Abortionist says Planned Parenthood trained her to send women home with abortion injuries

Abortionist Christine Henneberg revealed in her 2022 memoir that Planned Parenthood trained her to send women with uterine perforations home without treatment, instead of to the hospital.

A Perforation is a Life-Threatening Complication

A uterine perforation occurs when an abortionist pokes a hole through the uterine wall. Medic-Journal calls a uterine perforation a “formidable complication” that can cause “life-threatening bleeding, peritonitis, [and] loss of reproductive function.”

Medic-Journal gives the symptoms of a uterine perforation as “intense pain in the lower abdomen and signs of intra-abdominal bleeding: bloody discharge from the vagina, weakness, dizziness, tachycardia.”

It says:

Untimely diagnosis of uterine perforation can lead to formidable and life-threatening complications and consequences. These include intestinal injuries or bladder injuries, massive hematomas, bleeding, peritonitis, sepsis.

Damage to the internal uterine pharynx can contribute to the formation of cervical insufficiency, miscarriage during subsequent pregnancy. Uterine perforation can have serious consequences for reproductive function and cause the development of infertility due to the formation of intrauterine adhesions (Asherman syndrome) or the need to remove the uterus.

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Botched Abortions During Training

Henneberg learned to do abortions through the TEACH partnership, which stands for “Training in Early Abortion for Comprehensive Healthcare.” However, the TEACH program (which was funded by abortion pill manufacturer Danco) also taught Henneberg to do second-trimester abortions. 

Henneberg claims to have trained at Planned Parenthood of Long Beach under abortionist “Rebecca.”

During training, Henneberg reportedly perforated a woman’s uterus while committing an eight-week abortion. She told Rebecca. Henneberg says:

[Rebecca] had been checking something on her phone. She looked up. “Suction off,” she told the assistant. “Let me feel.” She placed her hands on the cannula and probed the wall of the uterus, feeling what I did.

“’Yup, you did,’ she said. ‘You perforated.’ She didn’t bat an eye.

Rebecca examined the abortion remains and confirmed that no fetal tissue remained in the uterus. She checked the woman again and told Henneberg, “Don’t worry. She’s going to be fine.”

Sending the Woman Home Instead of to the Hospital

Henneberg says:

My face must have been ashen. “Have you ever perforated before?” she asked me.

“No.”

She gave a little laugh. “The thing you have to remember is that abortions are one of the safest procedures there is. Perforation is like your worst nightmare, right? We are so careful to avoid it, and we should be.

But now it’s happened to you. You poked a little hole in her uterus. You have to watch her for bleeding, make sure you didn’t suck any bowel through with your cannula. But 99% of the time that doesn’t happen. You’ll watch her. She’ll go home. This will heal itself up in a few days.”

Apparently, the protocol at Planned Parenthood is to send patients with perforations home instead of the hospital. And they did.

Henneberg says, “At the end of it, she was fine. She went home. We went home. I couldn’t wait to go back the next morning.”

But was the woman really “fine”? Henneberg doesn’t mention any follow up with the patient, and abortion facilities generally don’t know if a woman ends up going to an emergency room with bleeding or infection.

Henneberg perforated another woman’s uterus on the first procedure of the next day. This woman received the same “treatment.” They checked to see if they removed the whole baby (which should be done after every abortion) examined the perforation under ultrasound, checked bleeding, and sent her home.

Appropriate Treatment for a Uterine Perforation

According to Medic-Journal, this is the preferred treatment for a minor perforation:

If the perforation is incomplete, the hole is small, and there is absolute confidence in the absence of damage to the OBP, parametral hematoma and intra-abdominal bleeding, conservative-observational tactics can be undertaken. In this case, bed rest is prescribed, cold on the stomach, uterotonic drugs and antibiotics are used. Dynamic ultrasound control is carried out.

In other situations (in the presence of peritoneal symptoms and increasing signs of internal bleeding), laparoscopy or laparotomy, a thorough revision are indicated. If a small defect is detected in the uterine wall, they are limited to suturing the wound.

Henneberg didn’t suture the perforations and says nothing about medications or specific instructions to the women.

Henneberg has now made abortion her career, and says, “I still manage perforation according to the exact protocol we followed (twice) while I was training with [Rebecca].”

So she still sends women home with no treatment. 

Women Who Have Died from Uterine Perforations

Here are just a few of the women who have died from perforations:

•       Gloria Small was 43 and a mother of six.

•       Germaine Newman was 14. Her mother found her dead at home the day after her abortion.

•       Teresa Causey was 17. Her last words were “Oh, mama, mama, it hurts so much!”

•       Margaret Paula Clodfelter was 19. Like Henneberg’s patients, she was sent home. She later died.   

•       Maureen Espinoza, 16, was also sent home. After she arrived at the hospital six days after her abortion, doctors tried two unsuccessful surgeries to save her life.

•       Leigh Ann Stephens Alford, 34, died 18 hours after the facility sent her home with a perforated uterus.

•       Virginia Wolfe, 33, died on the abortion table.

•       Shirley Payne was 33.

•       Rhonda Rollinson‘s age is unknown. The abortionist couldn’t remove the whole baby. They sent Rhonda home with instructions to return to the facility another day to try again. She died instead.

•       A 20-year-old Newark college student, name unknown

When Gutierrez realized she was sick, she called the abortion facility but was hung up on. Over the course of two days, as her condition worsened, she left repeated messages, but no one from the facility returned her calls.

Surgeons amputated both her legs trying to save her life, but she died six weeks after her abortion.

Source: Christine Henneberg Boundless: An Abortion Doctor Becomes a Mother (San Francisco, California, 2022) 213, 214, 246—247, 263