A former abortion doctor is speaking out against the movement she formerly supported, saying more regulation of abortion clinics is needed to protect women from an “unsafe industry.”
Kathi Aultman, an OB/GYN, began performing abortions in the late 1970s but eventually changed careers due to feeling uneasy about her job. She is now pro-life.
“I’ve killed more people than Ted Bundy,” she wrote in a column for USA Today. “Coming to terms with the fact that I was a professional mass murderer was devastating, but it compelled me to speak the truth.”
The U.S. Supreme Court, she says, should uphold a Louisiana law that requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. The justices will consider the law during oral arguments on March 4.
“As a gynecologist on call in the emergency room, I personally treated women experiencing severe complications, including life-threatening hemorrhage and infection from abortions, because no one at the abortion clinic had admitting privileges,” Aultman wrote. “No abortion clinic personnel ever called to give me information on a patient they were sending to the ER. This is not a safe way to practice medicine.
“... The fact is that many physicians on staff at ambulatory surgical centers are required to have hospital privileges to ensure that patient care is not compromised in the event of a complication.”
Americans were horrified by the filthy abortion clinic run by Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell and then shocked to learn that an Indiana doctor, Ulrich Klopfer, accumulated bags of aborted fetal remains.
But “these are hallmarks of an unsafe industry,” Aultman wrote.
“For years, many abortion clinics have gotten away with shoddy practices that no surgery center would be likely to get away with,” wrote Aultman, an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute and a member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “This is surely because abortion workers, legislators and law enforcement fear that they will be accused of restricting access to abortion if they hold abortion clinics accountable.
“A former manager of an abortion clinic told me that she was instructed to use dishwashing liquid to clean their instruments when their sanitizer broke down so they wouldn’t have to close while it was repaired,” she wrote. “Inspection reports in multiple states have found clinics not properly sanitizing their instruments. A patient who came to me for complications from a late-term abortion said she was kept in a cold room overnight without a blanket during an induction abortion. She was forced to give birth in a toilet the next morning, only to watch her still living baby drown.”
Only 28 states, she wrote, “require abortion providers to report post-abortion complications,” and states “are not required to submit abortion data to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
“Abortion clinics don't want this information to come out, and providers have taken states to court to try to avoid reporting,” she wrote. “... I was pro-choice for decades. I performed abortions and had an abortion. I understand in a deep and personal way where the fault lines of disagreement over abortion in America lie. But can’t we at least all agree on the importance of safety in the abortion industry?”
Related:
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‘I’m Pro-Life’ -- Iowa’s Female Gov. Supports Amendment Protecting the Unborn
Pro-Life Win: High Court Upholds Law Requiring Ultrasounds before Abortions
One-Third of Independent Abortion Clinics Have Closed since 2012
Democrats’ ‘Medicare for All’ Bills Would Legalize Taxpayer-Funded Abortion
Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Dragana991
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
