BeckAtsila writes:
On day two of a weeklong hearing determined to shut down Missouri’s last abortion clinic, the state’s health director admitted he was using a spreadsheet to track the menstrual cycle of Planned Parenthood patients.
Dr. Randall Williams, who is anti-abortion and has never performed an abortion, sent the state investigator, William Koebel, who has no medical training and had never personally investigated a clinic, after Planned Parenthood failed to file a complication report after a failed abortion.
The state’s expert witness, Dr. Donna Harrison of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, pored over the records page by page to find out who had abortion complications. The result, a spreadsheet, was attached to an e-mail sent between health department employees with the title “Director’s Request.” The subject line of the email was “Duplicate ITOPs with last normal menses date.”
Koebel then used the period spreadsheet to find other women who had failed abortions. The total? Four—out of around 4,000.
Planned Parenthood blasted the invasion of medical privacy.
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