Yesterday, Wendy Davis made one of the most hypocritical statements ever to be uttered. The abortion industry’s newest darling was interviewed on Face the Nation by Bob Schieffer, where she blasted politicians for using abortion to make a name for themselves. Pot, meet kettle.
Of course, Davis herself was unknown. But then she had her attention-grabbing filibuster, which was followed by a mob shouting down the vote and obstructing the democratic process. Meanwhile, as Davis sneers at politicians for exploiting this issue to make a name for herself, she’s simultaneously considering a run for governor. Apparently, the difference is that she’s “speaking for women,” so it’s acceptable for her to use this abortion kerfuffle to her advantage – just not anyone else.
The truth is, Davis isn’t speaking for women or for Texans. For one thing, most of the support she’s currently enjoying isn’t coming out of Texas. The majority of Texans support the 20-week abortion ban, and support grows even higher when you look at nationwide polls, where it’s an even more overwhelming majority. Davis is parading herself around the media circuit as a warrior for women, but the reality is, she’s ignoring what her constituents actually want in favor of appeasing the abortion lobby.
Even worse, Davis is making a name for herself while crushing patient safety. Pro-aborts contest this bill, and others like it, because clinics might possibly be forced to close. This will happen only if the clinics don’t comply with regulations like hallways wide enough to fit a stretcher through, up-to-date medical equipment, and requiring admitting privileges for abortionists at a local hospital. It’s too expensive, they’ll say – because clearly, it’s more important for shoddy abortion clinics to stay open and potentially harm women than to have those shoddy clinics closed. Abortion is more important than patient safety; that’s the takeaway message here.
Texas SB5 came about in light of the atrocities at Kermit Gosnell’s clinic, infamous by now. Pro-aborts claim to be horrified by what went on behind those closed doors, but also dismiss him as an outlier. It’s not how most clinics work.
Yet interestingly enough, the regulations that Davis and her pro-abortion cohorts are fighting tooth and nail could very well have saved Karnamaya Mongar’s life had they been in effect. The Washington Examiner explains:
You may be aware of the unsanitary conditions within Gosnell’s Philadelphia clinic and the horrific methods he used to “ensure demise” of babies already-born and wriggling. But the grand jury report also demonstrates how something as simple as rules requiring wider hallways — rules the abortion industry has fought tooth-and-nail — might have saved the life of Karnamaya Mongar, a Gosnell patient who died in 2009.
The grand jury noted that even after Gosnell’s unqualified, unlicensed staff had (at his direction) given her a lethal overdose of local anesthetic, she might have still been saved but for the clinic’s “cluttered,” “narrow, twisted passageways” which “could not accommodate a stretcher” to get her out. Mongar still had a pulse when paramedics arrived, but they lost a critical 20 minutes just trying to get her out of the building.
The grand jury concluded that, had Gosnell’s clinic been regulated like other “ambulatory surgical facilities” — say, your average plastic surgeon’s office — then health inspectors “would have assured that the staff were all licensed, that the facility was clean and sanitary, that anesthesia protocols were followed, and that the building was properly equipped and could, at least, accommodate stretchers.”
And it is regulations that might have saved Mongar that they’re fighting – in the name of women’s health.
