Pro-life author Troy Clark documented the following story in his book:
“Taranda,” age 17, went to a Family Planning Clinic for Reproductive Health for an abortion on December 22, 1989. Dr. Karen J Smiley misdiagnosed the pregnancy at 6 weeks and performed an abortion.
Four days later, Taranda gave birth to a one pound, critically ill infant girl in a hospital corridor. Taranda’s lawyer said, “She’s devastated, obviously. She would never have dreamed of having an abortion had she known it was 26 weeks old.” Taranda needed psychiatric care after her ordeal. The following news agencies reported her story:
The Tennessean 3/15/90: Today’s Tennessean 2/2/90, Associated Press 1/1/90, 1/26/90, and 1/29/90
From Troy Clark, Ph.D. Abortion Every 90 Seconds: The Whole Story (Kindle, 2015)
WSYX -TV discussed a baby born alive during a partial birth abortion. It was a segment on the news. This is the transcript:
“A woman 5 months pregnant came to Women’s Med Center in Dayton, Ohio, to get a partial birth abortion. During the 3 days it takes to have the procedure she began to have stomach pains and was rushed to a nearby hospital. Within minutes she was giving birth.
Nurse Shelly Lowe in the emergency room at the hospital was shocked when the baby took a gasp of air. [Lowe] “I just held her and it really got to me that anybody could do that to a baby. I rocked her and talked to her because I felt that no one should die alone.” The little girl survived 3 hours.
5 months- age of baby in story
Mark Lally, Director of Ohio Right to Life believes this is why partial birth abortions should be banned. [Lally] ”
This shows what we’ve been trying to make clear to people. Abortion isn’t something that happens just early in pregnancy, it happens at all stages of pregnancy. It’s legal in this state any time.”
Transcript from WSYX -TV in Columbus, Ohio, 20 April 1999
Dr. Warren Pearse, then executive director of American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was asked what abortionists do when a baby is born alive during an abortion.
”What you would do next [after expulsion] is nothing. You assume the infant is dead unless it shows signs of life. You’re dealing with a dead fetus unless there is sustained respiration- its not enough if there’s a single heartbeat or an occasional gasp.”
“Abortion: The Dreaded Complication” by Liz Jeffries and Rick Edmonds, Philadelphia Inquirer Aug 2, 1982
The article “Abortion: The Dreaded Complication” by Liz Jeffries and Rick Edmonds, Philadelphia Inquirer Aug 2, 1982 documented the following case.
“July 1979, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, Dr. Boyd Cooper delivered an apparently stillborn infant after having ended a problem pregnancy of 23 weeks. Half an hour later the baby made gasping attempts to breathe, but no efforts were made to resuscitate it because of its size (1 pound 2 ounces) and the wishes of the parents. The baby was taken to a small utility room that was used, among other tings, as an infant morgue. Told of the continued gasping, Cooper instructed a nurse, “Leave the baby there- it will die.” Twelve hours later, according to testimony of the nurse, Laura VanArsdale, she returned to work and found the infant still in the closet, still gasping.
Cooper then agreed to have the baby boy transferred to an intensive care unit, where he died four days later. A coroner’s jury ruled the death “accidental” rather than natural but found nothing in Cooper’s conduct to warrant criminal action.”
How many other cases have there been over the years?
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on a baby born alive during a botched abortion in July of 1974:
“July 1974. West Penn Hospital, Pittsburgh: Dr. Leonard Laufe performed an abortion on a woman who contended she had been raped- though that and her account of when she became pregnant were later disputed. She had been turned down for an abortion at another hospital, where the term of her pregnancy was estimated at 26 to 31 weeks. Laufe put it at 20 to 22. The abortion, induced by injection of prostaglandin, a substance that stimulates muscle contraction and delivery of the fetus, was filmed for use as an instructional film. The film showed the three-pound infant moving and gasping. Also, a nurse and a medical student testified that they had notice signs of life. No charges were filed, however, after a coroner’s inquest at which Laufe testified that the infant sustained fatal damage during delivery.”
“Abortion: The Dreaded Complication” by Liz Jeffries and Rick Edmonds, Philadelphia Inquirer Aug 2, 1982
The Philadelphia Inquirer told the story of a baby born alive during a botched abortion at Greater Bakersfield Hospital in California in 1973:
“April 1973, Greater Bakersfield Hospital, Bakersfield, California: A 4 ½ pound infant was born live following a saline abortion (induced by an injection of salt solution) performed by Dr. Xavier Hall Ramirez. Informed by phone, Dr. Ramirez ordered two nurses to discontinue administering oxygen to the baby. His instructions were countermanded by another doctor; the baby survived and was placed for adoption. Ramirez was indicted for solicitation to commit murder. His attorney argued that a medical order based on medical opinion, no matter how mistaken, is privileged. Dr. Irvin M. Cushner of the University of California at Los Angeles, later to become a top health policy official in the Carter administration; testified that it was normal for Ramirez to expect the delivery of a dead or certain to die infant as the result of a saline abortion.”
“Abortion: The Dreaded Complication” by Liz Jeffries and Rick Edmonds, Philadelphia Inquirer Aug 2, 1982:
An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer commented on how often abortion resulted in a live birth:
“In fact, for every case [of the live birth of an aborted baby] that does become known, a hundred probably go unreported. Dr. Willard Cates, an expert on medical statistics who is chief of abortion surveillance for the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, estimates that 400 to 500 abortion live births occur every year in the United States. That is only a tiny fraction of the nation’s 1.5 million abortions. Still, it means that these unintended live births are literally an everyday occurrence.
They are little known because organized medicine, from fear of public clamor and legal action, treats them more as an embarrassment to be hushed up than a problem to be solved. “It’s like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit,” Cates says. “What is there to gain? The tendency is not to report because there are only negative incentives…”
By ignoring the problem of abortion live births, the courts and the medical establishment are choosing to overlook a long, well-documented history of cases.
“Abortion: The Dreaded Complication” by Liz Jeffries and Rick Edmonds, Philadelphia Inquirer Aug 2, 1982
Nola and Anders had no qualms about abortion, When Nola’s boss told her to abort or quit her job, they decided to have the pregnancy aborted. Nola was told by the abortionist that she would pass the “discharge” at home, and she should flush it down the toilet.
Nola describes what happened::
“Nothing to it, right? Only it didn’t work out that way. I was laying down on the sofa trying to relax. The kids were here, sitting on the floor, watching TV. All of a sudden, blarp! This huge gush, blood all over the place. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. Right there, right there in front of me – in front of the kids, for God’s sake – this little baby. Alive. I could see his heart beating. A little baby boy.
Anders didn’t know which way to go. The kids were screaming, I was screaming. I think he shut them up in the powder room. I couldn’t touch it, but I couldn’t stop looking at it. Its heart was beating until, slowly, it stopped. I didn’t know it would be like that. Nobody told me it was a baby.”
Nola was rushed by ambulance to a hospital – she was hemorrhaging. She had a “lengthy” hospital stay.
Ann Saltenberger Every WomanHas a Right to Knowthe Dangers of Legal Abortion (Glassboro, New Jersey: Air – Plus Enterprises, 1983) 59
Swedish author Vivian Wahlberg as training to become a nurse and was called upon to assist in an abortion done at 22 weeks
22 weeks
Wahlberg describes the abortion:
[T]he operation was performed through an abdominal incision. I vividly remember the moment when the doctor lifted out the whimpering baby and put it into a receptacle, which he then passed to me with instructions to put it on the fridge. Often I would go to the fridge and open the door slightly, full of wonder and feelings of ambivalence towards the tiny baby – who was later collected with the rest of the department’s biological waste.
The very next week after witnessing that child being left to die, Wahlberg was back training in the delivery ward. Her very first patient was giving birth to a disabled baby. The child was expected to be born with a clubfoot. When the baby was born, his deformities were more extensive. Wahlberg says:
[I] was fully prepared for the fact that there would be an abnormality. In fact both feet were deformed and even the child’s head was deformed, and much of the brain was missing.
Despite the baby’s condition, this child was wanted. Doctors and nurses immediately fought to save his life.
My clinical teacher had instructed me to immediately follow all of the resuscitation procedures necessary. A pediatrician was called in, oxygen was connected up, alternating hot and cold baths for the infant were prepared, and so on.
Because one child was wanted by his mother, doctors and nurses fought hard to save his life. The unwanted baby was pulled from his mother’s womb and died with no help from the same medical professionals that fought so valiantly to save the other baby. Wahlberg says:
Once again I felt great ambivalence. How can one make such a distinction between children? The first was taken out far too early – an apparently perfect and clearly viable little human being – and was then ignored. The other, born at full term, had such severe defects that any life–supporting measures were doomed to failure. Despite this, every possible resource was used to save this gravely ill and badly deformed child, but not the other healthy, living fetus.
Ever since that time I have tried to answer the question “What in fact is a human being?
Vivian Wahlberg Memories After Abortion (Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing, 2007) 7
A midwife for almost 9 years, I can testify that babies born from late abortions (case of abortion on medical grounds) without feticide, usually between 20 and 24 weeks gestation, may be born alive. The medical team is then often uncomfortable and either puts the baby in a tray in a separate room until he stops showing signs of life, or asks a gynecologist, anesthetist or pediatrician for a morphine injection in the cord that some accept … or not. For my part, I have already proposed to concerned couples that if the baby was alive at birth, to lay him on the woman’s stomach for him to die with dignity. Two couples agreed.
I recently decided not to participate in abortions on demand or abortions on medical grounds and to apply my conscience clause, which I can do because I am incumbent. I will probably leave the relevant services, including the delivery room. Those contractual employees who would apply their conscience clause are threatened with not having their contracts renewed.
In my experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to protect the right to abortion, an embryo or fetus is considered to be a person by medical practitioners under two conditions:
1. The child must be wanted by the parents and
2. The child must be “normal” and not “disabled” (with all the risks that such a subjective term permits).
As soon as the fetus fails to meet these conditions, it is just considered to be waste… It’s terrible to say, but that is the truth.
