Month: March 2013

Judith Fetrow and Pro-Life Activists

A pro-life article told the following story:

“Some former abortion clinic workers have been won over to the pro-life side because of the love they experienced from people who demonstrated against their clinics. Norma McCorvey, former lead plaintiff as Jane Roe of Roe V Wade, is one. The case of another, Judith Fetrow, is striking because she initially experienced hostility from pro-life demonstrators at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic where she worked. On one occasion, she was so upset by her work that she decided to leave the clinic. But on her way out, demonstrators started shouting at her, “Murderer! The blood is on your hands!” Fetrow felt as though “someone had kicked me in the stomach,” so she went back to the clinic and “back to work.”

But a sidewalk counselor named Steve reached out to her, chatting with her in a friendly way. “It took some time,” Fetrow recalled, “it took enormous dedication, and it took the patience of a saint. But over several weeks we developed a friendship across the lines, based on trust.” Fetrow again left the clinic, but this time she did not return.”

Story recounted in Mary Meehan spring/summer 2000 The Ex-Abortionists: Why They Quit. Human Life Review 26 (2/3), 7 – 28, 8 and 21 in Rachel M MacNair and Stephen Zunes. Consistently Opposing Killing: from Abortion to Assisted Suicide, the Death Penalty, and War (Bloomington: Author’s Choice press, 2011) 135

Read Fetrow’s testimony here. 

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Abortion Clinic Workers Vent Hatred at Pro-Lifers

In her book Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic, Wendy Simonds quotes some clinic workers talking about pro-lifers. One clinic worker says:

On page 119

“My gut feeling is: I hate them. I want them to die! But realistically, I mean, I’ve come to the point where if I can’t deal with it, it’s like I want to yell at them and hit them over the head with a f*cking Bible and go, “you’re stupid! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

A different clinic worker, on page page 123

“The feeling of violation, of [their] violating my space, of them filthying my space… With their presence!… I mean, I realized that I could kill a human being. I realize that if I got my hands on them, I was gonna rip them apart… I knew I could strangle one of them I just knew it.”

And another one on page 113

“We thought they were clients, and we treated them as nicely as we treat anybody else. And we were all so angry… They were out picketing… Not too long later, and I thought, they know the truth, I mean, we show them how humane we are and that we’re not, you know “baby killers” – I mean that we were real people, and were nice people, and were decent, and were human. And I just wanted to shoot them. I was just disgusted.”

This clinic does abortions up to 26 weeks.

Wendy Simonds. Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996)

22-24 weeks
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Norma McCorvey on Roe V. Wade

“Although I was an emotionally abused child, and a sexually abused teenager, I believe the worst abuse was inflicted by the judicial system. In retrospect, I was exploited by two self-interested attorneys. Worse, the courts, without looking into my true circumstances and taking the time to decide the real impact abortion would have upon women, I feel used me to justify legalization of terminating of the lives of over 35 million babies. Although on an intellectual level I know it was exploited, the responsibility I feel for this tragedy is overwhelming.”

Norma McCorvey 
A.k.a. Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade Affidavit, March 15, 2000

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Kate Michelman of NARAL: Unborn Baby is “Developing Life”

Kate Michelman opposed even the sensible abortion regulations during her time as president of NARAL. She championed partial birth abortion, fought against parental consent, and sought to prevent any restrictions on abortion including clinic regulations that would have made abortion safer. Yet in her book Protecting the Right to Choose, she refers to the baby she aborted as a “developing life.”

“When I did squarely confront abortion as a possibility, it was a very difficult decision. ….I had to weigh the responsibility I felt for the developing life within me against the moral, material, and practical responsibilities of my daughters’ well being…I have never, not once, questioned my choice to have that abortion.”

Kate Michelman Protecting the Right to Choose (New York: Plume, 2005) 4, 7

8 weeks- most abortions are done around this time.
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Clinic Workers Tried to Coerce Teen into Having Late-Term Abortion

When Darla was 17, her mother took her for an abortion. She tells her story:

“I didn’t want to do it, but it was like I was being dragged. The first thing they did was an ultrasound, and I think I was 24 weeks pregnant. So I had a week legally left. I saw her [the baby] actually on the ultrasound, of course. I was 17 years old, I wasn’t going to say, “Turn the machine around; I don’t want to see.” And when I saw her, I knew that I wasn’t going to do it.

So we spent the whole day over there, crying and arguing with the doctors and staff like that. When it came down to signing the piece of paper that said I could die during the procedure, I said no, I wouldn’t do it. We went all the way up to the director of the clinic. They were saying it was best for me, because I was young. My mom was really pushing for it too, so they stood by her. Maybe she was trying to get people to convince me. …They were trying to convince me that it was safe, that in years nobody had died or whatever, that it was relatively safe.

I went in thinking that I was going to do it, but when I saw it on the ultrasound, I couldn’t do it.… So what ended up happening was that they wanted me to sit in on a group where they explained stuff. I guess they thought they were going to trick me and take me in and do it. I don’t know, I remember a lot of stuff that just doesn’t seem right now. So I sat through the group and they said, “Okay it’s your turn; the doctor’s waiting for you.” And I said, “No I’m sorry, I’m just sitting in on this group and I’m not going to go in.” And I asked where my mother was. They stalled for a minute, and I just got up and walked out and said, “I’m not going to do it.”…

24 weeks

So we sat outside for about an hour and a half, and three or four nurses came out at different times and said, “The doctor’s waiting, you’re ready, let’s go in, come on,” and they would take my hand and try to pull me in. And I said no, that I could not do it.”

Rita Townsend, Ann Perkins Bitter Fruit: Women’s Experiences of Unplanned Pregnancy, Abortion and Adoption (Alameda, California: Hunter House Inc., 1991) 39-40

Darla had her baby. It’s easy to imagine most 17-year-old girls caving in to that kind of pressure.

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Caitlin Moran, Columnist for the Times of London, on Abortion

Caitlin Moran, columnist for the Times of London:

“By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world.”

Lauri S Friedman. Abortion (San Diego, CA: Reference Point Press 2009)20

Here is a picture of a 10 week-old unborn baby (12 weeks gestation)

(9 – 10 weeks)

 

Here is what he or she looks after an abortion:

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Crisis Pregnancy Center Offers Financial Help to Women

Many pro-choicers attack crisis pregnancy centers and sidewalk counselors and call them dishonest or demeaning towards women. But in reality, sidewalk counselors often offer women help with alternatives and crisis pregnancy centers provide many services to women, all for free. The abortion clinic will always take a woman’s money and sent her home to cope with the abortion on her own.

Pat Foley, who runs a crisis pregnancy center:

“We’re willing to offer to $200, $300, $400 on the spot, no strings attached [to help a woman considering abortion for financial reasons.] No life should end because of money.”

Pat Foley, quoted on Nancy Gibbs “One Woman at a Time” Time, February 26, 2007

Many pro-lifers are willing to sacrifice for pregnant women who may otherwise have abortions.

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Abortion is “Not Easy” Says Abortion Doctor

ultrasound of 10-week-old unborn baby

“Abortion is undeniably the taking of potential life. It is not pretty. It is not easy. And in a perfect world, it would not be necessary.”

Bart Slepian, quoted in Amanda Robb “Last Clinic Standing” Marie Claire, October 2006

Dr. Slepian uses the term “potential life” to soften the impact of what he is saying. However, some abortionists have come out saying that abortion takes a life without using the word “potential.”

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Actor Jack Nicholson on Abortion

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Former Clinic Worker Describes Women Using Abortions As “Birth Control”

One former clinic worker made the following comments in personal correspondence with the webmaster of clinicquotes:

When I first started out nursing in the late 70’s I was working for the Ob/Gyn physicians in this hospital. My duties were not only to care for those that were in for abortions, I also cared for the older folks having hysterectomies and so forth. I didn’t have a personal opinion on abortion until I saw how many were done and for the multitude of ridiculous reasons. Not to mention the actual procedure itself and the “aftermath”. It wasn’t until a few years afterwards that I started to feel this wasn’t right. That is when I transferred to a different department and hospital completely. . . Plus you must understand, I worked for a hospital smack dab in the middle of NYC, I got to know some of the girls getting these abortions on a first name basis, since they had them so often. That really got under my skin, seeing these girls using it as a birth control measure. And why shouldn’t they? The state paid for it anyway! Just not right!

 

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