News outlets are misleading Americans on the conditions that led to the Missouri Department of Health’s decision to deny a license renewal to Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood in St. Louis, the only remaining abortion facility in the state. Rather than telling the truth about the events leading to the decision, news sources including CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS, are all reporting the same lie – that the license dispute is focused on having to perform two separate pelvic exams before an abortion. The truth? This Planned Parenthood has a history of injuring women, of failing to actually complete abortions, and has 30 deficiencies — of which it has only corrected four. The most recent deficiency report is 62 pages long and can be read in full here. This is why the state refuses to renew the facility’s license.
Read more details on the list of deficiencies here, in addition to the actual health department inspection reports for multiple years past.
Major media outlets are ignoring these facts and are running headlines meant to make Planned Parenthood look like the victim:
CBS: Planned Parenthood of St. Louis one step closer to losing license over state pelvic exam regulation
MSNBC: Clinic prioritizes patient care over GOP anti-abortion stunt
BUSTLE: Planned Parenthood Defies Missouri Pelvic Exam Rule That Doctors Say Is “Unethical”
ABC: St. Louis abortion clinic to defy state over pelvic exam
CNN: Missouri’s last abortion clinic defies state law just before a decision on the clinic’s fate
It seems Planned Parenthood is trying to control the press by announcing it will refuse to conduct the second pelvic exam on each patient undergoing an abortion as if that alone is the reason they have lost their license. But the Health Department says there is no such law requiring two pelvic exams, and that one pelvic exam needs to be performed 72 hours before the abortion. Planned Parenthood wants to perform that exam on the day of the abortion, and the Health Department addressed this concern by issuing an emergency ruling allowing the facility to do so if circumstances dictate that it must be done the same day.
“I am issuing an emergency rule today that Planned Parenthood can defer the pelvic exam to the day of service if in their estimation – using their clinical judgment – they think there is a medical reason that they should do that,” announced Dr. Randall Williams, current director of DHSS and former practicing OB/GYN during a press conference yesterday, June 21. Watch:
Now that the issue of a double pelvic exam has been resolved, and the abortion facility still doesn’t have a license, it is evident that there is more to the story than major media outlets would have Americans believe.
READ: Judge lets Planned Parenthood continue abortions as Missouri strips it of its license
And Planned Parenthood in St. Louis is certainly not prioritizing patient care, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow claimed. The facility has failed multiple inspections, including one in March, and has injured at least 74 women since 2009 — an average of approximately one patient every six weeks. And while CNN is playing dumb by saying that the health director hasn’t said what the concerns are regarding the facility, the 62-page Statement of Deficiencies was available to the public before Judge Stelzer sealed it (which, of course, has made it easier for the media to lie about it). Pro-life group Operation Rescue posted it, however, before the judge sealed the report, which, like all other inspection reports, had been made available for public viewing.
Why would the judge seal a damning inspection report of horrendous injuries to women while he keeps the abortion facility open for business? One can only speculate.
Here’s some of what the report includes:
- A pelvic exam was performed by a medical resident on “Patient 1” prior to a surgical abortion that failed to detect that the uterus was severely retroflexed, increasing the risk of the procedure, including the risk of failed abortion. A physician fellow then attempted a surgical abortion, which failed. RHS then attempted a medication abortion on the same patient, which also failed. A physician then performed a third attempted abortion-a second attempt at surgical abortion, which succeeded. The Department never received a timely complication report for either of the two failed abortions, though RHS claims it prepared one for the failed medication abortion, which the Department first received while onsite for the investigation at RHS on April 2 and 3, 2019. Two of the three physicians involved in this incident — including all those with direct knowledge of the initial failed procedure — have refused to be interviewed.
- A surgical abortion was performed on “Patient 2” by a physician. The fetus was at 10 weeks’ development. The physician who performed the abortion noted in the medical records that he or she identified some fetal parts to confirm the success of the abortion. The pathology lab also confirmed the presence of f’etal parts. Yet the surgical abortion had failed, resulting in a continuing pregnancy. The patient contacted RHS approximately three weeks later. reporting the continuing pregnancy. RHS did not schedule a second attempt at abortion for over two weeks, during which time the pregnancy progressed from first trimester to second trimester. RFIS performed the second abortion attempt without providing any additional informed consent, even though the five weeks’ delay resulted in material changes, both in the degree of risk to the patient, and in fetal development. RHS’s quality assurance process reported that the first failed attempt was likely to the presence of a “twin,” even though no twin was detected in a pre-abortion ultrasound.
- The treatment provided to “Patient 12” raises particularly grave concerns. Patient 12 was recommended to have a therapeutic abortion afrer 21 weeks’ gestation. The patient was examined by an RHS physician at a hospital, who concluded that the patient had placenta previa — which in the majority of cases resolves as the uterus grows and the placenta moves up — and/or placenta accreta, along with a history of C-section. An ultrasound was performed which did not have findings to completely exclude or confirm placenta accreta. If a surgical abortion is to be performed, given the high risks of such a procedure, an ACOG Committee Opinion states that a second-trimester abortion on such a patient should be performed at a facility with blood products and the capacity for interventional radiology and/or hysterectomy; RHS lacks all three. For unexplained reasons, the physician nevertheless referred the patient to RHS’s facility for the second-trimester abortion, where that physician attempted the abortion at a gestational age of 21 weeks and five days. The abortion attempt failed, and it resulted in massive uncontrolled bleeding and an emergency transfer of the patient to the hospital. The patient lost over two liters of blood, underwent a uterine artery embolization, and was described in hospital records as “critically ill.”
MO PP losing its license did a 21+ wk abortion on a woman w/placenta previa despite no on site blood products or proper emergency abilities. She was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery after massive blood loss. Physician who did abortion refuses to talk to Dept of Health.
— secularprolife (@secularprolife) June 22, 2019
A letter from the DHSS states other deficiencies such as “failure to ensure there was communications with the pathology lab after the discovery of failed abortions,” and “failure to ensure the physician performing the informed consent was the same physician performing the abortion.” In addition, some of the abortionists “refused to cooperate with the Department’s investigation and grant interviews with the Department regarding the patient care they provided at RHS.”
This is what the DHSS is concerned about. Women are being injured consistently at this facility and the clinic’s director thinks he is above the law. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is doing the right thing in protecting women from this unsafe facility and the dangerous abortionists who work there.
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