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photo taken by a pro-life advocate outside Hope Clinic on April 28 |
Operation Rescue reported earlier this month that the clinic hospitalized
patients at least four times between March and April of 2023. This April 28
emergency was the fourth of those incidents. Operation Rescue did not expect
to receive any 911 records at the time because RuralMed EMS, a private
ambulance service based over an hour away from Hope Clinic, provided
transportation. It turns out that RuralMed EMS secured a contract with
Effingham County to be dispatched through the public 911 service. This was one
such instance.
During
the 911 call, a staffer told the dispatcher that the girl just had a D&C abortion and
was suffering from an "anterior perforation." No further information about the
girl's condition is available. Granite City refused to provide redacted
dispatch reports to Operation Rescue, and the 911 dispatcher didn't ask any
further questions about the patient's condition before sending an ambulance.
D&C abortions
are usually done during the first trimester. They involve the use of suction
(often through a vacuum aspirator) to pull the preborn child from a mother's
womb. This suction often violently tears the child's body apart. Potential
complications include uterine perforations and infection, which can lead to
infertility.
The Hope Clinic employee requested that the girl be transferred to Barnes
Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. That hospital is 20 minutes away, but
there is a hospital directly across the street from Hope Clinic. Barnes is a
level 1 trauma center capable of handling more serious injuries, and Hope
makes this request frequently. This indicates that the average severity of
injuries caused by Hope Clinic is high.
“We hope and pray that this poor girl lived through this deadly ordeal,” said
Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “If so, we pray for her as she
begins a long journey of physical and emotional healing from the repeated
forms of victimization that no child should ever have to endure.”
