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Forced Abortions Now Legal In the U.S.
PRI Weekly Briefing 27 February 2004 Vol. 6 / No. 8
About F.A.C.E: Forced Abortions Now Legal In the U.S.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act makes
the violation of a woman's right to receive reproductive
health care a federal crime. It is hard to imagine a worse
violation of reproductive rights than forced abortion. Yet
the Eleventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals apparently
disagrees.
On 23 January 2004, in Jane Roe II vs. Aware Women Center for
Choice, Inc., the Eleventh Circuit Court ruled that an
expectant mother can be aborted by force if the abortionist
argues that it is necessary to "protect the health of the
mother."
The story begins on 29 March 1997, when a young, pregnant
mother entered the Aware Women Center for Choice clinic in
Florida. She was there for an abortion.
Awaiting her was the abortionist, William P. Egherman, who
has committed over 10,000 abortions and who has, perhaps not
surprisingly, been addicted to alcohol and opiates. He began
the procedure by attempting to dilate the woman's cervix with
a 12 millimeter dilator.
"My God, you're hurting me" the woman began to scream.
"You're killing me, I'll never be able to have babies,,,.
Stop!"
The woman had had a change of heart. She did not want an
abortion. She wanted to keep her baby. And she wanted to
leave. Immediately. "Stop. Let me out of here," she cried.(1)
Instead of respecting the woman's wishes and stopping the
procedure, Egherman called for assistance. Clinic workers
held the woman down as Egherman, ignoring the woman's
screams, continued to dilate her cervix. Then he entered the
victim with a pair of forceps--"the bear" Ehgerman called
them (2)--and began probing and pulling. He mistakenly
pulled out part of the woman's intestines. For the woman,
said her attorney, Chris Sapp, it was like being drawn and
quartered.
Realizing what he had done, Egherman heavily sedated the
woman. Then he called for an ambulance. He instructed the
ambulance to come slowly, without lights or sirens, in order
to give him "time to pack the woman with gauze."
Egherman was also worried that his regular flow of business
would be interrupted by "all the hoopla." "Saturday's our big
day," he explained, "and I didn't want to generate a lot
of,,, any more confusion, any more panic than was already
present at the time. She was loud, and as I said, she was
shrill, and there were a lot of patients who were hearing
what was going on, and the normal rhythm of the day was
interrupted. The other patients must have been terrified, and
I didn't want the ambulance showing up with all the lights
and sirens,,,"
At the hospital, the woman was operated on and the damage to
her internal organs repaired. Her baby was found to be dead,
and was removed.
There the matter would have ended, if not for the
intervention of attorney, and former judge, Chris Sapp. Sapp
filed suit on her behalf in the federal courts, arguing that
the abortionist had violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic
Entrances Act (FACE). FACE was passed to guarantee the right
of women to receive reproductive health care. But if a woman
had a right to enter a clinic to get an abortion, Sapp
argued, she also has a right to leave a clinic in order to
protect herself and her baby.
In calling for the abortionist to stop the procedure, Sapp
argued, the woman was clearly invoking her rights under the
FACE Act. By forcing the abortion procedure on her, and by
preventing her from going immediately to a hospital where her
pregnancy could have been saved, the abortionist violated her
reproductive rights.(3)
Egherman's defense attorney's maintained that "if he
[Egherman] had to go back in" in order to protect the woman's
health, then this would not constitute a violation of the
FACE Act. On a summary judgment, the appeals court agreed,
even though the evidence shows that the abortion had scarcely
begun when the woman called for the abortionist to stop the
abortion, and that he went "back in" to perform the abortion
against her will.
According to Sapp, "This ruling does establish a precedent
for forced abortion." An expectant mother receiving a routine
gynecological exam, for example, could be held down and
forcibly aborted. The abortionist would merely have to argue
that the abortion was necessary to protect the mother's
health or life, and this would not be a violation of the FACE
Act.
PRI has recently learned of another forced abortion in
America. A 25-year-old Maryland woman, four months pregnant,
changed her mind about having an abortion after being taken
to the procedure room. She ran back to the clinic entrance
where her boyfriend stopped her. You have to get an abortion,
he told her. I've already paid for it. Three clinic workers
and the abortionists surrounded the women, sedated her by
injection, and then took her back into the procedure room.
After the forced abortion, she awoke in a closet.
Chris Sapp is determined to fight on. He is prepared to
petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiori
acknowledging that a woman's right to say "no" to an
abortion, at any point in time, is absolute, and that this
right is found in the FACE Act.
First of all, I am very anti-abortion. These stories are very disturbing and make me sick to my stomach. I do have a question, though. Maybe I'm missing something, or just a bit off on my anatomy, but in the first story....how did the doctor manage to pull out part of the woman's intestines? Wouldn't he have had to have broken through the wall of the uterus to get to them?
__________________
I thought all writers drank to excess and beat their wives. You know one time I secretly wanted to be a writer.---C.K. Dexter Haven
At the very minimum, this is a case of assault. I'm sure we could go back and forth, one side saying assault, the other infanticide, but either way it's a crime. If my wife ever were to schedule an abortion, have second thoughts, and then be sedated by some surgery-hungry, pencil neck doctor, there will be hell to pay.
Wouldn't he have had to have broken through the wall of the uterus to get to them?
Considering the incompetence of the doctor, this would not surprise me. I really don't have all of the details regarding this case, but that article led me to believe he is really incapable of using a scalpel properly.
Shoving an instrument in that hard to wind up with intestines - this should be a no-brainer case for attempted murder.
At first glance, this makes sense to me. But then again, the prosecutor would need to establish motive. I'm not so sure a jury would be into attempted-murder. Whatever the circumstances, he needs to be charged with something. I would not bat an eyelash if the DA really tried racking up as many charges as possible.
Forced Abortions Now Legal In the U.S.
