By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | It’s the seven-minute gap that is most telling.
On September 11 at 2:27 p.m., the state Department of Health and Environmental Control announced actions against three abortion clinics after an investigation pushed by Gov. Nikki Haley.
Seven minutes later, the governor, traveling overseas, released a seven-paragraph statement that had to take more than seven minutes to write, an indication of how our ambitious governor wanted to put the clinics under klieg lights. Recall how Haley recently told Washington reporters that she wouldn’t turn down discussions of being a vice presidential candidate.
Bottom line: This brouhaha over abortion clinics is pure political theater with DHEC serving as the pawn for a governor who wanted to twist a national issue.
But that’s not surprising when you consider how Haley needs to be viewed as more conservative by GOP presidential hopefuls. Her conservative credentials suffered after rightly dumping the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds. In fact, that pushed up her poll numbers among Democrats and blacks.
It’s all about perception, not reality. And DHEC was caught between a rock, the law, and a hard place, the governor.
Earlier this summer, the continuing national debate over abortion flared again after actors hired by an anti-abortion group secretly taped videos with Planned Parenthood staff members involving possible purchase of tissue samples of aborted fetuses. The organization, which has denied wrongdoing, became a flash point, leading to congressional investigations and a media frenzy.
On August 18, Haley, obviously trying to keep the story alive in South Carolina, called on DHEC to investigate the state’s abortion clinics, with special focus on two operated by Planned Parenthood.
Between August 31 and September 4, DHEC sent inspectors to clinics in Greenville, Columbia and Charleston that had passed inspections with flying colors in recent years. This time, though, inspectors were under the gun to find something. At the Columbia clinic, for example, they documented 21 minor violations, mostly involving paperwork. Only one of the cited violations carried a fine of $1,000. Most were a $250 slap on the wrist for things like failing to have proper employee background documentation, orientation records, job descriptions or training records. Our favorite: The water in three sinks was too hot (ever heard of the cold tap?)
On September 9, according to DHEC spokesman Jim Beasley, the agency notified Haley’s office of inspection results and the pending enforcement actions. Two days later, around 1:45 p.m., DHEC phoned people at the clinics as a courtesy to let them know emails were on the way about enforcement actions. All calls apparently weren’t completed before the emails went out.
At 2:27 p.m., DHEC alerted the media, which soon started calling clinics. Some apparently had not opened emails and learned about actions from the press. At 2:34 p.m., Haley, traveling in Europe on business, released a triumphant statement attempting to make the findings sound bigger than they were — all to feather her political nest.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic this week said the organization, which focuses 97 percent of its work on women’s health care (not abortions), took DHEC’s findings seriously and was taking immediate actions to come into compliance with the law.
“These matters will be addressed and it will be a blip on the screen, serving primarily not women’s health but the political ambitions of the governor,” said one longtime Statehouse player.
Yes, to get headlines, Haley used DHEC, whose board she appoints. But it didn’t turn out exactly how she wanted. Instead of a big press conference about the findings, DHEC quietly released the information at one of the slowest times of the week for the media — Friday afternoon, when most reporters are finishing stories they’ve worked on for a week.
What’s important to take away are three things:
- None of the violations cited by DHEC directly put any women or their health at risk. But anything not up to snuff — even minor paperwork problems — need to be brought into compliance. The law is the law.
- Thousands of dedicated DHEC employees have been embarrassed because the agency was dragged through the muck because of politics.
- This incident is a prime example of how the passions of South Carolinians are being manipulated by a hyper-ambitious governor who wants to score points in a much larger political game.
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