[Erin] Abortion and the right to know

A California woman has been charged with posing as a doctor for the purpose of performing abortions:

Bertha Pinedo Bugarin, 48, was arrested Thursday after a yearlong investigation, San Diego County district attorney spokesman Paul Levikow said.

She was charged with 10 felony counts, including performing medical procedures without a license and grand theft, he said. She faces more than nine years in prison if convicted.

Bugarin, who was being held on $500,000 bail, was scheduled to be arraigned July 2. An call to her attorney Peter Hughes after business hours Friday was not immediately returned.

Prosecutors said Bugarin at one time operated six clinics in Southern California that provided abortions. For her clinic in Chula Vista, near the Mexican border, she advertised her service on Spanish- language television and charged $500 for an abortion.

She performed abortions on several women at that clinic in February and March, authorities said.

"This defendant preyed on women in the Hispanic community," district attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis said in a statement. "By passing herself as a doctor, she put these women's lives in serious danger."

Whenever the issue of regulating abortion clinics comes up, people on the pro-abortion side of the debate tend to insist that clinics are already sufficiently regulated and that any further requirements only leads to a reduction in women's access to abortion. But is that really true? I have a hard time imagining that someone could this easily, for instance, pass himself or herself off as a dentist or a plastic surgeon without being caught almost at once, not getting away with this activity for at least a year and at multiple locations.

Feminists for Life suggests the following:

Across the country, Americans on both side of the abortion debate agree that women have a right to make informed decisions about their pregnancy. We can empower women to exercise this right by passing "Right to Know" legislation. As with any other medical procedure, women have a right to full disclosure of the nature of the abortion procedure, risks and potential complications and alternative support services, as well as the father's responsibility. A woman has the right to know her doctor's name, whether he/she will be available if a medical emergency emerges, any history of malpractice in any state or revocation of a medical license; she has the right to a fully equipped clinic and/or ambulance nearby in case of complications, and the right to redress if she is hurt by the abortion. Even veterinary clinics are better regulated than abortion clinics, for which there are no uniform inspections or reporting requirements. Doctors who have botched abortions, caused infertility or death and lost their medical licenses have been known to jump state lines to continue providing abortions and even open new clinics. There are no regulations to stop them.

Is there any real reason to oppose "right to know" legislation, especially given how easily Bertha Pinedo Bugarin was able to game the system? If you are in favor of legalized abortion on demand, do you object to the measures Feminists for Life propose in the above paragraph--and, if so, on what grounds?