Dr. Bernard Nathanson Discusses Abortion Live Births
Dr. Bernard Nathanson discusses the reality of babies born alive during saline abortions. A saline abortion consisted of injecting a poisonous saline solution into a woman’s uterus which killed the baby (or was supposed to.) then the woman went through labor to expel the baby. It caused so many live births that saline abortions were discontinued in the 1980s.
“When we had live births in the early saline period (1965 – 1970), the nurses, to their everlasting credit, reacted in the instinctively proper manner when they saw that the tiny newborn was gasping or moving. They invariably instituted rigorous resuscitative measures, carried the baby to the premature nursery, and demanded the customary standards of care for it. The doctors were caught in the dilemma of being the adversary of alpha [Nathanson’s term for the fetus/aborted baby] in performing the abortion and, in an instant, becoming obstetricians committed to the newborn’s safety. Neatly trapped by definitions, taught from medical school that an “abortus” is only a pathology specimen, we stood gawking at the wiggling, gasping baby, paralyzed by the paradox.”
Bernard N Nathanson, M.D. with Richard N Ostling. Aborting America (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1979) page 273
24 weeks, saline abortions were often done at this time. Abortions at this stage are still legal in the US
