Steven Mosher was an anthropology student in Stanford University’s PhD program who witnessed how Chinese women were forced to have abortions during fieldwork in China. He’d originally been pro-choice and supported population control but described:
6 months
“There were 18 women, all from 5 to 9 months pregnant, and many red eyed from lack of sleep and crying. They sat listlessly on short plank benches arranged in a semi circle about the front of the room, where He Kaifeng, a commune cadre and Communist Party member of many years standing, explained the purpose of the meeting in no uncertain terms. “You are here because you have to “think clear” about birth control, and you will remain here until you do.”…
[After reasoning and bribery failed to convince the women to have abortions]
“None of you has any choice in this matter. You must realize that your pregnancy affects everyone in the commune, and indeed affects everyone in the country.” Then, visually calculating how far along the women in the room work, he went on to ask, “The 2 of you who are 8 or 9 months pregnant will have [an abortion by] cesarean; the rest of you will have a shot which will cause you to abort.” Several of the women were crying by this point.”
Steven Mosher, Broken Earth: the Rural Chinese (New York: Free Press, 1983) 225
Seven-week-old unborn baby – most abortions happen around this time
Another poll:
NBC News/Wall Street Journal Pollconducted by the polling organizations of Peter Hart (D) and Bill McInturff (R). Jan. 12-15, 2013. N=1,000 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 3.1.
“Do you approve or disapprove the Roe versus Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision? If you don’t know enough about this to have an opinion, please just say so and we’ll move on.”
Approve
Disapprove
Don’t know
enough
Unsure
%
%
%
%
1/12-15/13
39
18
41
2
Little hand left over from an abortion at 7 weeks
This second poll mischaracterizes the decision of Roe Vs. Wade. Roe v. Wade actually said that the state could not regulate abortion in the first two trimesters (so it legalized first and second trimester abortions, up to 24 weeks) but that the state COULD regulate it in the third trimester. Not that it HAD to, just that it could. That is why some states have laws against late term abortion. So this poll is misleading.
“The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe versus Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Would you like to see the Supreme Court completely overturn its Roe versus Wade decision, or not?”
Yes,
overturn
No, not
overturn
Unsure
%
%
%
1/12-15/13
24
70
6
12/9-12/05
30
66
4
7/8-11/05
29
65
6
14 week old unborn baby
Remains of a fourteen week old baby after abortion.
Another poll:
Pew Research Center. Jan. 9-13, 2013. N=1,502 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 2.9.
“In 1973 the Roe versus Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Would you like to see the Supreme Court completely overturn its Roe versus Wade decision, or not?”
Yes,
overturn
No, not
overturn
Unsure/
Refused
%
%
%
1/9-13/13
29
63
7
Republicans
46
48
6
Democrats
20
74
6
Independents
28
64
8
11/3-6/05
25
65
9
7/13-17/05
29
65
6
6/8-12/05
30
63
7
1/03
31
62
7
This poll also mischaracterizes Roe Vs. Wade
Below; Late term abortion, legal in many states. For example, in my home state of NJ, there are no restrictions on how late a person can get an abortion.
USA Today/Gallup Poll. Dec. 27-30, 2012. N=1,012 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 4
“Would you like to see the Supreme Court overturn its 1973 Roe versus Wade decision concerning abortion, or not?”
Yes,
overturn
No, not
overturn
Unsure
%
%
%
12/27-30/12
29
53
18
5/8-11/08
33
52
15
5/10-13/07
35
53
12
5/8-11/06
32
55
13
1/20-22/06
25
66
9
7/7-10/05
28
63
9
Unborn baby at 9 weeksFrom an aborted baby at 9 weeks. The coin is there to show the size of the remains of the aborted child so that his/her age can be verified by a look in an embryology textbook
Sometimes something as simple as a “Choose Life” license plate on a car makes a huge difference in someone’s life. One article tells the story of a woman who was on her way to an abortion clinic:
“On her way to the abortion clinic she followed a car with a Choose Life license plate. As she got closer, she could not bring herself to keep her appointment. The message on the plate spoke so loudly to her. She followed through with her pregnancy and now has a nine-month-old son.”
As told by Russ and Jill Amerling in Judy Madsen Johnson Stories from the Frontlines: the Battle against Abortion, (self published, 2014) 97
Dutch researchers say unborn children may have their short-term memory formed at 30 weeks into the pregnancy. Dr. Jan G. Nijhuis, director of the Centre for Genetics, Reproduction and Child Health at Maastricht University Medical Centre in Holland, conducted the research.From the article in LifeNews:
He [Nijhuis] and his team published their findings in the July/August issue of Child Development.
“This is the next step into a better insight in the development of the fetal central nervous system,” he told HealthDailyNews. “We aim to develop an ‘intra-uterine neurologic examination,’ which could then be used in fetuses at risk.”
In the research, the Netherlands scientists surveyed 93 pregnant women and they measured the responses from unborn children to repeated “vibroacoustic” stimulation.
“We used a vibroacoustic stimulator, which leads to a combined stimulus of vibration and sound,” Nijhuis told HDN. “The stimuli were applied to the maternal abdomen above the fetal legs for a period of one second every 30 seconds. We counted the number of stimuli after which the fetus does not respond anymore.”
When the unborn baby no longer responds to the audio stimulus, the child is referred to as “habituated” — in other words, they consider the sounds safe.
Researchers consider that a form of learning, where unborn children are aware of potential danger and recognize the sounds as something that will not harm them.
Dr. Richard O. Jones, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, responded to the study.
“I’m almost certain the baby heard it quite clearly and it was probably pretty loud,” he said.
“I almost wish I could do an ultrasound looking at the baby while they were making these loud noises. I would not be at all surprised to see the baby putting its hands over its ears,” he added.
Sue, who had an abortion at 15, says the following:
“I was sent to the Family Planning Center for help; well, they helped me all right, so much so they had me booked in for an abortion the next day.
Their reasons were I could not take care of myself let alone a baby. I had no permanent home, and to even think of keeping “it” was totally selfish on my part. They gave me no options and no information; my rights as a human being were not valid because of who I was, just another stupid teenager who got pregnant.
I wanted so much to talk to someone, maybe someone would say, “Don’t do it, I will help you through,” or maybe, “You can keep your baby, there is help available and there are people who care,” but instead I was herded into a room with about ten other girls like cattle and spoken to like I was a piece of dirt and treated as such.”
I had to stumble through a system which was not supportive of my emotional needs, and I certainly did not make an informed decision. At no stage did [they] discuss the alternatives, or the procedure, possible effects or how I felt for that matter … This wasn’t really counseling at all, and my guess was it was to satisfy some legal requirement … no professional created an opportunity for me to discuss anything, really … no one that I came across ever said to me, “Why is this happening to you, what is wrong, why have you had more than one abortion, what can we do about it?”
One doctor describes why he finds it difficult to be an abortionist:
“Killing a baby is not the way I want to think about myself.”
From the book Second Trimester Abortion: Perspectives After a Decade of Experience (Berger, Brenner, Keith, eds, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981), in the chapter “Psychological Impact on Patients and Staff,” p. 246.
“Pain is a factor in life; could an element of pain be a justification for no more abortions? I don’t think so.”
Anne-Marie Keary, head of Britain’s National Abortion Campaign, explaining why the fact that unborn babies feel pain should not be a reason to oppose abortion
Sue Brattle. “Can a Foetus Feel Pain?” London Daily Express, August 6, 1996, pages 25 and 26.
Late-term abortion. Did this baby feel pain while he was being dismembered? Anne-Marie Keary Doesn’t care
“Trauma from an abortion can also affect men. Guilt and hurt after an abortion can drive couples apart, especially if one partner was unsure about the decision. Often couples split up following an abortion.
You may want your relationship back to where it used to be, but this is impossible. Sometimes men react with a gut instinct that it is better to do something quickly and worry about the consequences later. A common reaction is “Get rid of it”. But this is not one of those situations, and an abortion will not put things back as they were. In short, both you and your partner have been permanently changed by the pregnancy.
Some men feel guilty about what they have done and then find it difficult to form close relationships in the future. Some disguise their feelings by remaining emotionally cold and distant. One man said “following the abortion I split up with my girlfriend and it was only years later I realized that I’d never settled down and got married because of the abortion.”
There is a deep instinct in man to protect women and children. An abortion can undermine a man’s confidence in himself and he can come to think of himself as a failure – a failure as a partner, a failure as a father, a failure as a man.”
Men and Abortion, Information from Lighthouse Family Trust
Quoted in Cara Acred The Abortion Debate (Independence Educational Publishers, 2012), Kindle edition
