Why The Response To A Philadelphia Abortion Doctor’s Ongoing Murder Trial Gets It All Wrong

A Philadelphia-area abortion doctor is currently on trial for murder, based on gruesome reports about the illegal techniques that he and his staff used to perform late-term abortions for desperate, low-income women. Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s high-profile case is sparking understandable outrage, as evidence has emerged that he may have taken advantage of vulnerable women, violated multiple medical codes, and performed inhumane surgeries.

According to prosecutors, Gosnell’s clinic went 17 years without an inspection — and abortion opponents are leveraging that to go after other abortion clinics that have no affiliation with Gosnell or his crimes. “Unfortunately and tragically in Pennsylvania, facilities were going uninspected for years,” Maria Gallagher, a lobbyist with the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, said in reference to the ongoing trial. That’s a big reason why abortion opponents like Gallagher were able to push Pennsylvania legislators to tighten restrictions on abortion clinics in 2011, updating state law to require abortion clinics to adhere to the same standards as outpatient surgery centers. According to NPR, Gosnell’s case was “mentioned frequently” as Pennsylvania lawmakers considered, and ultimately approved, the unnecessary new restrictions.

If proven guilty, there’s no doubt that Gosnell and his staff committed horrific crimes. But the knee-jerk reaction to his murder trial — the assumption that most abortion doctors aren’t adhering to medical standards, and that the women who visit health clinics are in grave danger of receiving unsafe care — is off-base. In fact, as the right-wing pushes for tighter abortion clinic standards to make sure nothing like this ever happens again, that crusade could end up having exactly the opposite effect.

Pennsylvania’s abortion clinic restrictions fit into a larger anti-choice effort across the country that is solely intended to force abortion clinics to close their doors. In states like North Dakota, Virginia, Indiana, Mississippi, and Texas, abortion opponents are pushing legislation to force abortion clinics to adhere to unneccesary new regulations in the name of “ensuring women’s safety.” That sounds like a noble goal. But these measures — known as the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP — aren’t really about ensuring women’s safety at all. As Mississippi’s Republican governor once admitted behind closed doors at an anti-choice event, TRAP laws are about indirectly restricting women’s access to abortion by shutting down health clinics.

In Pennsylvania specifically, one Planned Parenthood affiliate was forced to spend nearly a half a million dollars to get two of its clinics into compliance with the new regulations. That involved unnecessary updates like installing hands-free sinks, replacing the floors, and updating the air-conditioning system. The affiliate’s CEO, Dayle Steinberg, explained to NPR that the state’s stricter requirements didn’t actually do anything to improve the care provided to the women at her clinics, where the complication rate is already less than one-tenth of 1 percent. “They were thinly disguised as improving patient safety, when really it was about increasing the cost for abortion providers — hoping that some of them wouldn’t be able to afford it,” Steinberg said.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Women’s health advocates consider TRAP measures to be some of the most dangerous threats to women’s access to safe abortion services across the country. In North Dakota, where anti-choice Republicans are advancing the most stringently anti-abortion legislation in the nation, one doctor warned lawmakers that the new TRAP law will force women into dangerous, “backroom” abortion procedures. Retired pediatrician Ted Kleiman worked at a hospital before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, and he watched women die from botched abortions. “The thought of returning to those days is really beyond imagination,” Kleiman told his state lawmakers, urging them not to shut down the only abortion clinic left in North Dakota.

Women’s health advocates, particularly those who work at health clinics, are extremely concerned about ensuring that women receive the highest standards of reproductive care. But clinics that allow women to terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester of pregnancy — which involves taking a pill, and is not actually a surgical procedure — aren’t analogous to Gosnell’s clinic, which performed incredibly late-term, illegal abortion services. Over-regulating the clinics like Planned Parenthood’s, where the vast majority of patients are already receiving incredibly safe care, will actually limit women’s options instead of keeping them safe. That could lead more desperate women who feel like they don’t have any other options left to seek out doctors like Gosnell.

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Philadelphia, Portland City Councils Consider Offering Workers Paid Sick Leave

America is in the middle of what is projected to become the worst flu epidemic in a decade, and across the country workers risk making it worse by going to their jobs while sick. They do so because American workers have little access to paid sick leave, but some cities are considering enshrining such leave into law.

City councils in Portland, Oregon and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania are both considering new paid sick leave laws. Under the Portland proposal, all businesses would have to grant workers at least 40 hours of sick leave each year; for businesses with more than six employees, that leave time would be paid. A report from the Main Street Alliance of Oregon, which supports paid sick leave, said business expenses would grow at most by 1.9 percent under the law.

In Philadelphia, where a paid sick leave law was passed in 2011 but was vetoed by the mayor, lawmakers are making another attempt. The bill is backed by local restaurant workers, thousands of whom go to work while sick each day. Nearly 80 percent of food workers do not have paid sick leave, and 60 percent say they have reported to work while sick. A majority of Americans support providing paid sick leave to food workers.

The lack of paid sick leave is its own epidemic in the United States, where 40 percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-income workers don’t receive a single paid sick day. Lack of paid sick leave led to an additional 5 million cases of the H1N1 flu virus in 2009.

And though business leaders in Portland and Philadelphia oppose the laws, perhaps they shouldn’t. Research suggests that paid sick leave reduces employee turnover and increases productivity, meaning providing it to employees has substantial benefits for the companies’ bottom lines too.

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Philadelphia high schools to welcome students back with free condom dispensers

The Philadelphia Health Department will install clear plastic dispensers brimming with free condoms at 22 of Philadelphia’s public high schools over winter break.

The schools chosen for the pilot program have the highest rates of students infected with sexually transmitted diseases in the city, Philly.com reports. All students — even those as young as 14 — will be eligible to score free condoms unless their parents sign a form prohibiting them from participating.

The primary issue city officials hope to address with the pilot program is not teen pregnancy, but the growing prevalence of sexually transmitted disease among adolescents.

Teens currently account for a quarter of new HIV infections and STDs in the City of Brotherly Love.

“I support the policy strongly,” Mayor Michael A. Nutter told Philly.com. “This is a serious public health matter.”

“Many of our teenagers, regardless of what adults think, are engaged in sexual activities,” Nutter added. “Discussion about whether or not they should be sexually active is an appropriate discussion, but if they are, then we need to make sure they’re engaged in safe sexual practices.”

“If a teenager wants to use a condom, they should have access to a condom,” summarized Donald F. Schwarz, the deputy mayor for health and opportunity, according to Philly.com.

Schwarz also noted that he is aware of the possibility that the schools could “have hundreds of condoms taken and used inappropriately, for water balloons or something like that.”

The machines will be “supervised,” he promised Philly.com.

Free condom distribution is not a new phenomenon in Philadelphia high schools. A dozen already have “health resource centers” where the condoms are available gratis. The health department also provides contraceptive during voluntary STD screenings at city high schools.

The new condom dispensaries will be positioned “just inside the doorway near the entrance” to nurses’ offices, according to an email that Assistant Superintendent Dennis W. Creedon sent to nurses.

“Opt-out letters are to be maintained by the school office,” Creedon wrote, according to Philly.com “Students are to honor the wishes of their parents. If a student disrespects their guardian’s directive, that is an issue of the home.”

According to Deputy Mayor Schwarz, the city has no plan to advertise the condom dispensers.

“We’re going to allow word of mouth and the Internet and social media to start this off,” he told Philly.com.

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