An 18-year-old woman died this year after complications from her 22-week abortion at a Planned Parenthood in Fort Collins, Colorado. A recent testimony given to the state’s Health and Human Services committee noted she lost a significant amount of blood — a known risk of later abortions — and that she was transported too late for the emergency care she needed. She deserved prompt diagnosis and critical care in her moment of need.
But blue-state legislators, instead of showing concern and protecting women from preventable complications and deaths, are more interested in pushing abortion access than they are in ensuring women’s safety. //
Shamefully, Colorado legislators not only rejected recent legislation that would have implemented common-sense public health and safety standards for facilities performing second and third-trimester abortions, they also shockingly claimed the woman would have died of similar complications in childbirth.
As a board-certified OB-GYN, I can attest that this “medical” conclusion is doubtful since amniotic fluid embolus (AFE), the condition they speculated about, is a unique occurrence in a specific clinical situation. Furthermore, their refusal to truly understand the facts surrounding this young woman’s death distracts from the disastrous risks of unregulated, uninspected, unlicensed dangerous second and third-trimester abortions enshrined into Colorado law.
Tragically, media reaction to this case has been virtually non-existent. When women die in states with any abortion limits on the books, the media is quick to highlight their stories, but when women die where there is unrestricted abortion with no safety protections whatsoever, we hear crickets. //
But countless women who enter abortion facilities are unknowingly denied assurance that they will be cared for by competent, credentialed staff who are prepared to identify and promptly transfer patients suffering complications to nearby hospitals for life-saving treatment when needed or if they are prepared to provide adequate emergency care to the vulnerable women who place their health in the hands of their abortionists.
It seems wildly contradictory that states rightly require other healthcare facilities dealing with maternal care, labor, and delivery to uphold rigorous medical standards but place none on abortion facilities. In Colorado, birthing centers undergo licensing and regulation to define their scope of practice, credential their providers, establish emergency preparedness and staff drills, collect data, and more. Likewise, ambulatory surgery centers may only treat “those that do not generally result in extensive blood loss; require major or prolonged invasion of body cavities; directly involve major blood vessels; or constitute an emergency or life-threatening procedure.”
Hospital labor and delivery units are subject to even more rigorous regulation and inspection, including inspections by the Joint Commission and Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services. These measures are commonsense and exactly what anyone would expect from safe healthcare providers.
Even tattoo parlors are required to prove basic first-aid capabilities and sterilization procedures; yet abortion facilities aren’t even held to these standards.
