Planned Parenthood: Abortion pills and cold pills no difference – huh?

A Planned Parenthood letter claims that taking the abortion pill which kills a preborn child in the womb is no different than taking an cold pill. The 2013 letter is from Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California to the California Building Standards Commission challenging building code changes that would have affected abortion facilities under California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD).

According to the Planned Parenthood letter, OSHPD refused to include within the new mechanical and plumbing changes for medical facilities an exemption for primary care clinics that perform abortions where, “the treatment room is sized as an examination room.” In their letter, Planned Parenthood claimed that it would cost $2 million dollars to renovate each facility to a primary care center. In addition, the plumbing and mechanical changes proposed under the OSHPD would have cost Planned Parenthood $317,000 to provide abortion services. Planned Parenthood wanted to keep an exemption to the standards to remain as they were after abortion was made legal, claiming the, “differentiation between primary care clinics that offer early abortion services and those that do not is anachronistic and provides no basis for requiring heightened building standards.”

The largest chain of abortion clinics in the nation wanted to be sure that they could continue to build abortion facilities across the state so they could continue to serve “much needed health care services” like abortion to “low income populations.”

Excerpt of Planned Parenthood letter to OSHPD

Their argument was that there the new standards would not have affected abortion risks which they claimed were minimal, writing,

“When performed by trained clinicians, early abortions are safe and common, posing less risk of infection than many other procedures performed in primary care clinics eligible for the OSHPD 3SE classification. For medication abortions, there is no difference between taking a pill for a cold or taking one to induce an abortion. For aspiration abortions, the risk of infection is no different than the risk of insertion of a intrauterine device for an endometrial biopsy…”

The idea that taking an abortion pill is paramount to taking a cold pill is ludicrous. As many articles with this publication has shown there are serious ramifications to both surgical as well as medical abortion. And, when these complications occur, it is the woman, not Planned Parenthood who is left paying the bill (see documents here). Letters from women or relatives of abortion pill users submitted to Medical News Today online testify to a host of complications that occur from the abortion pill, including death.

As Saynsumthn has reported before, Planned Parenthood likes to pith their abortion services as “safe and simple” but one look at a consent form they require women to sign you see the real truth. Missed abortion, blood clots, infection and even death are among the possible risks associated with medication abortion.

Image from Planned Parenthood medication abortion consent form on abortion pill

But the most disturbing part is that the purpose of an abortion pill is to end the life of a living preborn child in the womb and cannot possibly be compared to taking a pill for a cold but that does not matter to Planned Parenthood whose physicians submitted letters to stop the new regulations. Virginia Siegfried, MD medical director of Planned Parenthood of Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo Counties said in her letter that their Planned Parenthood center performed 1800 surgical procedures a year. Jeff Waldman, MD also wrote to the OSHPD. He served as Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific. In addition to being an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, Waldman was appointed as the Senior Director of Clinical Services and Medical Education for Planned Parenthood Federal of America (PPFA) in 2006.

Some of the “doctors” who signed onto this notion that abortion pills are like cold pills work for Planned Parenthood centers that profit off the parts of the babies they abort. A letter was submitted by Richard L Fischer, MD who said he was the Associate Medical Director and Physician Director of Abortion Services for the “largest Planned Parenthood Affiliate in the country.” Fischer also teaches “abortion services” at the San Francisco General Hospital. Fischer performed abortions at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte featured in the Center for Medical Progress’ (CMP) undercover videos. It was at their San Jose location that former tissue procurement technician, Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus.

Jennifer Russo, MD who earns nearly $300,000 annually as a Planned Parenthood abortionist and performs abortions up to 24 weeks as Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties also wrote about to the OSHPD. In her letter, Russo stated that she was the Health Sciences Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, Irvine. In video obtained by CMP, Russo confirmed that her Planned Parenthood affiliate worked with the for-profit biotech company, DaVinci Biosciences, to harvest the organs of aborted fetuses to sell nationally and internationally.

Dr. Mary Gatter of Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Directors’ Council President, Dr. Mary Gatter, caught haggling over baby parts was heard on video telling investigators from the Center for Medical Progress that she wanted a Lamborghini. The infamous Mary Gatter claimed in her letter on the California Building Standards that abortion pill complications were in part the fault of the patient writing,

“infection rates related to abortions, which are already quite low are associated with preexisting patient conditions (such as having an STD or being immuno-compromised) or to poor surgical technique…”

According to studies, about 5-8 out of 100 women (5-8%) may need a surgical procedure to complete the abortion or to stop too much bleeding after they take the abortion pill. Despite Planned Parenthood’s allusions that abortion pills are like cold pills, women are often hospitalized from abortion pill complications. Risks associated from the abortion pill can be found at AbortionProcedures.com which states that:

Eight percent of women (1 in 12) bleed more than 30 days, and 1 percent require hospitalization because of heavy bleeding.

At AbortionProcedures.com , former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino explains what happens during a chemical abortion using abortion pills: