One of the largest clinics in Texas rushed to complete a whopping 67 abortions in just 17 hours ahead of the implementation the state’s heartbeat bill, effectively outlawing abortion.
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The pro-life law took effect Wednesday at 12 a.m. And, according to a report from the leftist news site The 19th, the Whole Woman’s Health clinic in Fort Worth was teeming with patients well into Tuesday night.
Marva Sadler, the director for clinical services, “looked at the patients waiting in the lobby, at the list of patients waiting to return, at even more patients waiting outside in cars surrounded by protesters — and realized they might not get to everyone,” the outlet reported.
Depicting the new law as an unmitigated assault on women’s rights, The 19th described Sadler as determining the clinic needed to perform “eight abortions an hour with only one doctor on duty, an octogenarian who had been working since 7 a.m.”
From the site:
Outside, chants came in through a bullhorn, protesters shouting prayer verses and arguing the clinic was too full. Already the police had been called. The fire marshal would come twice over capacity issues inside the clinic. Employees could see protesters through their security cameras and through windows of the small brick building.
They are watching us, Sadler thought, and they’re winning.
Inside, she looked at her team: eight people total between the techs and the front office staff, the doctor and three staff members from a nearby clinic they brought in to help. She asked them to take a breath.
“We are not the bad guys here,” she told them. “We are doing everything right and we’re going to help everybody that we can. If there’s someone that we can’t help, it’s not our fault.”
The author of the article, Chabeli Carrazana, focused on one woman, a drug user set to begin serving a five-year prison sentence in a week. The woman, who was 12 weeks pregnant, already had three kids at home and didn’t want to deliver her fourth child while she was behind bars.
Carrazana reported the woman “dropped to her knees on the cold tile floor in front of Sadler, begging her to take her, to perform the abortion.”
According to already existing law, though, the woman was unable to receive an abortion because of the state’s requisite 24-hour waiting period, forcing her to wait until after the law was implemented to terminate her pregnancy, which, at that point, would be illegal.
The newly enacted legislation outlaws abortion after six weeks, before many women are even aware they are pregnant.
Minutes before midnight, the clinic finished its last abortion: 67 terminations in only 17 hours at a rate of about four abortions per hour.
Still, though, that wasn’t enough for Sadler, who, according to the left-leaning outlet, later thought sorrowfully about the pregnant woman who would soon report to jail and desperately desired an abortion.
“As [Sadler] drove away from the clinic,” Carrazana wrote, “the adrenaline of the day washed away by waves of sadness and pain. The knowledge that, no matter what she did, she couldn’t help everyone.”
They also admit to relishing in their deed, describing the moments of the day wrapping up as if they were very proud of their accomplishments, taking a breath to “savor” the moment.
Just before SB 8 took effect, at 11:56 p.m., the doctor walked out of his last procedure. Clinic workers got to everyone they were legally allowed to treat. In 17 hours, they’d performed 67 abortion procedures. They’d seen 60 people who had taken medication to abort at home to confirm that — yes, the process was complete, and they wouldn’t be left in limbo.
For a moment they were able to savor it. Sadler looked at the doctor and told him physicians half his age wouldn’t have been able to do what he did. Even if he only had performed one abortion, it would have been a victory, she said.
Leftists across the media have, in recent days, compared pro-life Christians in the U.S. to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
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