‘Privacy’ as Intimidation: How Abortion Supporters Suppress the Deadly Truth

Posted on | February 18, 2013 | 19 Comments

If there were a Pulitzer for stunning disingenuity, Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak would be a sure-fire winner: Jennifer Morbelli died after undergoing a late-term abortion and Dvorak is concerned about violations of the dead woman’s privacy:

Her name and photo have appeared on protest signs, in blogs and in newspapers.
The intimate details of her medical records — probably leaked by someone with access to that information at the Germantown clinic where she got the abortion or the Rockville hospital where she died — should never have seen the light of day, let alone be broadcast at a rally the day after her death.
That pesky HIPAA privacy law, the one that forces you to fill out a bazillion forms whenever you go to the doctor, did absolutely nothing to stop this. . . .
Unless someone inside the clinic contacted the antiabortion groups, the only other possible source of such sensitive information is the hospital.
Of course, the hospital can’t even confirm that she was there or that she died there.
“We maintain a fierce commitment to protecting the privacy of our patients and their care,” said hospital spokeswoman Marissa Levine.
If there is a violation of HIPAA laws, hospital officials investigate and discipline. They have fired people for such violations. So are they investigating this one?
“I can tell you, whenever we see information in the public domain about patient care, we absolutely look into it, internally,” she said. . . .
The protesters are exploiting this woman’s death and making other women think that their privacy is never truly protected when they seek an abortion.

Petula Dvorak evidently believes that the abortion industry should be shielded by such an ironclad cloak of secrecy that even when their patients die, these deaths are not actually news, and that anyone who reports this news is guilty of wrongdoing — as if reporting her death is worse than causing her death. Steven Ertlelt reminds us that Jennifer Morbelli’s death is now the subject of multiple investigations:

Following a new probe started by local officials, the Maryland Attorney General has opened an investigation into the late-term abortion practitioner who killed a Morbelli. The Maryland Attorney General’s office is not specifically looking into Morbelli’s death but it is looking at illegal dumping by the abortion clinic that could result in fines or other form of punishment.
Operation Rescue told LifeNews today that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has ties to Carhart. The group says the links raise concerns that she may attempt to interfere in ongoing investigations involving Carhart.

The attempt to suppress the identity of Dr. LeRoy Carhart’s victim is clearly intended to render Jennifer Morbelli a mere statistic, a faceless “Jane Doe,” in order to conceal the profoundly tragic human reality of this young kindergarten teacher’s death. And there has actually been talk of legal action against reporters: “Does Bridgette Dunlap really think that Jill Stanek can be successfully sued?”

We should not be shocked. If they had any integriy, any conscience or any respect for truth, they wouldn’t be liberals, would they?

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Category: Abortion

Comments

19 Responses to “‘Privacy’ as Intimidation: How Abortion Supporters Suppress the Deadly Truth”

Bridget Fay
February 18th, 2013 @ 1:25 pm

Plenty of women who seek abortions have their intimate medical details released to the press, with the full consent and enthusiasm of progressives. Those are women who were unable to procure abortions and died as a result, or who went to Catholic hospitals to give birth and died.

Bridgette Dunlap and Petula Dvorak would have us believe that privacy hinges on whether or not the women actually obtained the abortion, or whether the medical practitioner wanted to perform an abortion. That is wrong. If the women whose recent deaths have been exploited to advance a pro-abortion cause can be named in the media, then women whose deaths highlight the dangers of legal abortions may also be discussed.
Christy Waters
February 18th, 2013 @ 1:31 pm

Protecting the “SAFE and Legal” meme at all costs.
Adjoran
February 18th, 2013 @ 2:31 pm

Apparently the media abortion lobby has decided to adopt the Dunlap “privacy” argument to cloud the issue of the practices of the Carhart clinic.

Just as the whole Fluke push for free birth control was sold to young women as “being in control of their own bodies,” as if their legs had just been spreading on their own all this time.

All the left can do at this point in history is change the subject, but they are practiced at it. Which is why we are arguing about Chuck Hagel and immigration and gun control instead of noting the rotten economy and skyrocketing prices of gas and health insurance – or that the Norks and Iranians will soon have the capacity to hit us with nuclear missiles.
richard mcenroe
February 18th, 2013 @ 3:04 pm

By selfishly dying from her botched abortion, Jennifer Morbelli betrayed women around the world.

Now excuse me. I know that’s doctrinally sound but I still have to go wash my hands.
Christy Waters
February 18th, 2013 @ 3:10 pm

I just love it when I get “dislikes”. I’m disappointed with myself if I don’t. LOL!
Hank
February 18th, 2013 @ 3:37 pm

Can you give an example of a woman who had her name and medical details released without her family’s consent?
Bridget Fay
February 18th, 2013 @ 4:34 pm

Can you name a single instance in which an adult who died as a result of a botched medical procedure never had his name released to the public?

Can you determine that the Morbelli family does not consent to the release of her name?

By the way, if you click on Stacy’s link to my blog, I referenced two women whose names were released to the public after they died in childbirth; even the name of the toddler daughter of one of those women was released. (Bet you didn’t expect that!)
DaveO
February 18th, 2013 @ 7:34 pm

That this story is even addressed by the Prognazis demonstrates a lack of discipline among the tyros. By Friday a pre-manufactured outrage will be disseminated with the Friday evening news dump, and any legal investigation will fall under Holder (interstate commerce, therefore Federal), where it will be shelved between Fast & Furious and OJ’s Search For the Killer.
DaveO
February 18th, 2013 @ 7:37 pm

http://www.now.org/issues/abortion/120904women-who-died.html

”

The seven women below are just a small representation of the countless women who have died because they did not have access to safe and legal abortions. Most of these women died before Roe v. Wade offered them a safe alternative. However, women continue to die and suffer injury due to current restrictions that particularly affect young women and poor women.

Our government is now controlled by conservative leaders who are extremely hostile to women’s reproductive rights. If more retsictions on abortion are enacted, and especially if Roe v. Wade is overturned, this list of lives cut short could grow to include our daughters, sisters, mothers, best friends, wives, partners, granddaughters and other special women and girls…”
NOW doesn’t consider Obama conservative, but it does consider the readers of the website to be ignorant. It’s a good bet.
K-Bob
February 18th, 2013 @ 8:14 pm

Dang it. Replied too fast. Fergit it.
K-Bob
February 18th, 2013 @ 8:26 pm

OKAY, I fixed it.

Here’s the deal… I used to be more accepting of the “choice” side of the abortion argument. The main reason why I could accept it was that, back then, abortions were still fairly rare, and I seriously doubted women would come to see abortion as a slightly more inconvenient form of birth control.

It made no sense that that should happen. It was unthinkable that women could be so moved.

But over a few measly decades, abortion has become a holocaust in the inner cities. They are no longer rare. They are probably more common than weddings and bar mitzvahs combined.

So here is what I’d say to the people who produced that page at the NOW website:
=======================

I tell you what, I’ll just stupidly accept whatever number of women you claim were killed, maimed, injured, harmed, …hell I’ll even throw in inconvenienced, for good measure. Go back thirty years, include them all.

That will make it a really big number, right?

Now compare that to the number of abortions over that same time period.

Sorry, but the dead babies win, by a huge factor.
Hank
February 18th, 2013 @ 9:00 pm

I take it you are not familiar with HIPPA. And I know the family doesn’t consent because the mother in law told the press how unhappy they were this was made public. And if the other names you referenced became public through lawsuits brought my their families, that is different than through medical info gained from protestors and medical providers with HIPPA obligations.
t-dahlgren
February 18th, 2013 @ 11:12 pm

All unfounded allegations. If you are aware of some covered entity that failed to abide by HIPPA strictures then name names and file a qui tam complaint.

Otherwise you are just posing.
Bridget Fay
February 19th, 2013 @ 9:59 am

As an attorney who has a background in health care law, I can assure you that I am familiar with HIPAA. In fact, unlike you, I know that it’s not with two “P”s, which puts me leagues ahead of you. Further, unlike you, I have read the thing and know that it only applies to medical professionals in the course of treating a patient, not protestors.

Nice try!
Bridget Fay
February 19th, 2013 @ 9:59 am

As per above, protestors are not covered entities. Hank is full of s—.
Bridget Fay
February 19th, 2013 @ 10:00 am

Can someone please explain to me where these privacy freaks were when Bristol Palin – a minor child! – was being torn apart by the national media for being pregnant?

Bueller? Bueller?
DaveO
February 19th, 2013 @ 1:14 pm

Ms. Fay, is it arguable that HIPAA even applies, since abortion clinics are not considered medical facilities when it comes to meeting standards of cleanliness and so on that real hospitals and medical facilities are required to meet? I’m not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, but I’m curious, and curious if HIPPA applies if the abortionist does not have to meet AMA requirements for licensing, peer review in the event of unforeseen death, or other standards governining the medical profession?
Bridget Fay
February 19th, 2013 @ 1:57 pm

If the abortionist transmits medical information electronically, then he would be covered under the rule; it applies to almost any type of medical worker, or any person employed by the medical worker (e.g. a receptionist).
DaveO
February 19th, 2013 @ 3:26 pm

Thank you.