By Sarah Terzo
“A
fetus isn’t a baby.” “A woman has a right to choose.” These are often
the most common statements a pro-lifer hears when discussing abortion
with pro-choice people. “It isn’t a baby until it’s born.” “Abortion
isn’t killing.” The rank-and-file of the pro-choice movement usually
deny that an unborn baby is a human being with a right to life.
Occasionally you will find someone who argues that the fetus is a baby,
but the woman has a right to abort him or her anyway – but usually
you’ll hear pro-choice people denying the humanity of the unborn.
One word that’s always avoided is pro-choice publications is “baby.”
“Fetus” or “product of conception” or “tissue” is how the aborted baby
is described. It isn’t a life, they say.
But the people who know the most about abortion are the clinic
workers and doctors who perform them. And many of them have come out
saying things that would make even the most hardcore pro-choicers
cringe.
In one article in the American Medical News that was probably never
meant for pro-life eyes, abortion providers from around the country
discussed the emotional difficulties of performing abortions. One doctor
said:
I have angry feelings at myself
for feeling good about grasping the calvaria [head], for feeling good
about doing a technically good procedure that destroys a fetus, kills a
baby. (1)
Baby? Perhaps this doctor didn’t get the memo. Pro-choice activists
know never to refer to the “fetus” as a baby. You won’t hear NARAL
Pro-Choice America or the National Organization for Women using the term
“baby” to describe a child being aborted.
Another abortion doctor uses honest terms to describe his job:
A late termination is actually
not very nice and there is no way of getting away from it, I don’t feel I
am doing it for any other reason than for the best of both the mother
and the baby. (2)
Again the word “baby.” Could it be that these abortionists are fully
aware that the “fetuses” they are aborting are in fact living babies?
If there is any doubt that at least some abortion providers know that
abortion is killing a baby, it is put to rest by British abortionist
Judith Arcana:
It is morally and ethically wrong
to do abortions without acknowledging what it means to do them. I
performed abortions, I have had an abortion and I am in favor of women
having abortions when we choose to do so. But we should never disregard
the fact that being pregnant means there is a baby growing inside of a
woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not
happening. (3)
This straightforward admission must have caused some consternation to
pro-choice activists who read Arcana’s article. Few are willing to
admit to the reality of abortion.
One unnamed abortionist said the following in a book that profiled doctors from different fields:
Nobody wants to perform abortions
after ten weeks because by then you see the features of the baby,
hands, feet. It’s really barbaric. Abortions are very draining,
exhausting, and heartrending. There are a lot of tears. … I do them
because I take the attitude that women are going to terminate babies and
deserve the same kind of treatment as women who carry babies … I’ve
done a couple thousand, and it turned into a significant financial boon,
but I also feel I’ve provided an important service. The only way I can
do an abortion is to consider only the woman as my patient and block out
the baby[.] (4)
In this short paragraph, the doctor mentions the word “baby” four times.
It is clear that many abortion providers know that they are ending
life. They see the babies kicking and moving on the ultrasound screen
and then see them later, in pieces, in the back room of the clinic.
Clinic counselor Tim Shuck, who worked at the Lovejoy abortion clinic
until his death from AIDS, said the following to a writer who was
chronicling the daily workings of the clinic:
I have never denied that human
life begins at conception. If I have a complaint about our society, it’s
that we don’t deal with death and dying. Do we believe human beings
have a right to make decisions about death and dying? Yes we do, and
those decisions are made every day in every hospital. (5)
The author who quoted Shuck never revealed whether or not Shuck told the women he counseled that life begins at conception.
Another clinic worker said the following:
I see more of murder the further along they get. Although inside me I know it’s murder from the beginning… (6)
In an article in the Dallas Morning News, abortion clinic administrator Charlotte Taft made the following statement:
We were hiding … some pieces of
the truth about abortion that were threatening. [Abortion] is a kind of
killing, and most women seeking abortion know that. (7)
This was a little too much honesty for Planned Parenthood – after
Taft came out with this statement, they stopped referring patients to
her clinic. Eventually, she resigned.
Reporter Leonard Stern spoke to Joan Wright, the owner of a clinic in
Ottawa. She explained how she and her fellow workers were fighting to
force pro-lifers to take down a banner that announced, “Abortion Stops a
Beating Heart” and gave a phone number for women considering abortion
to call for help. Stern confronted her with pro-lifers’ allegations that
her clinic gave deceptive counseling to women. From the article:
She said. “Good grief! They accuse us of pretending we’re not doing what we’re doing? I’m in the business of death!” (8)
This is probably the most honest and frank admission by an abortion provider that you are likely to hear.
In his essay “Why I Am an Abortion Provider,” Dr. William F. Harrison
says the following: “No one, neither the patient receiving the
abortion, nor the person doing the abortion, is ever, at any time,
unaware that they are ending a life.”
In reality, the fact that abortion ends a life is often hidden from
women. The baby is described as “products of conception” or “tissue.”
The abortion “empties out the uterus.” The facts of fetal development
are glossed over or outright distorted. The woman is facing a
life-changing, irrevocable decision at a vulnerable time in her life,
and she is susceptible to being deceived.
Look at the way one abortion clinic (Summit Medical Center) describes an abortion on its website.
You will first lay [sic] on an
exam table like you would’ve for regular gynecological exam. Most
patients will then receive IV sedation/twilight anesthesia… Patients
opting for twilight anesthesia are mildly awake, but should feel no more
than slight (if any) discomfort, and usually have little or no memory
of the procedure afterwards.… Just as with a Pap smear, the doctor will
use a speculum to hold the vaginal walls open, and then begin the
procedure of using a series of dilation instruments to open the cervix.
The contents of the uterus are then removed with a gentle vacuum
aspirator.
Here are more examples of abortionists and clinic workers who acknowledge that abortion is killing:
The owner of one abortion clinic, identified only as “Michelle” in a book by James D. Slack, said the following:
I’ve thought through this issue,
to do it as long as I have, and I have to sleep well at night… Is it
life? Clearly it’s life. Does it deserve protection? My answer is “no.”
The bottom line, you have two competing interests: the mother and the
baby (or the embryo or the fertilized egg). And sometime during that
nine month gestation, a woman’s rights are going to digress. At that
point, I guess, rights can be ascribed to the fetus. (9)
This clinic owner has no problem calling an embryo a baby. She merely
considers the baby’s life unimportant. There is no doubt that she knows
exactly what is happening at her clinic.
Abortionist Don Sloan, explaining the morality of abortion to his
teenage niece in an essay that appeared in an anthology on abortion,
said the following:
Is abortion murder? All killing
isn’t murder. A cop shoots a teenager who appeared to be going for a
gun, and we call it justifiable homicide – a tragedy for all concerned,
but not murder. And then there’s war… (10)
In this case, the abortionist (Sloan has been practicing for over
thirty years and has done over 20,000 abortions) admits that abortion is
killing but claims that it is not murder. He equates abortion with
self-defense and war. But is the unborn baby sleeping in her mother’s
womb really an aggressor? Except in very rare cases, a woman’s life is
not endangered by a pregnancy. And unless the pregnancy is a result of
rape (which is a factor in only 1% of all abortions) the woman’s own
actions (along with those of the baby’s father) resulted in the baby
developing where he or she is. The baby may be unwanted, but she is not
truly an intruder if the woman’s own actions are responsible for her
presence in the womb. An unborn baby is not a teenager with a gun or an
enemy soldier on a battlefield; she is an innocent and helpless member
of the human race.
Abortionist Dr. Neville Sender said the following in a newspaper article:
We know that it is killing, but the states permit killing under certain circumstances. (11)
The clinic where Sender worked later came under scrutiny for throwing the bodies of aborted babies in the trash.
Abortionist Dr. Curtis Boyd, who performs abortions up to 24 weeks:
“Am I killing? Yes, I am. I know that.” You can see a video of him
saying it here.
Another abortionist, who remained anonymous, said:
It [the fetus] is a form of
life[.] … This has to be killing[.] … The question then becomes, ‘Is
this kind of killing justifiable?’ In my own mind, it is justifiable,
but only with the informed consent of the mother. (12)
Another abortionist admits that abortion is killing but also tries to
justify it by saying the babies he kills would have difficult lives if
they were allowed to be born:
I have the utmost respect for
life; I appreciate that life starts early in the womb, but also believe
that I’m ending it for good reasons.
Often I’m saving the woman or I’m
improving the lives of other children in the family. I also believe
that women have a life they have to consider. If a woman is working
full-time, has one child already and is barely getting by, having
another child that would financially push her to go on public
assistance, yes that is going to lessen the quality of her life. And
it’s also an issue for the child, if it would not have had a good life.
Life is hard enough when you’re wanted and everything’s prepared. So
yes, I end life, but even when it’s hard, it’s for a good reason. (13)
Are these good reasons to kill a child?
Another abortionist puts it more plainly:
Abortion is killing the fetus. … Human life, in and of itself, is not sacred. Human life, per se, is not inviolate. (14)
This doctor has foregone excuses and accepted the belief that human
life is not sacred or worthy of protection. He has no need for
justifications. He knows he is killing – and he doesn’t care.
After talking extensively to one abortionist, author Nancy Dey writes:
Dr. Ed Jones (pseudonym) says it’s always in the back of his mind that he is terminating a life. (15)
Another abortionist, Dr. Harrison, simply said, “I am destroying a life” (16). This doctor has performed over 20,000 abortions.
Dr. William Rashbaum performed thousands of abortions before his
death in 2005. He revealed to an interviewer that he was haunted by a
recurring nightmare of an unborn baby hanging on to the uterine wall
with its tiny fingernails, fighting to stay inside. When asked how he
dealt with this dream, he said, “Learned to live with it. Like people in
concentration camps.”
The interviewer then asked if he really meant that metaphor:
I think it’s apt – destruction of
life. Look! I’m a person, I’m entitled to my feelings. And my feelings
are who gave me or anybody the right to terminate a pregnancy? I’m
entitled to that feeling, but I also have no right communicating to the
patient who desperately wants that abortion. I don’t get paid for my
feelings. I get paid for my skills… I’ll be frank. I began to do
abortions in large numbers at the time of my divorce when I needed
money. But I also believe in the woman’s right to control their
biological destiny. I spent a lot of years learning to deliver babies.
Sure, it sometimes hurts to end life instead of bringing it into the
world. (17)
Rashbaum knew that abortion takes a life, but he never mentioned this
to the women who were coming in for abortions. One can only wonder
about the psychological strain of equating oneself with a Nazi, with
knowing that you end babies’ lives for a living.
Pro-choice writer Miriam Claire interviewed several abortion
providers for a book she wrote. One of them, Dr. Bertram Wainer, said
the following:
My whole professional training
was to prolong life, to nurture and protect it. Abortion is clearly at
odds with that ethos … [yet] I have never refused to perform an abortion
because of any personal conflict[.] (18)
There are other examples of abortionists and clinic workers who
admitted that abortion ends lives. Magda Denes, a pro-choice author,
interviewed a number of doctors and clinic workers in her book In
Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death Inside an Abortion Hospital. Every
doctor she interviewed, and many of the clinic workers, admitted at some
point during the interviews that they regarded abortion as murder. One
doctor said:
It [abortion] goes against all things which are natural. It’s a termination of a life, however you look at it. (18)
There are similar quotes throughout the book.
There is no way to know for whether or not these doctors and clinic
administrators are representative of all abortion providers. But it is
clear that many, if not most, abortion providers know that they kill. It
is also clear that the average pro-choice person, who argues in support
of allowing these men and women to continue practicing, has no
awareness of the truth that so many abortion providers know – that
abortion kills babies.
1. Diane M. Gianelli, “Abortion Providers Share Inner Conflicts,” American Medical News, July 12, 1993
2. ABC.net: Religion and Ethics: 12-28-2005. Quoted by Life Dynamics
3. Judith Arcana “Feminist Politics and Abortion in the US” Pro-Choice
Forum (Psychology and Reproductive Choice) Sponsored by The Society for the Psychology of Women.
http://www.prochoiceforum.org.uk/psy_al8.php
4. John Pekkanen. M.D.: Doctors Talk About Themselves (Delcorte Press: New York, 1988) 90-91
5. Peter Korn. Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic (The Atlantic Monthly Press: New York, 1996) p 94
6. James Tunstead Burtechaell, C.S.C. Rachel Weeping: the Case against
Abortion (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row Publishers, 1982) 135 – 136
7. “Abortion rights activist resigns as clinic director; Taft
cites differences with Routh Street owner” Dallas Morning News 2/2/1995
8. Leonard Stern “Abortion Wars” The Ottawa Citizen Sun 28 May 2000
9. James D Slack Abortion, Execution, and the Consequences of Taking Life (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2009) 49
10. Tamara L. Roleff. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press: San Diego 1997) 25
11. John Powell, S.J. Abortion: The Silent Holocaust (Argus Communications: Allen, Tx) 1981, p 66
12. Democrat & Chronicle 7/5/92
13. Cheryl Alkon “Confessions of an Abortion Doctor” Boston Magazine December 2004
14. Abortionist “Dr. Smith” (Pseudonym) . Leo Wang “The Abortionist”
Berkeley Medical Journal Spring 1995
15. Nancy Dey Abortion: Debating the Issue (Enslow Publishers: Springfield, IL 1995) 49
16. Nat Hentoff “An Abortionist’s World: How to Rationalize
Inhumanity” The Washington Times Febuary 6, 2006. Citing Stephanie Simon
“Offering Abortion, Rebirth” Los Angeles Times November 29, 2005
17. Norma Rosen “Between Guilt and Gratification: Abortion Doctors
Reveal Their Feelings,” New York Times Magazine April 17, 1977 p 73, 74, 78
18. Miriam Claire The Abortion Dilemma: Personal Views on a Public Issue. (Insight Books: New York) 1995, p 30
19. Magda Denes, PhD. In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death Inside an Abortion Hospital (Basic Books, Inc.: New York 1976)147
Editor’s note. This first appeared at http://liveactionnews.org/abortionists-agree-abortion-is-killing/
English
barrister and medical ethicist Charles Foster has penned defence of
“human dignity” as the foundation of bioethics in the Cambridge
Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. He believes that it is more adequate
than the reigning view that autonomy is its fundamental principle. In
particular dignity does a far better job of explaining why body parts or
patients in a vegetative state deserve respect.
While
promoting access to abortion as a “reproductive right” at the United
Nations and advocating for the elimination of pro-life laws, Ipas is
also busy creating illegal abortion networks in Mexico. The work is
based on an “accompaniment model” which pairs abortion seeking women
with volunteers who guide a woman through the self-induced or
do-it-yourself (DIY) abortion. It is the subject of the documentary
“Accompaniment” by Ipas partner Las Libres.
Here
in Australia another World Suicide Prevention Day has passed
uneventfully. Suicide Prevention Australia made some touching TV
advertisements which made me cringe at the pain felt by those left
behind. Their anguish is something we too often forget.
Sometimes I get emotional whiplash.
Planned
Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in the United States. Their
website presents information for women about abortion and related
subjects . On 
Hats-off
to writers of the CBS primetime drama, The Good Wife. The show’s
protagonist, Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies, is a lawyer.
In this episode, “Red Meat,” she is running for state’s attorney of
Illinois. The election takes place and a winner is announced, but we
won’t spoil the outcome for fans who haven’t watched yet. Meanwhile,
lawyer Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), a Democrat and women’s lib
proponent, is on a three-day hunting excursion with her
uber-conservative, polar opposite husband, Kurt, a ballistics expert
played by Gary Cole.
When
tests reveal that preborn babies have Down syndrome, the majority of
women decide to abort. Here are the reflections of one woman who has a
child with Down syndrome:
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