Merriam-Webster defines telemedicine as “the practice of medicine when the doctor and patient are widely separated using two-way voice and visual communication (as by satellite or computer).”
Note that the proper definition references medicine and explains how a doctor and a patient communicate. This definition has nothing whatsoever in common with the latest development in Planned Parenthood practices. When Operation Rescue refers to “telemed” it is not talking about congenial conversations between physicians and their patients, but rather “remote-controlled dispensing of abortion drugs.”
Operation Rescue has been at the forefront of exposing this dastardly practice since day 1, and it was its initial report that explained what this business is really all about.
A telemed abortion is abortion via a teleconferencing service similar to “Skype.” Patients are put in a room where an off-site abortionist appears on a computer monitor and explains the medical abortion procedure to them over an Internet hook-up. After the brief teleconference, the dangerous abortion drug RU486, also known as Mifepristone and Mifeprex, and its counterpart, Misoprostol, are prescribed. The drugs are then administered to the patient by a nurse or “clinician” who may or may not be licensed. The patient presses a button on a computer screen that opens a box containing the abortion drugs. The patient is never physically examined by the medical doctor prescribing the drugs—or any other, for that matter—and never sees the abortionist again.
The so-called telemed abortions have received a great deal of attention on the internet but, as usual, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is slightly ahead of the curve and is doing everything it can to protect its lucrative internet-abortion trade. According to Cecile Richards, president of PPFA, “It’s an incredibly important option for women who decide to terminate a pregnancy.”
Most recently, Planned Parenthood’s Iowa affiliate has gone to court attempting to block Operation Rescue’s request for full disclosure of information relating to telemed abortions.
It should be obvious that such a practice, even if it did not involve the direct killing of a preborn child, would be more than slightly dangerous to the second patient who is involved—the expectant mother. But somehow this fact has not occurred to anyone—including the Iowa Board of Medicine which, according to Operation Rescue, is cozy with Planned Parenthood. So much for the Hippocratic Oath and its tenet, “first do no harm.”
The implications of such a practice, in view of the Obama health care reform law, are staggering. The actual rate of aborting preborn children could escalate faster than anyone might imagine. As Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP) reported, Cecile Richards has said that PPFA’s goal for telemed abortion is that the practice will go nationwide by the year 2015. She explained to the Iowa Independent that PPFA is “the single biggest provider of reproductive health care in America and, again, I think because of the new health care law that is only going to grow. We are thankful for the support whether in Cedar Rapids or anywhere else in America.”
The irrefutable evidence indicates that telemedicine which, on its own, is an excellent breakthrough for those in society who are ill, is going to take a left turn. Rather than being used to assist the suffering, it is going to be used to inflict suffering and death on the unsuspecting preborn child and his mother.
PPFA is going to employ the practice to create yet another path through which countless numbers of preborn children will be chemically massacred as “clinicians” collect their fees while ignoring the tragic consequences, which are legion and very well documented.
This “business as usual’ attitude among so-called reproductive health professionals should give every American pause. Reproduction used to occur in factories; health used to deal specifically with the well-being of individuals. Today’s perspective, however, is quite different.
The current reproductive health industry specializes in debilitation, deception and death, and we must speak up if we are to protect both women and children from this travesty.