Hope at the Hope[less] Clinic in Granite City

Woman Brought to Catholic Hospital After Botched Abortion

June 1, 2001

It seemed like a typical day at the Hope abortion mill in Granite City, IL: 40 or more patients going into the clinic, Scott, the "rent-a-cop" guard on duty, and four "steadfast soldiers for Christ" outside the clinic trying to show the truth and stand for Jesus, and offer other options than abortion. "Be of good courage because you will lead these people to inherit the land..." Joshua 1:6 ; "Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" Joshua 1:9

As we were standing on the front sidewalk of the abortion clinic, about 9:30 a.m., on June 1, (Abortionist) Yogendra Shah hurried across the clinic’s parking lot in his lab coat and scrubs on his way to the emergency room of the Catholic hospital. As he crossed the lot, he glanced at me. As he walked, I asked "how many baby boys and baby girls are you going to murder today?" I then said to him, "One of these days, you’re going to slip up, Yogendra." He turned his head slightly towards me. Once he reached the emergency room doors, he talked to two emergency room employees in their scrubs and lab coats.

I turned my head around to the front door of the abortion clinic and saw 3 clinic workers peering out, to see where the pro-lifers were situated. I knew then that something was wrong. I told Daniel to go to the right side of the clinic’s garage, and told Jess to go on the left side of the garage. Mr. Waters was in the middle with me, preparing for the front door to open. I heard Daniel yell, "they botched one!"

As the large garage door was closing, Daniel snapped a picture of 3 clinic workers putting a bleeding girl in a wheelchair into the minivan. He then ran to us and said that the clinic workers were trying to exit out of the other end in Alison Hile’s (the clinic’s education director) minivan. The girl was bleeding; "it looks bad...." The minivan then pulled out of the garage, zoomed across the parking lot, and went down Washington Street. Daniel proceeded to follow then, camera in tow. We then saw them pulling near the front door of the main lobby at St. Elizabeth’s.

Daniel and I ran across the street to the hospital, and saw Alison Hile, assistant director "Debbie," and "Big Red" (procedure room technician; she helps physically murder the babies) in her purple scrubs, all struggling to get this distressed woman out of the minivan, and into a wheelchair. She was covered with white sheets, except that her inner thighs and legs were exposed, revealing heavy blood loss. As they were doing this, the main hospital lobby was full of people entering and leaving the Catholic hospital. "Debbie" proceeded to call me everything but a "Christian." I announced, "So, this is what you call women’s health care? A safe, simple abortion?" At this, people really began to notice the woman in the wheelchair. Then, Alison Hile was standing fingers from me, she turned to me, and I told her, "you’re on my turf now; we know you’ve already killed the baby, now you’d better pray that this girl doesn’t die too."

They then proceeded to rush through the hospital’s lobby doors, and one woman, with her own baby in tow said to us, "I can’t believe I just saw that; do they actually do this at that abortion clinic?" I told her, "yes, they do it everyday, we just caught this one." Daniel asked her what she had seen, and asked the woman if she would be a potential witness if needed; she agreed, and gave us her name and phone number.

We walked back to the clinic, and saw Sister Mary Thomas leaving the hospital garage, entering the west entrance of the hospital. I told Daniel to "go have a word with her." Daniel went to go talk to her, and confronted her about Dr. Shah. She said, "Dr. Shah isn’t doing that many (abortions) anymore." Daniel told her, "You must deaf, dumb, and blind if you think that. He is doing them 4-5 days a week, with 40-65 each day. Isn’t one enough?" She replied, "You know, Dr. Shah told me he is doing these women a favor by aborting their babies. He is helping them so they don’t have to go all the way to New York like they used to have to. He said he does them here at less expense also." Daniel just said, "We’ll all have to answer...", and left her. He came back over by us at the clinic.

I called the hospital, trying to find out information and the condition of the woman brought there, to no avail of course. We even called newspapers, and other media sources, hoping that someone would care about this. We prayed for the young woman, and noticed that even after all this had occurred, people were still going into the abortion clinic. I gave pro-life literature and information to two men; they accepted the literature and post-abortion resource numbers I had given them. I went to car with Indiana plates, and noticed the man inside was fast asleep. I tapped on his window, and he woke up. I told him, "Sir, they just rushed a young woman over to the hospital from this abortion clinic. I don’t know if you are a loved one of hers, but she was bleeding and in pain." He then sprang up from his seat, got out of his car. He accepted the resource numbers I had offered him, and briskly walked into the abortion clinic. "Because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners; to comfort all who mourn and provide comfort to those who grieve..." Isaiah 62:6

After returning home, I called and talked to people about the happenings at the clinic earlier that morning. Later, I found out that this girl was critical, had to be transfused, was in surgery at the hospital, and was kept there for two days. We returned to the clinic on Saturday. Daniel recognized the boyfriend/husband of the woman with the botched abortion, and offered him help and phone numbers to call. Later, I personally talked to this girl over the phone. I found out that she was 30 years old, this was her second "reported" abortion, she had a 9 year old son already, and with this abortion, she elected to get rid of her baby at 23 weeks of development. They lived 2 hours away in a small Southern Illinois town, population 3,300 (surprisingly only a few miles from West Frankfort, the city the baby parts factory was located in, which was closed down in September 1999).

After all of this, I kept wondering how this couple could afford a $2,000 abortion, and who was going to pay for the hospital bill from this woman: Yogendra Shah? The hospital? I also found out, according to Yogendra Shah’s notes, that during the procedure he had lacerated her cervix, so severely that even in his own operating room in the clinic, he couldn’t repair it. This time it didn’t work. His carelessness, rough handling, and trying to rush the delivery of this baby, caused him to tear her cervix.

He only wants to spend 5-7 minutes with these mothers, as reported by a former clinic worker. He wants them cleaned up and off that table in 10 minutes, for the next one to be serviced. He also reported on how he murdered the little one. The first day of the procedure was ‘brutal’; he put her under heavy sedation, tried to dilate her cervix excessively. He used 10 laminaria in the dilation procedure (the normal is only 4 or 5 laminaria). This didn’t work for him, so he proceeded to use mechanical tools to stretch open the cervix. He also had stabbed the baby in the heart with a powerful, sometimes lethal, heart drug, Digoxin.

On the second day, at the abortion clinic, Shah tried to rush the delivery of the baby, but the "procedure was uneventful." He rushed the delivery until he encountered the head (this baby was 23 weeks gestation). After he had delivered the baby’s head, that's when they encountered the life-threatening problems. They took the mother to the operating room in the abortion clinic, and tried to patch her up, twice, but it didn’t work. They then took her to St. Elizabeth’s Catholic hospital's main lobby, in full view of about 20 or so visitors coming and going. She was already "shocky," and had tachycardia, and was losing blood rapidly. Her other organs were working overtime to keep her alive.

Shah has stated in the past that once he patches these girls up, and gets them on the interstate, it is no longer his problem. "In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of all his wonders, they did not believe. So he ended their days in futility and their years in terror. Whenever God slew them, they would seek him; they eagerly turned to him again. They remembered that God was their Rock." Psalm 78:32-35

I talked to her later on Saturday, and she had said she was feeling ‘better.’ I told her the abortion clinic will be held accountable for this. "We care about you, and will help you because you didn’t cause this botched abortion.... You can sue this clinic, and I encourage you to think about doing that." I asked her if there was anything else I could do for her; I told her that I would pray for her, thanked her, and told her to keep in touch. "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more..." Matthew 2:18

To be continued...

In His service,
Angela Michael