Part 6: How the politics of abortion protects bad clinics

Sen. Mary Grizzle, a pro-choice Republican, sent a survey to every abortion clinic licensed by [Florida]. She requested a list of the clinic's active doctors and staff "to determine the numbers and types of health care professionals" involved in abortions. Many providers recoiled. For years, pro-life extremists had identified, tracked down, and harassed doctors who performed abortions. The providers feared that the lists would fall into the hands of those extremists. They protested and contacted the ACLU and Protectors of Women's Abortion Rights, an alliance of 34 Florida clinics. [The ACLU] advised them to withhold the names and [said Grizzle's office] would have to subpoena the lists to get them. . . .

Planned Parenthood's Florida affiliates referred several thousand women to abortion providers each year. If any of those providers screwed up, her organization could be sued. For that reason, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America regularly and thoroughly inspected any clinic or doctor's office that sought patient referrals for abortions. This responsibility made Planned Parenthood fairly tolerant of clinic regulation. How could it oppose standards less stringent than its own? . . .

Clinics frequently failed to disclose to Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services the names of all their doctors. Sometimes, on patient-treatment records, they concealed the names of the responsible physicians. HRS staff seldom, if ever, checked with Florida's Department of Professional Regulation to make sure that the doctors listed by the clinics were licensed. And although the best way to detect bad treatment was to review patient records, often the only records examined by inspectors were those selected by clinic staff. If a clinic had botched a few cases, the inspector would never find out. Slate