Even abortion activists have a hard time denying that abortions are traumatic experiences for most women.
Some abortion clinics are moving in the direction of providing extra touches of “care” – cups of herbal tea, warm blankets, inspirational music or art – to women in an effort to make them feel better about aborting their unborn babies. Plus, it’s good business for abortion clinics to disguise their deadly product with a seemingly-caring atmosphere.
Amy Hagstrom Miller, who runs the Whole Woman’s Health abortion chain, claimed that her clinics provide compassionate, “holistic” abortion experiences in a new interview with Mashable. Hagstrom Miller has been the subject of numerous interviews lately because her abortion business challenged a Texas pro-life law at the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week.
Journalist Rebecca Ruiz painted a rosy picture of Hagstrom Miller’s San Antonio, Texas abortion facility, describing purple-themed decor, inspirational quotes painted on the walls, hot tea, warm blankets and gentle-mannered staff hovering around women having abortions.
Her report continues:
Creating a warm environment has always been important to Hagstrom Miller, who has worked in abortion care for nearly 30 years.
The rooms in each of her eight clinics in Texas, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico and Minnesota are named after inspiring women like poet Audre Lorde, Michelle Obama and Frida Kahlo. The purple walls bear uplifting quotes from the same women. In Lorde’s room, there’s an homage to empowerment: “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
Hagstrom Miller has also trained her staff to treat their patients with empathy, an approach that looks nothing like the traditional medical model of what she calls “emptying uteruses.”
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Hagstrom Miller stresses that there is no wrong way to experience abortion, so patients are encouraged to talk about their feelings, ask questions about their religious, moral or spiritual beliefs, and name their pregnancy however they want—as a baby or fetus.
In the waiting room of the San Antonio abortion facility, Ruiz noted that the romantic comedy “Along Came Polly” was playing to help patients “loosen up.” Staffers said they carefully select movies for their abortion waiting rooms to help take women’s minds off the abortion.
“Sometimes there’s laughter in the lobby,” said Marva Sadler, director of clinical services for Whole Woman’s Health. “Sometimes you can’t even hear that TV because women will just start to talk.”
The report continues:
Ruth Arick, a consultant who has visited hundreds of abortion clinics, says Hagstrom Miller’s approach is driven by a deeply held respect for their humanity.
“Amy’s got this heart that says, ‘We want to do all the right things for women who come in and if we can let them walk out the door and feel comfortable with their experience, we’ve done a good thing.'”
Hagstrom Miller wants to create the space for patients to grieve or rejoice, or do both at once, if that’s how they feel.
“I’ve really always had this central commitment to providing an environment where a woman could feel safe to examine all of her feelings about pregnancy and sexuality…knowing that women don’t experience abortion only as a medical issue,” she says. “It can be very transformational.”
However, the reporter failed to note that Hagstrom Miller’s abortion chain is not as safe or comforting as its owners claim, or that she is fighting against Texas regulations that would require her abortion businesses to provide the same standard of care that women receive at legitimate medical facilities.
A report to the Texas state legislature at the time the Texas law was adopted showed that Hagstrom Miller runs shoddy abortion clinics that put women’s very lives at risk, LifeNews reported.
According to documents obtained by the Texas Alliance for Life from the Texas Department of State Health Services, four of Hagstrom Miller’s five abortion facilities were cited in the past three years for dozens of health and safety violations. Violations include unsterilized equipment, inadequate medical staffing, expired medications and “numerous rusty spots” on suction machines that had “the likelihood to cause infection.”
These conditions hardly fit Hagstrom Miller’s description of a “warm and comforting” atmosphere and a safe, caring oasis for women.
