Former Planned Parenthood abortionist: ‘It was all about the money’

On November 13, I quoted former abortionist Dr. Robert Siudmack, who was featured in a video series called “The Truth about Abortion.” The series was released by Coral Ridge Ministries and was divided into 10 parts.

The sixth video, which you can watch below, addresses the issues of abortion profits and the lack of doctor-patient relationships within abortion facilities.

First, Dr. Siudmack explains how an abortionist only sees a patient on the day of her abortion.  He has no ongoing doctor-patient relationship with her.

Usually, the abortionist is too busy performing abortions to counsel the patient and does not interact with the woman until her actual abortion procedure. He never lays eyes on her until he walks into the operating room and finds her on the table, her feet in stirrups. Siudmack says:

I would like to believe all doctors share a genuine concern for the health and well-being of their patients. The doctor-patient relationship is unique one that is started on the first visit and develops over the course of time. In an abortion clinic, there is no doctor-patient relationship. The doctor enters the room, there’s a brief introduction. The patient is already on the table ready to have the procedure done.  There is no sort of opportunity for any sort of meaningful relationship to develop.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svdH1wuZwGA?list=PL3F3026238994029F]

This lack of communication between doctor and patient could make it harder for the abortionist to view the woman as a unique, valuable person.  Without any previous introduction, the abortionist walks in and sees the woman in a vulnerable position, her legs splayed open and her private parts exposed. It could be easy to see the woman not as a person, but as an object.  Abortionists who go from room to room, doing abortions as if on an assembly line, barely even see the faces of the women they are operating on.

Other abortionists have commented on the lack of contact with patients. According to abortionist Eugene Fox:

They would put up these clinics and then they would bring in doctors, and the game was, how many can you do in an afternoon?… You didn’t get a chance to know the patients ahead of time… We were like cogs in the wheel. (1)

According to abortionist Edward Allred, who owns a chain of abortion facilities called Family Planning Associates:

We’re trying to be as cost-effective as possible and speed is important… We try to use the physician for his technical skill and reduce the one-to-one relationship with the patient. We usually see the patient for the first time on the operation table and then not again. More contact is just not efficient.

(Incidentally, at least a dozen women have died from botched abortions at Family Planning Associates abortion clinics. You can read more about that here.)

After commenting about the lack of doctor-patient interaction, Dr. Siudmack then talks about how making money was a huge motivation for his fellow workers in the abortion business:

I worked at the [Planned Parenthood] Margaret Sanger Center in downtown Manhattan for about a year before moving to South Florida, and it was all about the money, and how many abortions we could do in a short period of time. There was a set price, and obviously the more abortions one did, the more money they would make…. Abortion is big business.

Another article I wrote back in October 2014 presented 10 quotes from abortion providers about how profitable abortion is for doctors who perform them and for those who own abortion facilities. While some abortion workers may genuinely want to help women, the abortion industry is first and foremost a moneymaking industry. No facility performs abortions for free (unlike pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, which have all kinds of free services for pregnant women). The abortion industry has a long history of cutting corners and endangering women’s lives in order to increase profits.

1. Carole Joffe. Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995) 175