An American medical journal, after polling 40,000 American physicians about abortion in 1967 quoted Dr. David Decker of the Mayo Clinic saying that there were “few, if any, absolute medical indications for therapeutic abortion in the present state of medicine.”
“Abortion: the Doctors Dilemma” Modern Medicine 35 no. 9 (24 April 1967): 14 – 16.
know how much science and medicine have advanced since 1967, over 40 years ago
The following was said at an American Medical Association meeting way back in 1971. Keep in mind how much medicine has advanced in the past 40 years.
“Few abortions need to be performed [due to] organic disease in a well conducted contemporary practice if the traditional demand of hazard to life is followed. Cardiovascular disease, for example, has long been known to increase the risk of maternal health during pregnancy. Yet recent research has shown that nearly every pregnancy of a cardiac patient can be completed successfully with little risk of maternal health… A small number of pregnant patients with severe renal disease and decompensating renal failure seem truly threatened by pregnancy. Even in this instance, however, heroic measure such as the use of a dialysis unit may see these women through severe life-threatening episodes…Neurologic disease is an occasional indication for abortion. The patient with multiple sclerosis, for example, sometimes is, indeed, made worse by pregnancy. The effect in this instance is unpredictable, however, and the condition of some patients actually improves. The effect of pregnancy on epilepsy is equally uncertain pregnancy itself does not increase the risk of death for the pregnant women… Tuberculosis accounts for nearly all of the pulmonary conditions thought to indicate therapeutic abortion. But with the advance of drug therapy, abortion really seems necessary for this disease… Malignancy is occasionally an indication for legal abortion. There is little convincing evidence, however, that pregnancy in any way adversely affects the outcome of neoplastic disease. Even with cancers known to be endocrine dependent, such as cancer of the breast, the survival seems unaffected by pregnancy interruption.”
K. R. Niswander, “Indications and Contraindications,” Highlights from the 1971 AMA meeting in Abortion – a Legal Fact, Audio Digest, Obstetrics and Gynecology 17 (3 August 1971) quoted in Thomas W Hilgers and Dennis J Horan, editors Abortion and Social Justice (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1972) P 38 – 39 Also quoted in James Tunstead Burtechaell, C.S.C. Rachel Weeping: the Case against Abortion (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row Publishers, 1982)
“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!”
This is a letter that a pro-life organization received.
“I am returning your graphic images along with my donation. I can testify that a 9 week baby is perfect just like the picture. Please pass it on to others. Back in the 1940’s, as a student nurse, I had the opportunity to “scrub” at a surgery for an ectopic pregnancy to save a mother’s life.
I’m sure it was the only way to do this since it was at a very prestigious Catholic hospital in NYC. In removal of the ectopic tube this perfect 9 week old baby was removed (probably to be baptized). There was no doubt that this was a perfect little baby. Even his little blue eyes could be seen. I don’t know if the procedure is still done today but it sure impressed us that it was no doubt a baby and not a tissue or blob as they tell people today. Thank you for your work.”
Here is a letter a pro-life organization recently received:
“Your graphic images are quite accurate. However they miss the thing impossible to print and that is the sound effects which are sickening to hear. As head nurse in a large delivery suite I witnessed only one and then resigned my position. But the memory of that will never leave me. Keep up your wonderful work.”
Letter to webmaster of the pro-life website “Abortiontv.com”
14 weeks – legal to abort in every state in the United StatesShare on Facebook
Former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson describes the remains of one aborted baby:
“One could see where the arms and legs had been ripped from the body and removed separately, how the spine had been snapped in two and removed with dispatch, how the skull had been crushed and the brain drained out before the bony parts were removed.”
Bernard Nathanson, M.D. Aborting America (Life Cycle Books, Toronto, 1979.) Quoted in “Abortion: A Briefing for Canadian Legislators” National Public Affairs Office, Campaign Life Coalition, Suite 100, 1355 Wellington St, Ottawa, ON K1Y 3C2
“I found much distress in the clinic, but it involved not only the women. I saw the pain of the babies who were born burned from the saline solution used for late-term abortions. I saw the bits of feet, bits of hands, the mangled heads and bodies of the little people. I saw pain and felt pain.”
Paula Sutcliffe “Precious in My Sight” Pro-Life Feminism: Different Voices Gail-Garnier-Sweet, editor Life Cycle Books (June 1985)
“Following [the doctor’s] directions, I took the collection bottle and poured its contents into a shallow pan. Then I used water to rinse off the blood and smaller particles which clouded the bottom of the pan. ‘Now look closely,’ the doctor said. ‘It is important that we have got all the stuff out.’ I looked in the pan to find that the stuff consisted of the remains of what had been, a few minutes before, a thirteen-week-old fetus. I could make out the remains of arms and legs and a trunk and a skull. I tried to piece them back together in my mind, to see if there were any missing parts. Most of the pieces were so battered and bloody they were not recognizably human. Then my eyes locked upon a perfect little hand, less than half a centimeter long. I stared at four tiny fingers and a tiny opposed thumb, complete with tiny translucent fingers. And I knew what I had done.”
12 weeks
Former clinic worker quoted by Stephen Mosher
Stephen Mosher A Mother’s Ordeal: One Woman’s Fight Against China’s One Child Policy pgs 60-61
“When they’re about 12 weeks, then the doctor takes the baby out with forceps. He takes the baby out in pieces. He checks each part and he places each one in a tray down below. When he finishes the procedure, I have to drain everything. We drain it to separate body parts from blood. We place all the parts in a jar that goes to the laboratory. It’s impressive how well-defined they are. You can’t believe what you are seeing. You see perfect little hands, tinier than those of a Barbie doll. You can see intestines, tiny ribs, their little faces, and their tiny squashed heads. You can distinguish among the parts if the baby was a boy or girl…. It makes me so sad to see the jars. It’s very hard for me to do all this. To see all that falls on the floor, or for example, to remove a tiny foot from the instruments. A girl who worked here told me that she came home with a tiny foot stuck to her uniform, close to her shoulder.
12 weeks foot
She, of course, hadn’t noticed until her husband told her…When the patient is more than three months pregnant, we have to prepare her so that she can come back the next day when she is dilated. The really large terminations are impressive. I have seen three fetuses come out whole. In one instance, you could see the little hand coming out of the uterus. The little hand was moving. But the most impressive thing was the baby that came out breathing. That time, the doctor got sick. The girl lived in Tijuana. They put dilators in her for two days. The baby was five and a half months.
five months
She didn’t have a car and came walking to the clinic. Then it seemed like she was going through labor. When the doctor started to work on her, the baby came out without any help. The child came out breathing and died right there….Since a few days ago, a substitute doctor has been coming in. He’s younger and has a different technique. He doesn’t scrape the uterus, he just uses the vacuum. Last Sunday, he couldn’t take it any more because we did some rather large terminations, around four months. He used a technique I hadn’t seen. He divided the ultrasound screen in two parts and used an apparatus during the entire procedure. Usually, what you see with the ultrasound is the child sucking his finger, or playing, but on this occasion when the doctor began vacuuming, you could see the baby was moving as if he hurt because it was pulling him or tearing something off. It was horrible, horrible.”
Clinic Worker
Miguel Vasquez “It was Horrible! Horrible! A First-Hand Account of What Goes on Inside a Chula Vista Clinic” San Diego News Notes
