ARTICLES

Sainthood of an Abortion Advocate

The same January 16 issue contained coverage of pro-life activist Connie Youngkin's conviction of disrupting a high school campus by displaying photos of aborted fetuses and handing out pro-life literature.

The author of the article on Phillips, U-T Religion & Ethics Editor Sandi Dolbee, begins by noting that,

"The last time a major national event came to town, Ashley Phillips wore a bulletproof vest to work."

The bulletproof vest so impressed Dolbee, who first wrote about it in August 1994, that she was still leading with it three and a half years later. Phillips began wearing the vest after Florida abortionist John Britton, who was also wearing one, was killed.

For 10 days, she and the clinic remained on the front lines of alert, as abortion protesters came here to take advantage of the media spotlight.

U-T reporter Lisa Petrillo was also breathless about the bulletproof vest in her coverage of WomanCare during the 1996 Republican Convention. In an unintentionally hilarious article, Petrillo writes:

"An exhausted Ashley Phillips walks the perimeter again in her khaki bulletproof vest and pearls, a bodyguard at her side.

"It is day 7 of a 10-day fortification on the front lines of Phillips' abortion battle, as her walkie-talkie squawks the newest intelligence from her spies: Operation Rescue was headed her way.

"Was this going to be the violent showdown her clinic had been bracing for?

"Once again San Diego police stood on the alert, and 100 volunteers left the shade of the trees in Balboa Park to take their battle stations around the Sixth Avenue facility.

"Once again the alert dissolved. For despite the much-publicized threats that abortion foes would try to shut clinics during the convention, Operation Rescue's troops never crossed the fortified battle line that was WomanCare...."

One of the abortionists at WomanCare for many years was Phillip Rand, who, as the Daily Transcript reported out in 1991, "has been sued dozens of times" for malpractice and injury. Marcia Lattimore, for instance, went to Ashley Phillips's clinic in May 1990 for an abortion. Rand perforated her uterus, lied to her that he hadn't, and quickly stitched it up. After massive complications over the next two weeks (Rand would tell her she was eating the wrong foods and send her back home), another doctor saw her and performed emergency surgery. In order to save her life, two and a half feet of Lattimore's intestine had to be removed. She was left sterile.

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In March 1992, a 17-year-old described in court records only as "Melisha W." went to WomanCare with her mother for an abortion. The abortionist, Joseph Durante, estimated the fetal age at 11 to 12 weeks, but didn't perform an ultrasound -- because, Durante claimed, WomanCare's low-cost abortion procedure discourages ultrasound in every case. When Durante attempted a suction abortion he realized the fetus was bigger than he thought. A subsequent ultrasound revealed a 25- to 26-week old baby. He gave the teenager painkillers and a labor-inducing drug and referred her to an L.A. clinic specializing in late-term abortions. Instead her mother took her to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in San Diego, where Melisha went into labor and hours later delivered a viable one-pound, 13-ounce baby girl. The girl, now almost 6, suffers from physical and cognitive problems caused by her WomanCare experience.

The UCSD-trained sociologist says she wasn't looking to leave WomanCare...

But Deborah Fleming, Phillips's predecessor, was. In 1989, Fleming -- a long-time, high-profile abortion advocate -- quit as head of WomanCare, complaining of burnout. Friends told the San Diego Reader in 1990 she was suffering from "shell-shock from her abortion battles, despondency over her inability to have a baby, and unresolved childhood traumas." In May of that year Fleming drove to Yuma, Arizona, got a motel room and, with a .38 revolver, killed herself.

The National Conference moved to the first floor of this stucco house in the Banker's Hill area last year...

Phillips is used to moving: in January of 1996, under her directorship, WomanCare was evicted from its Sixth Avenue location owing nearly $60,000 in back rent. Several years earlier it had begun underpaying rent when the building had gone into receivership, and for the last couple of months stopped paying altogether. The new owners filed a lawsuit for the unpaid rent plus interest. Meanwhile, WomanCare moved into fancier digs at Fourth and Juniper.