Inspection of Virginia abortion facility reveals unreported injuries to women

The Falls Church Healthcare Center, an abortion facility in Falls Church, Virginia, (a member of the National Abortion Federation and NARAL Pro-Choice America) was inspected on June 12, 2018. The 33-page report showed multiple health and safety violations, and 11 randomly selected patient files revealed that the facility is a very real danger to women. All 11 files reportedly “were complete or inaccurate.” Among those 11 random files, inspectors found three patients who experienced complications. This particular abortion facility, according to its website, is run by Dr. Willie Parker, who is a frequent pro-abortion guest on various news networks. Parker considers himself to be a Christian, and has compared himself to Jesus Christ. He has also compared his own “suffering” to that of the biblical Job, and believes that his Christian faith is what compels him to kill preborn children.

Pro-life group Operation Rescue noted:

The patient charts revealed that one patient suffered a serious complication and was transferred to a hospital. Two other patients suffered failed or incomplete abortions and had to return to the abortion facility for a second surgical aspiration abortion.

Another two women had notations made in their medical records that they lived over 100 miles away, which qualified them for an exception to the state mandated waiting period. However, both women actually lived closer and did not qualify for the exemption.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman stated in response, “What are the chances that there would be three abortion complications that required additional surgeries and two violations of the Virginia waiting period law found in eleven randomly selected patient files? If that ratio holds up over all patients, it would mean 45 percent of the women who go to Falls Church Reproductive Health are placed in grave danger.”

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One of the patients found in the records, according to Operation Rescue, suffered from significant bleeding:

The unnamed “physician” that conducted the abortion accompanied the patient to the hospital and informed interns there that it was believed the bleeding was caused by a perforation of the uterus made during the abortion, then blamed the perforation on “previous injuries from repeated C-sections.”

Multiple other violations were found in the inspection report. They included:

• “Improperly reused single dose vials of Fentanyl for more than one patient” 

• “Expired drugs and supplies in a procedure room (oldest expired January 2015)”

• “Failure to document three patients’ stability before discharging them from the recovery room” 

• “Failure to ensure patients’ medical records were complete and accurate in 11 out of 11 cases, with crucial information missing or misrepresented” 

• Failure “to report a serious injury to a patient to the Office of Licensure and Certification within 24 hours of occurrence.”

Despite instances like this, the industry itself insists that regulations and restrictions are not necessary to ensure the safety of patients, and claims that efforts to hold abortion facilities to the same health and safety standards as other outpatient surgical facilities is simply a tactic to limit women’s access to abortion.