When discussing abortion, we should remember the unnecessary death of Karnamaya Mongar.
‘There might have been some slim hope of reviving Mrs. Mongar.”
Paramedics had arrived on the scene 20 minutes before, but, “because of the cluttered hallways and the padlocked emergency door, it took them over 20 minutes just to find a way to get her out of the building.” She had a “weak pulse” when they did reach her.
The grand-jury report in the case of Kermit Gosnell, whose Philadelphia abortion clinic became known as a “House of Horrors,” continued: “Doctors at the hospital managed to keep her heart beating, but they never knew what they were trying to treat, because Gosnell and his staff lied about how much anesthesia they had given, and who had given it. By that point, there was no way to restore any neurological activity. Life support was removed the next day. Karnamaya Mongar was pronounced dead.”
Mrs. Mongar was a refugee from Bhutan, recently arrived here from a resettlement camp in Nepal. The grand-jury report explains: “When she arrived at the clinic, Gosnell, as usual, was not there. Office workers had her sign various forms that she could not read, and then began doping her up. She received repeated unmonitored, unrecorded intravenous injections of Demerol, a sedative seldom used in recent years because of its dangers. Gosnell liked it because it was cheap.”
At some point, Mrs. Mongar stopped breathing, and when “employees finally noticed, Gosnell was called in and briefly attempted to give CPR.” His defibrillator was broken, though, “nor did he administer emergency medications that might have restarted her heart.”
Details always seemed to get worse when people were looking inside that clinic, and this was no exception. Although paramedics were called, “clinic staff hooked up machinery and rearranged her body to make it look like they had been in the midst of a routine, safe abortion procedure.”
It’s all worth reading and remembering, because this happened in America, and it was scandalously underreported at the time, seven years ago. It should not have happened anywhere, and certainly not in a city that lies between New York and Washington, D.C., such centers of wealth and political power. We should remember this death whenever we are talking about abortion, women, inequality, or any of the contentious issues of our day. Keep Karnamaya Mongar in mind.
Protect them both. Love them both. This was the theme around which pro-lifers rallied when they gathered in Washington, D.C., for the annual March for Life this year, and then again when they supported Texas’s efforts to protect women — even women who have gone for an abortion — at the Supreme Court a few days ago.
This theme is, of course, viewed with suspicion at best by much of the pro-choice movement. Clinics close when they have to conform to such regulations. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and restricting access to abortion in any way amounts to a war against women, the argument goes.
But what if Roe v. Wade is the war against women?
What if manipulating words like “choice” and “health” amounts to an assault on common sense and the common good and human rights?
What if we could all take a few steps back, remember Mrs. Mongar, and think about doing better and even coming together to do so?
That is, needless to say, not happening in presidential politics right now. Donald Trump has been saying that Planned Parenthood does good things. He’s not into abortion, he indicates, but otherwise, he tells us, he’s in their camp. The problem with that is that Planned Parenthood is our country’s largest abortion provider, and abortion is the poison in the bloodstream that keeps us from a healthy culture.
On Super Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton talked about the need for more “love” in America. She cannot do this compellingly without addressing the culture of death that has infected the American soul.
‘Abortion is a product that Planned Parenthood is selling,’ Abby Johnson explains.
Abby Johnson was among those outside the Supreme Court building when oral arguments were being heard in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. She knows Texas and abortion — she was formerly a Planned Parenthood director there. “Abortion is a product that Planned Parenthood is selling,” the author of Unplanned explains. Her tenure included abortion quotas from on high, and she explains that whatever service the organization is offering — whether it be screenings for sexually transmitted diseases, contraception, or sex education for children — Planned Parenthood prioritizes establishing “relationships with people who are most likely to need an abortion down the line.” Ramona Treviño — also formerly of Planned Parenthood, and the author of the book Redeemed by Grace — worries that “vulnerable women will never receive life-affirming options at Planned Parenthood because there is no money to be made when women choose to parent or choose to place their child for adoption.”
Lila Rose, the president of Live Action — the group that started shining more of a light on what happens inside Planned Parenthood clinics with undercover videos some years ago — suggests that, instead of propping up the abortion industry, as Trump’s comments do, we should publicize the fact that “there are over 13,000 clinics and hospitals across the country where women can go to get better, more comprehensive treatment [and] that don’t kill children in the process. That’s what our political leaders should be supporting, especially when taxpayer dollars are involved.”
We need not demonize Planned Parenthood. There are good people with good intentions who have worked and do work at such clinics — people who need jobs, who want to help women. But we also need not bolster what is a cultural and political behemoth. Politicians’ being beholden to the organization, on both sides of the aisle, does no one any favors. And it means that, for fear of aiding the other side in a political debate, it becomes anathema to insist that clinics meet reasonable standards for a medical procedure that involves the ending of a life — a procedure that will affect the mother’s life forever. And the state of Pennsylvania winds up overlooking complaints about a filthy place in an impoverished neighborhood that protected neither of its patients when a pregnant woman walked through its doors.