Right after Roe versus Wade, Robert Hall, whose Association for the Study of Abortion has struggled so hard to make abortion legal, was asked whether or not abortion clinics would “pop up everywhere.”
“Not very likely. We’re expecting to see about a million and a half legal abortions a year – about triple the number now. But instead of being concentrated in a few states, they’ll be distributed evenly among MDs in every state – probably about 20,000 in all. That’s an average of only a couple of abortions a week per doctor – hardly a big enough figure to constitute new specialty.”
Interviewed in Charlotte L Rosenberg “The Abortion Revolution: Don’t Rush It,” Medical Economics 5 no. 5 (March 5, 1973): 31 – 45
As we know, this abortion rights activist was very, very wrong. Legalizing abortion led to a huge jump in the number of abortions being performed. It opened the floodgates and allowed many women to have abortions who wouldn’t have before.
I remember assisting, once in particular, in the operating room at the clinic where I had been a medical assistant for six years. I was standing behind the doctor and could see everything as he was performing an abortion on a woman who was 20 – 22 weeks pregnant.
20 weeks
Late term abortions were usually a two-day process. On the second day the actual abortion was performed. The doctor first removed the laminaria and was then able to reach in with forceps to pull the baby out piece by piece. This procedure is very hard to do and requires a good deal of strength on the part of the doctor.
On that particular day, from my position I was able to see him extracting perfectly formed little arms, legs, toes, fingers, spine and finally the head.
I could see the baby’s face. I don’t know how to describe what I felt at that moment. I realized that we just killed a human being. But at the same time I thought: it is legal, so it must be all right. But my whole being was just screaming against what I just saw. I felt death. I was ashamed and confused as I was staring at the bloody parts of the baby. I can even say I felt the presence of the devil. It was very disturbing. My mind was so blinded by the darkness in it I was unable to do anything.
Sometimes I think about that day and feel that I should have run away, or tried to stop this madness. What were we doing, as medical professionals, as human beings? What happened to our hearts? Where was our compassion?
20 weeks
If this baby had been born prematurely at 20 – 22 weeks it would have had a chance to live. I thought, “People, think about what are you doing. What am I doing?” Think about the consequences of this abortion. Imagine this is you. Imagine you are in the most secure place you could be, in your mother’s womb. You have no idea how cruelly your life will end, how you will be torn to pieces. We betray our children. We interrupt their precious lives so abruptly, so unexpectedly. You think abortion brings relief, but instead it brings emptiness, shame, pain, regret, feelings of death. For six years abortion was the way I put bread on my table. For six years it was my life…
This is only the beginning of my story. My heart is burning more and more to tell everyone the truth. You are going to be hearing from me many, many times. I pray that God, the only God that we all have will open your hearts and give you wisdom and passion to stand up and speak up! WAKE UP, WORLD! WAKE UP!!!
“Salary and fringe benefits will be extremely attractive. Imagine the opportunity to make at least $80,000 a year for no more than 10 hours work each week.”
Pamela Zeckman, Pamela Warrick et al., “the Abortion Racketeers” Chicago Sun-Times, 13, 17, 19, 12, 29, November 18, 1978
Keep in mind that this quote is from 1978 – abortionists make much more money now.
nine weeks
This, unfortunately, is what the doctors are doing to earn this kind of money.
Dr. Schwartz, New York physician who has performed 15,000 abortions when he was quoted:
“God knows, I don’t wear a halo. God knows, there are more skilled practitioners. But I think in the mix, you could do a helluva lot worse than if you come to me for what I claim to know how to do.”
Quoted by Barbara Ross, “Abortion – I I,” New York Post February 14, 1979, 16
Former director of New York abortion clinic The Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health:
“In retrospect, such a name for an abortion site is one of those ultimate euphemisms that our century uses to hide the enormity of what mankind is actually doing. Auschwitz is a “resettlement camp.”
Bernard Nathanson, Aborting America (New York: Doubleday, 1979)101
eight weeks – typical age for an abortion
this is what a baby of this age looks like after he or she has been aborted:
“Birth… Is only the moment you emerged from the womb. You existed as a genetically distinct individual from the moment of conception some nine months before. And you did not become an independently functioning member of society (a functional kind of birth) until you “came of age” some years after you emerged from the womb.”
Isaac Asimov “Coming Of Age” forward, and Jerry Grey, Enterprise (New York: Morrow, 1979) P7
The saline abortion procedure was originally developed in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany
Thomas Hilgers and Dennis Horan, editors Abortion and Social Justice (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1972) 292
A saline abortion is performed by injecting a poisonous salt solution into a woman’s uterus which poisons the baby and Burns’s skin over the course of several hours. After the baby dies, labor is induced and the woman gives birth to her dead child. This technique of abortion led to so many live births and was so dangerous to women that it was abandoned in the early 1990s and is now seldom performed.
Sometimes pro-choice activists say that abortion must be legal and should be performed in cases where the baby would be disabled. 90% of down syndrome pregnancies end in abortion. And yet:
There has never been a single organization of parents of mentally [handicapped] children that has endorsed abortion.
John Wilke, Abortion Questions and Answers (Cincinnati, Ohio: Hayes publishing Company, 1988) 211
In 1979, former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson gave the following statistic:
There are 15 times more abortions annually in the country than there were in the year prior to Roe versus Wade
Bernard Nathanson, Aborting America (New York: Doubleday, 1979) 40 – 1
This is proof that many women who would not have had an abortion if it was illegal chose to have abortions after Roe versus Wade. Women who are not willing to have illegal abortions will have them when abortion is legal.
“Gallup poll discovered that only 11% of Americans have an accurate understanding that abortion is available throughout all nine months of pregnancy.”
“Abortion on Moral Beliefs” 1991 Gallup Poll, 13
Randy Alcorn “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2000)
Roe versus Wade said that abortion could not be banned in the first two trimesters, and could only be banned in the third trimester if there were exceptions for a woman’s health. But in tow versus Bolton, companion case to Roe V Wade, health was defined as the following:
Doe vs Bolton. The words of the Supreme court:
“…the medical judgment may be exercised in light of all factors- physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age- relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the benefit, not the detriment, of the pregnant woman.”
Cynthia Gorney. Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars (Simon & Shuster: New York. 1998) P 164
“The Medical Judgement” Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973)
This means that abortions are legal through the entire nine months of pregnancy.
