State Regulators Dropped the Ball

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

The news concerning the victims of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his band of unqualified assistants just keeps getting worse:

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — When Davida Johnson walked into Dr. Kermit Gosnell's clinic to get an abortion in 2001, she saw what she described as dazed women sitting in dirty, bloodstained recliners. As the abortion got under way, she had a change of heart — but claims she was forced by the doctor to continue.

"I said, 'I don't want to do this,' and he smacked me. They tied my hands and arms down and gave me more medication," Johnson told The Associated Press.

Johnson, then 21, had a 3-year-old daughter when she became pregnant again. She said she first went to Planned Parenthood in downtown Philadelphia but was frightened away by protesters.

"The picketers out there, they just scared me half to death," Johnson, now 30, recalled this week.

Someone sent her to Gosnell's West Philadelphia clinic, at the Women's Medical Society, saying anti-abortion protesters wouldn't be a problem there. She said she paid him $400 cash.

A few months after the abortion, she began to have gynecological problems. An examination revealed venereal disease. She blames Gosnell, 69, for the lifelong illness, which she declined to identify, and for the four miscarriages she has subsequently suffered.

More @ source

The article also mentions that Gosnell's clinic, despite numerous complaints, had not been visited by Pennsylvania state inspectors since 1993 and that 41-year old refugee Karnamaya Mongar was referred to Gosnell's clinic by a clinic in Virginia.

The Pennsylvania state authorities had numerous opportunities to shut down Gosnell's butcher shop for good and failed to do so. This is an obvious failure of the system that needs to be corrected. In your opinion, what could be done to correct government regulatory organizations (for example, streamline them to make them smaller and possibly more efficient or form sub-groups within organizations)?

Comments

[dwer.livejournal.com]

given that Ms. Johnson was scared away from the legitimate location for such a procedure by protesters, I would increase the distance that anti-abortion protests must be from the entrance to clinics.

This is what happens when access to abortion is restricted.

On the topic of Gosnell, I don't think that the regulatory organizations need to change anything, other than the culture of not doing their jobs.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I'll agree with you on distancing the protesters from the clinics (because they do the same thing with the WBC) so long as we can agree that those protesters have a right to voice their opinion against abortion.
On the topic of Gosnell, I wonder if any of the Penn regulators were getting pay-offs from that clinic.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'given that Ms. Johnson was scared away from the legitimate location for such a procedure by protesters...'

Both are private sites for the facilitating of abortions. Is one more legtimate than the other? Certainly one is better. But that doesn't grant legitimacy as licensing grants it equally to both.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

How about we stop it with the ridiculous fantasy that government can make everything better and protect us from bad actors?

Them we can move forward replacing the regulatory agencies with certification agencies and tell people the truth, that they are on their own out there and bad choices have consequences. If you want to go to the uncertified doctor, feel free but you're on your own if he is a quack.

Then finally when someone like this butcher is brought to light just as today criminal sanctions are more than justified.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised the abortion protesters weren't protesting Gosnell's facility, tbh.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

For once we're in complete agreement. If there were less regulations on the abortion sphere, a monstrous business model like this could never exist. At bottom, pro-life policies are interference in the free market!

[ygrii-blop.livejournal.com]

How about we stop it with the ridiculous fantasy that government can make everything better and protect us from bad actors?

I'm okay with that provided you can admit government isn't utterly incompetent.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

There's a position somewhere between assuming that government can make everything better and thinking that given the extent and duration of the kinds of things that were going on here, that some kind of regulatory agency dropped the ball.

Caveat emptor may be reasonable when selling cars, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think that we might do a bit more than that to protect people when they're at their most vulnerable and when their "marketplace choices" are as profound as they are in the realm of medicine.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

How about we stop it with the ridiculous fantasy that the market can make everything better and protect us from bad actors?

Then we can move forward by replacing everything with McDonalds.

[usekh.livejournal.com]

Because things are safer than they were in the past?

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Bloodstained recliners? If she didn't turn around after that, I can't feel sorry for her.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

:\

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah- squalor in a medical office should be a huge tip-off.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Apparently she tried but was held down and forced to stay.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

'dazed women in dirty, blood-stained recliners' had me doing a quick check on snopes...

Re: Why I didn't post about this story...

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I would add 4)honesty about the different types of abortions and what's involved in them as well as how often they are done.

If I may be so bold...

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

... so as to translate your polemic thump phrases for the polemic thump phrases of your opposition...


Regardless of whether you are pro-choice or pro-womb-slavery, you need to respect tht abortion is a surgery and has great risk.

What I want:
1) All abortions shall be preceded by a window in which womb-slavery zealots shall have an opportunity to propagandize the prospective recipient, and be followed by another window for the purpose of guilt tripping the unrepentant whores.

2) Honest statistics on the deaths of women caused by abortion will be presumed to be fraudulent unless and until they support my narrative.

3) Stop treating your body like you have some sort of 'right' to control it.

I loath the zelots on both sides of this debate, but I can't be bothered to look up Nancy Pelosi's actual age and then multiply by three.

Re: Why I didn't post about this story...

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I loath the zelots on both sides of this debate.

Uh...... huh.

Re: Why I didn't post about this story...

[hey-its-michael.livejournal.com]

Regardless of whether you are pro-babykilling or pro-keeping babies

The way you are phrasing this debate, no wonder you do not encounter respect in the debate. If someone were to ask me, "why are you pro baby killing" in regards to abortion, I would look them up and down once, tell them to f-off, and walk away.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I am pro-choice, but bloodstained recliners? The facility's unsanitary and not safe even for the people who go there. Abortion is a prerequisite for women's rights, to be certain, but some hospitals are just not worth keeping open and this, like how Walter Reed at least was, is one of them. >.<

[thies.livejournal.com]

we need to deregulate, the market will pretty much take care of it.

Pardon

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

I deleted all my comments from this post. I have a long standing rule not to debate abortion. There's no point. It just pisses me off. Brings up bad memories. Sorry I commented.

Re: Pardon

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

you are forgiven

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

"In your opinion, what could be done to correct government regulatory organizations (for example, streamline them to make them smaller and possibly more efficient or form sub-groups within organizations)?"


Actually fund them, for starters.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

oooh! And promote a culture of actually USING the regulations would be good too!

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

In your opinion, what could be done to correct government regulatory organizations (for example, streamline them to make them smaller and possibly more efficient or form sub-groups within organizations)?

Well, funding and staffing them properly might help.
- The US Border Patrol is at 1/3rd strength since they're unable to offer a good enough salary to attract people (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111302007.html) and are short on necessary equipment to do their job due to budget cuts, as well as having one of the lowest job satisfaction rates in the USA (http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2007/01/dhs-memo-reveals-agency-personnel-are-treated-quothuman-capitalquot). Yet, people are surprised the borders are porous.
- We don't have enough food inspectors (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6365HU20100407) to efficiently check the factories and farms, yet people are surprised by the constant food contamination and problems.
- Or how about Child Protective Services in the various states? Almost all so underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed that children constantly slip through the cracks.

Here's the thing; people can complain about budget waste all they want, but if you don't fund a thing properly, you get a shitty result. If I cheap out on a computer, I get a shitty computer. If I cheap out on a car, I get a shitty car.

Now that this has come to light, the legislators are putting forth a bill for annual state inspections of the clinic WITH FUNDING FOR THE INSPECTIONS. () Perhaps if they had done this 20 years ago, there wouldn't be a problem today?

You get what you pay for.
Problem is, we Americans love to cheap out and expect to get top quality for it. Not so, suckers. I'll repeat: You get what you pay for.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

well said.