Copyright 2000 The Denver Post Corporation
The
Denver Post
November 3, 2000 Friday 2D EDITION
SECTION: DENVER & THE WEST; Pg. B-05
LENGTH: 1248 words
HEADLINE:
Abortion foes share horror stories Amendment 25 supporters say doctors lied to
women
BYLINE: By Karen Auge, Denver Post Medical
Writer,
BODY:
There is the Pueblo woman who said
the doctor who performed her abortion swore at her and insisted she
had to go through with it. And the Denver woman who said she still
aches for an aborted child her doctor told her was 'a blob of tissue'
or a tumor. And the Fort Collins woman who said she wouldn't have
succumbed to her parents' pressure to have an abortion as a teen had
anyone told her about alternatives.
Backers of Amendment 25
say they are just a few of the women who bear emotional scars from
abortions they wouldn't have had if doctors had told them the truth.
And they have come forward, telling their stories in public, trying
to convince voters that Amendment 25 would spare other women from
making uninformed decisions they'll later regret. More stories heard
Increasingly, women across the country are telling
similar stories. In court.
In many cases, they are encouraged
to so by right-to-life groups that have openly declared that lawsuits
against doctors, including suits claiming that doctors didn't tell
patients everything they needed to know about the procedure, will be
an increasingly powerful weapon in their anti-abortion arsenal.
Whipping up a lawsuit frenzy is not what Amendment 25
is about, say its authors and supporters. And both sides of
the Amendment 25 issue say the lawsuit strategy so far hasn't
taken hold in Colorado as it has elsewhere.
Amendment 25 sets
up a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion. It lays
out specific pieces of information about abortion that the state
would be required to provide to women. It requires the state to
publish annual reports on the number of women who receive that
information and the number who have abortions.
And deep
within its 12 pages, the amendment spells out that 'failure to comply
with the requirements of this (amendment) shall provide a basis for a
civil malpractice action.'
Gary Rogers, amendment co-sponsor and
campaign chairman of the Women's Right to Information Coalition, said
the idea of fighting abortion through litigation is news to him.
'I had not heard of that (strategy),' Rogers said. And
he said the amendment's section titled 'civil remedies' was
not included to encourage lawsuits, but rather to knock down a
legal barrier that women now face who feel they were mistreated in
an abortion clinic.
'Low informed consent'
Currently
in Colorado 'there is such a low level of informed consent in
abortion clinics that it's much harder to win a malpractice suit
against a clinic' than against other doctors, he said.
Encouraging lawsuits is not Focus on the Family's intent
and not the reason that organization is backing Amendment 25,
said Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the
Colorado Springs-based group.
In fact, some backers of
Amendment 25 argue that by spelling out exactly what information a
doctor must provide, the law would actually shield doctors from
lawsuits.
'I would think physicians performing abortions would
welcome this information, (which) makes it less likely that a patient
can come back later, as some are now, and say, 'I didn't know,''
Dr. Alan Rastrelli said at a news conference Monday at the
state Capitol.
Amendment 25 foes don't see it quite that way.
'We think this law is designed to lead to more lawsuits,
more liability for doctors and insurance carriers,' said
Patrick Steadman, an attorney working with Protect Families
Protect Choice, which is campaigning against the law.
One
reason he believes that, Steadman said, is that 'Amendment 25
says a woman can withdraw her consent at
any time during the procedure.'
New basis for suits
Opponents also charge the amendment would also add one
more, new basis for suing a doctor who leaves out, whether purposely
or inadvertently, some of the required abortion information.
'Waving the red flag of lawsuits only serves to deter
more doctors from providing a legal service to women,' said
Elizabeth Cavendish, legal director of the National Abortion Rights
Action League.
Many states have informed consent laws,
24-hour waiting periods or both. But Cavendish said she didn't know
whether Amendment 25 is unique in laying out possible civil action
against doctors who don't comply.
'We haven't tracked that,'
she said. 'So many states passed these restrictions before that
(litigation) strategy was up on their radar screen.'
The
strategy clearly is on several radar screens now.
In August, the
Washington, D.C.-based American Life League held a news conference to
announce that suing abortion providers into
bankruptcy was officially a weapon in their
anti-abortion arsenal.
'We're just taking
the first baby steps now, but we suspect the dam will break against
the abortion industry because of the commonplace lack of informed
consent,' said Scott Weinberg of the league.
In Texas, a
group called Life Dynamics has a network of about 700 attorneys
nationwide ready to help women in civil court fights against abortion
providers, said Mark Crutcher, spokesman for the group.
Crutcher said Life Dynamics is currently consulting in
some way on about 70 lawsuits, none in Colorado. 'And what you'll
find is the vast majority of these lawsuits involve some kind of
lack of informed consent.'
Crutcher is enthusiastic about the
effect that successful lawsuits could have on abortion.
'It's
absolutely true that if you make these people pay for what they're
doing to women, if you leave the baby out of it, take the moral issue
out of the equation, if you make the abortion industry pay for what
they are doing to women, then you'll shut them down. They could not
survive it.'
Walter Weber, an attorney with the American Center for
Law and Justice, which offers legal assistance to
anti-abortion causes, said the strategy is already
working.
'Gone into bankruptcy'
'There are
individual physicians who have gone into bankruptcy over these kinds
of suits,' he said.
To Steadman and others campaigning against 25, the
civil litigation issue is 'one of many little things in Amendment
25 that gets lost in the debate' but could have huge impact.
But Earll, of Focus on the Family, doesn't see
the amendment's 'civil remedies' section as having much
potential impact at all.
'Enforcing this law or filing a
lawsuit requires a woman to come forward. And most women, even if
they think they've been hurt, don't want to do that,' Earll said.
AMENDMENT 25 PROS AND CONS
PRO: Proponents say it would help
women obtain all the information they need to make an informed
decision about abortion. Backers say some women who have undergone
abortions later feel they were misinformed or not completely informed
about the procuedure. It also ensures uniform procedures
for abortion counseling, and protects women from being pressured into
having an abortion, backers say.
CON: Opponents say the
amendment would chip away at abortion rights, and jeopardizes medical
privacy by requiring doctors to submit informaiton to the state about
the number of abortions they perform and the number of women they
provided information to. Opponents call the amendment an invitation
to government to intrude into the practice of medicine.
LOAD-DATE: November 03, 2000 
