AFA Journal - Abortion on Trial defends victims, uncovers fraud

Abortion on Trial defends victims, uncovers fraud

Mason Beasler

AFA Journal staff writer

April 2021 – Spread across the planet, a vast plethora of places and destinations offer unique and exciting adventures that draw visitors every year. Locations such as the Great Wall of China or the pyramids in Egypt attract many people from all over the world to their areas, often for no other reason than those specific sights. America has her own set of international attractions, e.g., the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls.

However, one area in the U.S. is not as well-known but still draws regional and occasional international travelers because of it sinister reputation: the New Mexico abortion industry.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, receives countless visitors every year who make the trip solely for an abortion at the clinics there.

Within the heart of this abortion capital, a legal group called Abortion on Trial (AOT) has recently begun exposing corrupt practices by the abortion clinics.

The reputation
“If [women] need a late-term abortion, [they] go to New Mexico,” explained Jamie Jeffries, executive director of AOT. “It’s not legal in a lot of places. Knowing that [New Mexico] has no gestational limit, girls travel to obtain the late-term abortions in Albuquerque. We have women coming from Canada … even one girl from Brazil.”

In addition to lacking any gestational limit, New Mexico has no age limits or parental consent laws. This means that a 16-year-old-girl who is nine months pregnant can cross state lines and journey to New Mexico without parental consent (or knowledge) and acquire an abortion, no questions asked.

“New Mexico itself actually has a pretty low abortion rate,” said AOT lead counsel Mike Seibel, referencing the abortion rate for in-state residents.

However, like other attractions around the world, New Mexico draws people from outside its borders as it sharpens its image as a haven for its grisly death clinics.

“In 2017, we saw [approximately] 30% of our abortions come from out of state,” Seibel told AFA Journal. “In 2020, I would argue between 50% and 60% [came from out of state].”

This horrific industry is often rife with corruption, and within the last year, Seibel has been involved in three specific cases in New Mexico. These cases have resulted in the exposure of corruption in an abortion facility called Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO).

“We went public in an effort to bring evidence to the public,” said Jeffries. “Through the lawsuits Mike is working, there’s a lot coming out about the abortion industry and the physicians who are providing abortion.”

The lives
The first case involved a woman named Jessica Duran, who is currently suing SWO for coercion. When Jessica visited the SWO clinic in 2012 for an abortion, she was given an abortifacient. (See feature story in AFA Journal, 1-2/21.)

However, she spat it out before swallowing, still conflicted about the abortion. SWO personnel then locked Jessica in a room for two hours, only releasing her after she agreed to the abortion.

In another case, a woman named Keisha Atkins died from complications due to her late-term abortion. Her mother is suing for wrongful death.

AOT is also representing Keisha’s sister, Nicole Atkins, who received an abortion from SWO, but is now saying “the abortion is what has made a profound negative impact on my life.”

The fraud
According to AOT, these three cases share a common component – Medicaid fraud.

In each case, the abortion facility certified the pregnancy as having “a profound, negative impact upon the mental health of [the] woman.” Thus each abortion was justified by the abortionist.

“Each woman,” says the AOT website, “despite not receiving any mental health assessment or speaking to a psychiatrist, [was] recorded as needing an abortion for mental health reasons.”

“That gives [SWO] the ability to charge that abortion through Medicaid,” said Jeffries. “So they become taxpayer-funded elective abortions.”

Keisha Atkins’ abortion, which resulted in her death, earned SWO approximately $10,000 in taxpayer money.

The network
The immorality and illegality of Medicaid fraud are dwarfed by the second type of corruption perpetrated by these clinics. Supplied by the many abortions performed every year, SWO was participating in a baby body parts network that spanned the entire country.

“They were donating all these parts back and forth to the University of New Mexico,” said Seibel, “for a variety of different reasons, medical research, [and] experiments with high school students.”

SWO would perform an abortion, and the baby’s body parts would then be transported to University of New Mexico (UNM). From there, UNM was involved in distributing those body parts to 19 other universities including University of South Florida, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Illinois-Chicago, and University of California-San Francisco. Additionally, UNM sent baby body parts internationally to Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada.

This network of shared body parts from aborted babies presents a powerful and shocking motive for abortion clinics to perform as many abortions as possible.

Concerning Duran’s case, Seibel stated, “It’s our contention that [SWO] really needed some body parts that day for the University of New Mexico. And so they were kind of pressuring her into it. It was coercive.”

Thankfully, through the work of AOT, along with a local news outlet who reported on this network, the flow of baby body tissue between SWO and UNM has ceased, at least for now.

“They formally ended their relationship for body parts,” said Seibel. “However, they reserved the right to bring that [relationship] back. I’m worried, under the Biden administration, whether or not the university will start that program back up.”

AOT, headed by Seibel and Jeffries, continues in its representation of the three women named above. Their lawsuits against SWO are each still ongoing. Additionally, AOT continues in its mission, within the heart of this abortion capital, to bring information to the public and to warn women of the extreme dangers of abortion long before they consider entering a clinic.

“I think people need to be aware,” said Jeffries, “that it goes beyond a moral debate issue. The fact is that women are in danger.

“You need to know and understand that. We’re not just talking about whether or not it’s OK to end the life of a fetus. We’re talking about whether or not it’s OK to subject women to really, really dangerous procedures and general mistreatment overall.”

April is Abortion Recovery Awareness Month.
Equally crucial to AOT’s focused mission in the courtroom, another immediate need is ministering directly to those who have been victimized by a pro-abortion culture.

“Even the abortion industry agrees with us,” said Jamie Jeffries. “The consent forms all acknowledge emotional harm is a substantial risk [of abortion].”

AFA urges pro-lifers to be familiar with ministries that offer help, hope, and healing for men and women who are still recovering from decisions they regret. Here is a sampling of the many ministries founded for this purpose.

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