At a National Abortion Federation meeting session on the management of complications of first trimester abortions:
“… [A] practitioner warned that if a particularly risky procedure was undertaken in emergency circumstances, and failed, it would not only harm the patient but the “movement” as well.”
Carole Joffe. Doctors of Conscience: the Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe Versus Wade (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon press, 1995) 3
Pro-choice feminists have sometimes put the legality of abortion ahead of the health of women. In some cases, women have died from malpractice and pro-choicers have rallied to support the doctors who killed them. For example, read the story of Bruce Steir
Joseph Fletcher, an Episcopalian professor of social ethics, said that abortion was justified. He used as his moral argument the example of a woman raped by an insane person:
“Even self-defense legalism would have allowed the girl to kill her attacker, no matter that he was innocent in the forum of conscience because of his madness. The embryo is no more innocent, no less an aggressor or unwelcome invader! Is not the most loving thing possible (the right thing) in this case the responsible decision to terminate the pregnancy?”
Kerry N Jacoby Souls, Bodies, Spirits: the Drive to Abolish Abortion since 1973 (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1998) 3
Is this baby an aggressor in her mother’s womb? Does she deserve to be killed?
This is what a ten week old baby looks like after she is aborted. Is this justifiable?
A Michigan law requiring abortion providers to ask women if they want to see the ultrasound before they consented to abortions was proposed. The women would not be forced to see the ultrasound. This law mandated that abortion providers perform an ultrasound for their patients. In many ways, this is a safety issue, for the only way to know for sure how far along a woman is is to do an ultrasound. Also, an ultrasound is the only way to make sure a woman does not have an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy. Most clinics, including Planned Parenthood clinics, routinely do ultrasounds before abortions.
But clinics didn’t want women to have a chance to see their unborn baby. According
REBEKAH WARREN of Lansing-based abortion rights group MARAL Pro-Choice, gave NARAL’s position:
“…requiring a doctor to ask a patient if she’d like to see an ultrasound in proximity to an abortion is a move Warren has described as “emotionally manipulative.”…
So is it emotionally manipulative to allow a woman the CHOICE to look at information that might let her make a more informed decision? Keep in mind that the woman would not be forced to view anything.
Abortion clinics also said that a woman would have to pay for the ultrasound out of her own pocket, and therefore it was a burden on women. They could, of course, offer to do an ultrasound for free…but abortion clinics don’t do ANYTHING for free.
If the woman wanted to save money, she could go to a crisis pregnancy center where she could get an ultrasound for free. According to Warren:
“One of the biggest changes in this legislation is putting a list of places women can get free ultrasounds on the state Web site,” Warren says. Typically, an ultrasound costs between $300 and $700, depending on the stage of the pregnancy.
Some of clinics that offer free ultrasounds, Warren says, are geared toward influencing women against abortion.
“We would rather not have that on the state Web site…”
10 week ultrasound
So the pro-choice group doesn’t want the woman to go to a place where she will be able to see her ultrasound and, quite possibly, learn more information that might sway her abortion decision. They don’t want anything to interfere with their profits. Is this pro-woman?
Pro-choice author Carole Joffe on how abortion providers and patients describe the unborn baby:
“Counselors and clinicians tend to use the terms “pregnancy” and “fetus”; in contrast, many patients use the term baby, which makes some providers uncomfortable. Similarly, how should providers respond to the occasional patient who asks to see her ultrasound before her abortion, or, afterward, the product of conception (another term used far more by providers than by patients?)
Carole Joffe Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: the Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2009) 127-128
This brief quote reveals that many women having abortions even the child they are about to destroy is a baby, and also that clinic workers use terms that are deceptive. It is also clear that it is not normal practice in abortion clinics to show the woman the ultrasound, and that clinic workers questioned whether she should be allowed to see it. In the section on “abortion counseling” you will read many quotes from abortion providers admitting that they never show the woman the ultrasound before her abortion and that if she asked, they often refused.
“According to one survey, 73.1% of Japanese women who have had abortions report “anguish” about what they have done. 59% felt that abortion is something “very bad” 16% felt it was considerably bad, 17% felt it was somewhat bad, and only 8% thought it could not be considered bad.”
David C Reardon Aborted Women: Silent No More (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway books, 1987) 122
Dr. Bernard Nathanson comments on how feminists rallied behind a doctor who was accused of killing a woman through a botched abortion.
“Feminists are sometimes so intent on denying the “right to life” of the fetus and so intent on the absolute right to abort, that they forget that the woman has a “right to life.” The womb is no place for non-surgeons to tinker with experimental hardware.”
There was a 1977 trial of a man named H Benjamin Munson a doctor from Rapid City, South Dakota for manslaughter in the death of a woman he did an abortion on. He left 240 g of fetal material in her womb after he mistook the length of her pregnancy and used the inappropriate suction curettage technique even though she was over 18 weeks pregnant.
“The significant thing, however, is not the fact that Munson is innocent under the determination of the law [he was found innocent] but the way in which feminists and pro-abortionists turned the doctor into a hero and vilified those who investigated the case. The fact that a woman was dead did not dampen their enthusiasm in the slightest. The abortion cause was rated higher than the sisterhood of one Linda Padfield.”
Bernard N Nathanson, M.D. with Richard N Ostling. Aborting America (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1979) 92
Although this was written a long time ago, pro-choicers often can be found defending abortionists who kill women through malpractice and/or ignoring the deaths of women from legal abortions. You almost never hear any outcry when an abortionist kills a woman through carelessness.. When Bruce Steir was accused of manslaugher in the death of Sharon Hampton (after a clinic worker claimed he had perforated her bowel, then shoved it back inside her uterus and sent her home) pro-choicers rallied around him.
From one book that tells how to do 2nd trimester abortions:
“The floor nurse must deal with the expelled fetus; even nurses in favor of abortion find this a lonely and difficult task.”
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. 247
This quote is about abortions in which the doctor injects poison into the amniotic fluid or the baby itself and waits for the woman to deliver her dead fetus. Often, the doctor is not present for the actual delivery. Sometimes the woman delivers alone, sometimes a nurse is present.
“…Some women experience abortion as painful. How much so depends on factors such as gestational age of the pregnancy, type of procedure (suction or extraction), sedation used during surgery, available support, and mental preparedness. As a health worker I try to help clients become as calm as possible in order to diminish the fear which I believe increases physical pain. But the fact that abortion is sometimes painful is not reason enough to say a woman shouldn’t have one. “
