“The first time I witnessed a second trimester abortion on a 14 year old girl and I wrote, “Now the ‘abortion issue’ comes home to me…It’s not just ‘blood and tissue’ anymore.”
Merle Hoffman, abortion clinic owner (CHOICES)
14 week-old unborn baby, the beginning of the second trimester
Merle Hoffman, “The Issue” Abortion On the Issues Magazine On the Issues Online Archive Vol. XII 1989 “Abortion” From Life Dynamics
People who observe abortion procedures or abortion remains usually come away with little doubt that abortion is killing a human being. In this passage, author Verlyn Klinkenborg, who visited an abortion clinic, recounts his feelings upon seeing the remains of a ten week-old aborted baby:
ultrasound of baby at 10 weeks
“I felt a profound and unmistakable kinship with the foot and hand in the tray, a kinship so strong it was like the rolling of the sea under my feet…I was surprised by my own sadness, by the sense of loss that I felt…I found it so much easier to be moved by the sight of the disembodied hand the size of a question mark gleaming under fluorescent lights….In that tiny, naked hand there was the imputation of innocence.”
Violent Certainties” Harper’s Magazine January 1995 p 47
seven week-old unborn baby – RU-486 abortions can be done at this time, but it usually done earlier
RU486 abortions, done by a combination pill (to kill the baby) and suppository (to induce labor) are often done before features of the baby are discernable. But not always. One woman discussed seeing her aborted baby. She had had two previous surgical abortions:
“There was a little bit of regret about seeing [the fetus], because it had little hands. I remember little fists. I felt more responsible this time.”
Debra Rosenberg and Michele Ingrassia “Blood and Tears” Newsweek Sept 18, 1995. Vol 126, Issue 12
Abortionist Dr. Don Sloan discusses the D & E abortion:
“With the D&E, as with any suction procedure, the materials passing through the suction tip are easy to see, and at that stage, the clear polyethylene tubing and the translucent plastic cannula are of a large enough bore to allow you to identify what you are seeing. In fact, it’s medically required that you do so, to confirm that the abortion is total and the uterus empty. Out pass the limbs, the intestines and the various internal organs. Most important, it is imperative for the operator to be convinced that the skull tissue has passed, this being the largest part of the fetus formed at that stage of pregnancy.”
late first trimester
Don Sloan, M.D., with Paula Hartz. Choice: A Doctor’s Experience with the Abortion Dilemma (New York: New York International Publishers) 1992 p 187
This quote is from a medical student who observed abortions in a Planned Parenthood clinic.
“Really it’s just inserting a vacuum device into the woman’s cervix and sucking out all the contents of the uterus. First the cervix is numbed up with some lidocaine and another drug that constricts blood vessels so that there’s less bleeding. Then her cervix is dilated (how much depends on how far along she is) with these metal rod-dy things. Then a plastic tube attached to the vacuum device is placed in her uterus, the vacuum is turned on, and then the tube is moved back and forth while rotating it to suck it all out. Then an ultrasound is done through the vagina to make sure the gestational sac is gone. Then we looked at what was sucked out after they wash out the blood and strain it. The first patient I saw was at 11 weeks and some days. I completely wasn’t expecting it, but there were fetal parts. Like hands. And legs. And kidneys. It was pretty shocking. But, of course, after the initial shock, I was fine. I was actually fascinated by it. Until I saw one with a face. Complete with eyeballs…It’s amazing to think that all of this can form within only a couple of weeks…”
Blog Entry “I Love Uteri” posted on Thursday, July 7, 2005
Author Sue Hertz spent a year observing in a busy abortion clinic. Here are a few excerpts from her book:
“It was easy to shrug off an aborted pregnancy as nothing more than a sack of blood and globs of tissue – as many pro-choice activists did- if one never saw fetal remains, or products of conception (POC) as they were known in medical circles. But the nurses, medical assistants, and doctors who worked inside procedure rooms …knew that an eleven-week-old POC harbored tiny arms and legs and feet with toes. At twelve weeks, those tiny hands had tiny nails. Although the fetal head was too small at this stage to withstand the evacuation machine’s suction, pieces of face- a nose and mouth, or a black eye…were sometimes found in the aftermath…Later abortions spawned even more gruesome fetal remains…the head did not come out whole during the evacuation, but the legs and arms and rib cage made it through intact. The hand of a second trimester fetus, as a Preterm doctor described it, seemed big enough to shake.”
Sue Hertz Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion’s Front Line (New York: Prentice Hill Press, 1991) p 104
“After an abortion, the doctor must inspect these remains to make sure that all the fetal parts and placenta have been removed. Any tissue left inside the uterus can start an infection. Dr. Bours squeezed the contents of the sock into a shallow dish and poked around with his finger. “You can see a teeny tiny hand,” he said.”
Abortion Provider Dr. Bours
Dudley Clendinen, “The Abortion Conflict: What it Does to One Doctor” New York Times Magazine Aug 11 1985 p 26
12-week-old unborn baby – this is still the first trimester
“During the procedure, Doris would offer her hand for the patient to squeeze, or if the abortion were particularly painful, a notepad for the patient to bite…Doris knew what [the abortionist] was doing at the end of the examination table as he pored over the legs and ribs and hands, but she chose not to look. It wasn’t that Doris ignored the truth, but rather that her commitment was to the woman, not the fetus…”
Sue Hertz Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion’s Front Line (New York: Prentice Hill Press, 1991) p 109
“…[the doctor] removed from the glass jar cheesecloth sack which caught the fetal parts, dumping the parts into a basin at the end of the table, between [the patient’s] feet. Two legs, two arms, two fists, a skull, a backbone, a placenta. “We’ve got it” he announced.”
.Sue Hertz Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion’s Front Line (New York: Prentice Hill Press, 1991) 114
This quote is from a medical student who observed abortions in a Planned Parenthood clinic.
