I am writing to encourage everyone who reads this newspaper to either make a phone call or write a letter to the UW Hospital System. I have put all of their contact information at the end of this article.
Why the call for the mass outpouring of correspondence to our UW Hospital system? Because it was announced that the new state-of-the-art surgical center at 1 S. Park St. in Madison will now be open to perform second-trimester abortions.
For years the pro-life community has banded together to fight the abortion industry at the Planned Parenthood building on the east side of Madison. Somehow it seemed appropriate that the battle against the culture of death is to be waged at a non-descript little building on a side street in Madison parked between a factory and a bar.
Unborn babies to die in health facility
All of that has changed. Now a health facility located in mainstream downtown Madison, perhaps one of the top health systems in the country, will now instead cause the deaths of innocent babies.
Can you imagine going to this facility for a knee surgery in Room 2A to find out that in Room 2B next to you, a baby’s life is being terminated? Can you imagine sitting in the reception area looking at a frightened young pregnant girl across from you, and the light bulb goes on in your head that the only reason she would be at a surgical center would be to have an abortion?
Can you imagine what that second-trimester baby is doing inside of her mom’s womb? Probably sucking her thumb, doing summersaults, smiling, and crying — all of the things she will be doing in just a few months if only she were allowed to be born!
Setting dangerous precedent
We are told by a UW press release that only 11 percent of all abortions are second-trimester. Does the fact that there are “only” 300 to 400 pre-born children being killed each year lessen the evil that is occurring?
And where will this end? Why would a previously respectable doctor want to do one set of her abortions at the clean, new, state-of-the-art facility that will be supposedly so much safer for the mother (there is no such thing as a safe abortion), only to go back to a facility of lesser quality? Why will she want to work with two different sets of staff and all of the issues involved in the daily transition? The answer — she won’t!
Soon we will hear that, “Gosh, for all of these reasons, we need to move all abortions to the UW System at 1 S. Park St.” We must do all we can to convince the people listed below that this proposal is bad for the UW and bad for its clientele. We need to take action now.
What you can do
Pray!
If you are a client of the UW Health System, call your doctor to let him/her know that you will change to a different health care provider if the UW starts doing abortions.
Call, write, or e-mail (or do all three) to these people below. The only one I was able to leave a message for was James Woodward; the others directed me to send an e-mail. The physical presence of a letter has a greater impact than an e-mail.
Donna Katen-Bahensky, President & CEO of UW Hospital and Clinics
600 Highland Ave., Madison, WI 53792
608-263-6400
[email protected]
Jeffrey Grossman, M.D., President & CEO of the UW Medical Foundation
600 Highland Ave. MC8310, Madison, WI 53792
608-263-7013
[email protected]
James L. Woodward, President and CEO of Meriter Hospital Administration
202 S. Park St., Madison, WI 53715
608-417-6000
Caryn Dutton, MD
20 S. Park St., Madison, WI 53715
Greg Wagner is a member of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Cross Plains.