Posted on 05/28/2008 10:58:12 AM PDT by julieee
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A Planned Parenthood in the District of Columbia is the subject of a new lawsuit from the mother of a teenager injured in a botched abortion. The abortion involved a teenager who was a victim of rape and the abortion left her with significant medical problems.
According to the lawsuit, Shantese Butler sustained significant physical damage as a result of the abortion and became infertile as a result.
(Excerpt) Read more at LifeNews.com ...
That was clear. What wasn't clear was how the writer didn't see a problem when the sentence was proof-read. Or perhaps it wasn't proof-read.
I'm guessing that the writer/editor probably decided that "As a result of the injuries, Butler will be unable to have biological children the rest of her life" was clear enough and was stylistically preferrable to the more specific and/or technically accurate "As a result of the injuries, the only way Butler will be able to have children for the rest of her life will be through adoption or or possibly through in-vitro fertilization of an egg from a donor."
I added the prolife keyword as I believe that lawsuits are an avenue that should be pursued in getting clinics to close... There is no reason not to pursue clinics based on lack of informed consent (breast cancer , greatly increased chance of dangerously premature birth in subsequent pregnancies, long term emotional distress/depression etc. etc. etc.) ...
Aren't those questions for the court to address rather than an article reporting on the fact that a lawsuit has been filed and outlining the allegations of the lawsuit?
Oh, I don't know. I was thinking of a more simple and direct, "As a result of the injuries, Butler will be unable to bear children normally the rest of her life."
The article is stating these things as fact. If they have reliable sources for the information, they should provide them. The documents filed with the court in connection with the lawsuit would certainly provide professional medical opinions as to the injuries and their possible future implications, but as usual, LifeNews doesn’t bother to check out the documents, and just prints whatever some random person tells them (in this case “Kristan Hawkins, the director of Students for Life of America”) as long as will make for an attention-grabbing story.
The claim that the young woman will never be able to have a biological child of her own is frankly not credible given the specific injuries described. It sounds like a huge leap from “might have some difficulty” to “will never be able to” without any basis whatsoever, and given LifeNews’ track record, the leap was probably made just for the purposes of creating a “shocker” story to generate website traffic. LifeNews has also published wild claims about the “profits” of Planned Parenthood, citing the revenue figures as “profits”.
Informed consent does not spare one from the consequences of malpractice.
Here’s some more info. It’s a pdf of the suit. If you read it, it gives a list of injuries observed and treated during surgery at the ER at Civista Medical Center on the following day. It also lists her injuries, including now being sterile.
http://www.studentsforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/case0011.pdf
They've apparently revised their story from "profit" to "income", but the term "income" still means profit in accounting terms, and the revised version still uses the misleading phrase "made $1 billion". One does not "make" revenue, ones "makes" income/profit. When a restaurant owner, for example, says he "makes" $60,000 a year from running the restaurant, anyone would take that to mean profit, and not that the total money paid by customers all year is only $60,000.
The original headline they published still shows up in a Google search. 2nd hit on a Google search < "planned parenthood" site:lifenews.com > reads as follows, though the cached version has since been updated to read "income":
"Planned Parenthood Abortion Business Makes $1 Billion Income for ...Planned Parenthood Abortion Business Makes $1 Billion Profit for First Time. www.lifenews.com/nat3822.html - 16k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this"
You’re right. That was completely insensitive. But I graduated after “No Judgements” was mandatory curriculum.
LifeSite and LifeNews are not the same organization. Peter J. Smith does a great job writing for LifeSite.
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