Honorary Council of Washington NARAL.
One of Fr. Jenkins' excuses for inviting pro-abortion president Obama to Notre Dame to receive an honorary law degree is that it will promote "dialogue".
If after years of Thanksgiving dinners and family get-togethers you can't even get your brother-in-law off the radically pro-abortion NARAL Honorary Council how do you expect to get POTUS off his wildly pro-abortion ideals?
Rick Steves is an abortion advocate and sits on the Honorary Council of Washington NARAL.
One of Fr. Jenkins' excuses for inviting pro-abortion president Obama to Notre Dame to receive an honorary law degree is that it will promote "dialogue".
If after years of Thanksgiving dinners and family get-togethers you can't even get your brother-in-law off the radically pro-abortion NARAL Honorary Council how do you expect to get POTUS off his wildly pro-abortion ideals?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Olympia Maintains Abortion Funding in Budget, Despite Desparate Need for Budget Cuts
It seems the legislators in Olympia came to a budget deal yesterday evening, April 27. While some journalists have spoken of "painful cuts" the Democrats made, one cut they could have made that would have saved a lot of pain never happened.
They decided to continue spending $7 million a year in subsidies to the abortion industry.
Now technically these subsidies take the form of Medicaid insurance payments, not direct bailouts. But as we have documented on this blog, and is now well summarized on the campaign website to end tax-funding of abortion in Washington, this money ends up almost entirely in the hands of a handful of abortionists and abortion clinic operators making a quarter of a million dollars a year in some cases.
Most pro-abortion politicians claim they want to see the abortion rate go down. Well, there's nothing they could do that would reduce the abortion rate faster than to stop making abortion free.
What's even more shocking is that much of this money goes to Planned Parenthood of Western Washington (now of the Great Northwest), as well as other Planned Parenthood affiliates. But as we've exclusively exposed on this blog, Planned Parenthood is engaged in systematic and deliberate Medicaid fraud.
Under the 340B Drug Discount Program, they buy specially discounted drugs like oral contraceptives and the abortifacient morning-after pill, Plan B, for about $2 per unit, and then illegally bill Medicaid about $20 per unit, generating about $18 in illegal profits in each case. According to their public 990 tax forms, this is generating between $7 and $10 million in pure and illegal profit a year.
In fact, PPWW just released their shocking 2007 tax returns (stay tuned for further analysis), showing a record revenue of $37 million, total profit of $5 million, and $40 million now sitting in the bank!!!
Moreover, on this latest form, they seem to have changed their long-standing accounting practice whereby they broke out their profits from "sales of inventory". This change happened after we started our investigation and brought this illegal billing practice to the attention of authorities.
Perhaps the saddest part is that we have notified authorities, including Maureen Considine, director of Family Planning at the Department of Health and Human Services, of this fraud, but their response was that unless Planned Parenthood presents a signed affidavit of confession, they aren't going to investigate.
For those having trouble believing this, bear in mind that this fraud is exactly the same as the fraud being charged in the California by former Chief Financial Officer of Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, P. Victor Gonzalez, in his False Claims case against his former employer to the tune of $180 million.
Let's just say: you haven't heard the last of this story.
They decided to continue spending $7 million a year in subsidies to the abortion industry.
Now technically these subsidies take the form of Medicaid insurance payments, not direct bailouts. But as we have documented on this blog, and is now well summarized on the campaign website to end tax-funding of abortion in Washington, this money ends up almost entirely in the hands of a handful of abortionists and abortion clinic operators making a quarter of a million dollars a year in some cases.
Most pro-abortion politicians claim they want to see the abortion rate go down. Well, there's nothing they could do that would reduce the abortion rate faster than to stop making abortion free.
What's even more shocking is that much of this money goes to Planned Parenthood of Western Washington (now of the Great Northwest), as well as other Planned Parenthood affiliates. But as we've exclusively exposed on this blog, Planned Parenthood is engaged in systematic and deliberate Medicaid fraud.
Under the 340B Drug Discount Program, they buy specially discounted drugs like oral contraceptives and the abortifacient morning-after pill, Plan B, for about $2 per unit, and then illegally bill Medicaid about $20 per unit, generating about $18 in illegal profits in each case. According to their public 990 tax forms, this is generating between $7 and $10 million in pure and illegal profit a year.
In fact, PPWW just released their shocking 2007 tax returns (stay tuned for further analysis), showing a record revenue of $37 million, total profit of $5 million, and $40 million now sitting in the bank!!!
Moreover, on this latest form, they seem to have changed their long-standing accounting practice whereby they broke out their profits from "sales of inventory". This change happened after we started our investigation and brought this illegal billing practice to the attention of authorities.
Perhaps the saddest part is that we have notified authorities, including Maureen Considine, director of Family Planning at the Department of Health and Human Services, of this fraud, but their response was that unless Planned Parenthood presents a signed affidavit of confession, they aren't going to investigate.
For those having trouble believing this, bear in mind that this fraud is exactly the same as the fraud being charged in the California by former Chief Financial Officer of Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, P. Victor Gonzalez, in his False Claims case against his former employer to the tune of $180 million.
Let's just say: you haven't heard the last of this story.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The worst service ever!
Everett Planned Parenthood receives bad review from client.
"leaha l." calls out the Take Charge plan specifically and says she will "NEVER go back there again."
"leaha l." calls out the Take Charge plan specifically and says she will "NEVER go back there again."
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
It's About Life Conference April 19, 2009
Here's some photos from the It's About Life Conference with Fr. Pavone.
Go directly to the slideshow.
Also, Fr. Bloom has some of his pictures posted.
Go directly to the slideshow.
Also, Fr. Bloom has some of his pictures posted.
Monday, April 20, 2009
North Seattle's Newest Late-Term Abortion Clinic: "A Complete Disaster"
We just thought we'd share this new public review of Seattle's newest abortion clinic, which apparently does 24 week horror abortions. The review, by a "John Walters", is titled "A complete Disaster!! DO NOT GO HERE!!!" :
We wanted to do our part to help publicize this couple's experience.
Of course, we are most deeply sorry for this couple's baby that was killed. And for anyone thinking about an abortion, please contact a pregnancy resource clinic like Life Choices of King County at 1.877.668.2566.
I am so sorry if any women have to go here for an abortion. My girlfriend and I are very sorry too. Sure, the waiting room was ok, but everyone who worked there had no idea what they were doing. The lady answering the phone did not even know the number to the office; and the doctor, I would be suprised if he was a doctor. (I only hope the stuff they use was cleaned properly!) My girlfriend told me that the doctor wasnt very gentle either (she is standing over my shoulder while I write this) and that he said "just relax girl, its just like liposuction then you will be back to beautiful." Why would a professional say that to her? Is this a joke to him? Hell, I could spend all night writing about this, and maybe I should, but I have to take care of my girl. My only hope is that if anyone is thinking about an abortion, DO NOT GO HERE!!!
We wanted to do our part to help publicize this couple's experience.
Of course, we are most deeply sorry for this couple's baby that was killed. And for anyone thinking about an abortion, please contact a pregnancy resource clinic like Life Choices of King County at 1.877.668.2566.
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