An organization led by a former Planned Parenthood manager – now a pro-life advocate – has launched a website that allows women seeking abortions to view public inspection reports of the facilities to determine if they adhere to basic medical safety and health standards.
“Women absolutely deserve to know whether or not the clinic of their choice has failed to properly disinfect medical equipment or has exposed their patients to infection,” said Abby Johnson, president of And Then There Were None, and a former Planned Parenthood manager. “During my time working at an abortion facility, I saw disgusting incidences of where our staff failed to properly take care of women, did not clean up the operating tables, and failed to disinfect instruments. It was gross.”
The website is CheckMyClinic.org, and it features reports that were sourced through public records and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), says a press statement about the new resource. A woman can easily click on her state and view the state’s laws regarding abortion, parental notification, and telemedicine. Circles appearing on the map of the state correspond to clinics that have been cited for failure to meet public safety and health standards. Once a circle is clicked, the clinic’s public health reports and health and safety violations can be easily viewed.
Additionally, if a woman wishes to choose an option other than abortion, CheckMyClinic provides links to help lines that can assist them.
“The website is both for women seeking abortion as well as workers at these clinics who are interested in learning what their employer has been cited for in the past,” Johnson said. “If they want to get out of their abortion clinic and find other work, we can help them and there is a link for them. If they want to report medical misconduct, there is a link they can do that as well.”
Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a federal investigation into Planned Parenthood and other facilities, based on referrals made by the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Planned Parenthood and the other facilities are being investigated following allegations they profited from harvesting the body parts of babies aborted in these clinics.
In addition, two California biomedical procurement companies reached a $7.8 million settlement in December with the Orange County, California, district attorney’s office following allegations they illegally profited from the sale of fetal tissue.
The settlement required DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics — a sister company — to permanently close its operations in California and to admit their liability.
“An informed woman is an empowered woman,” said Johnson, adding that most abortion clinics have operated with little or no oversight.
“Oversight for abortion facilities is lacking in most states,” she explained. “Most of these clinics operate with little to no accountability for years, as was the case with Gosnell’s Philadelphia clinic deemed by investigators to be a ‘house of horrors.’ These questions remain: who determines the standard; who will uphold it; and who will enforce it?”
In 1973, the Supreme Court created a right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, though none ever existed in the Constitution, as an extension of the right to privacy.
“Abortion has been a lauded as a ‘private’ decision and in some ways, it seems that legislators and voters have decided that what happens behind those doors is none of our business and between a ‘woman and her doctor,’” Johnson said. “But if we look at the inspection reports that are available, we see over and over again the grave misconduct of these physicians. Who can we trust?”