Category: Abortion Providers Speak

RU486 abortions, done by a combination pill (to kill the baby) and suppository (to induce labor) are often done before features of the baby are discernable. But not always. One woman discussed seeing her aborted baby. She had had two previous surgical abortions:

“There was a little bit of regret about seeing [the fetus], because it had little hands. I remember little fists. I felt more responsible this time.”

Debra Rosenberg and Michele Ingrassia “Blood and Tears” Newsweek Sept 18, 1995. Vol 126, Issue 12

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Abortionist Dr. Don Sloan discusses the D & E abortion:

“With the D&E, as with any suction procedure, the materials passing through the suction tip are easy to see, and at that stage, the clear polyethylene tubing and the translucent plastic cannula are of a large enough bore to allow you to identify what you are seeing. In fact, it’s medically required that you do so, to confirm that the abortion is total and the uterus empty. Out pass the limbs, the intestines and the various internal organs. Most important, it is imperative for the operator to be convinced that the skull tissue has passed, this being the largest part of the fetus formed at that stage of pregnancy.”

Don Sloan, M.D., with Paula Hartz. Choice: A Doctor’s Experience with the Abortion Dilemma (New York: New York International Publishers) 1992 p 187

To read more about the D&E abortion method, go here

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This quote is from a medical student who observed abortions in a Planned Parenthood clinic.

“Really it’s just inserting a vacuum device into the woman’s cervix and sucking out all the contents of the uterus. First the cervix is numbed up with some lidocaine and another drug that constricts blood vessels so that there’s less bleeding. Then her cervix is dilated (how much depends on how far along she is) with these metal rod-dy things. Then a plastic tube attached to the vacuum device is placed in her uterus, the vacuum is turned on, and then the tube is moved back and forth while rotating it to suck it all out. Then an ultrasound is done through the vagina to make sure the gestational sac is gone. Then we looked at what was sucked out after they wash out the blood and strain it. The first patient I saw was at 11 weeks and some days. I completely wasn’t expecting it, but there were fetal parts. Like hands. And legs. And kidneys. It was pretty shocking. But, of course, after the initial shock, I was fine. I was actually fascinated by it. Until I saw one with a face. Complete with eyeballs…It’s amazing to think that all of this can form within only a couple of weeks…”

Blog Entry “I Love Uteri” posted on Thursday, July 7, 2005

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Author Sue Hertz spent a year observing in a busy abortion clinic. Here are a few excerpts from her book:

“It was easy to shrug off an aborted pregnancy as nothing more than a sack of blood and globs of tissue – as many pro-choice activists did- if one never saw fetal remains, or products of conception (POC) as they were known in medical circles. But the nurses, medical assistants, and doctors who worked inside procedure rooms …knew that an eleven-week-old POC harbored tiny arms and legs and feet with toes. At twelve weeks, those tiny hands had tiny nails. Although the fetal head was too small at this stage to withstand the evacuation machine’s suction, pieces of face- a nose and mouth, or a black eye…were sometimes found in the aftermath…Later abortions spawned even more gruesome fetal remains…the head did not come out whole during the evacuation, but the legs and arms and rib cage made it through intact. The hand of a second trimester fetus, as a Preterm doctor described it, seemed big enough to shake.”

 

Sue Hertz Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion’s Front Line (New York: Prentice Hill Press, 1991) p 104

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From a New York Times author:

“After an abortion, the doctor must inspect these remains to make sure that all the fetal parts and placenta have been removed. Any tissue left inside the uterus can start an infection. Dr. Bours squeezed the contents of the sock into a shallow dish and poked around with his finger. “You can see a teeny tiny hand,” he said.”

Abortion Provider Dr. Bours

Dudley Clendinen, “The Abortion Conflict: What it Does to One Doctor” New York Times Magazine Aug 11 1985 p 26

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“During the procedure, Doris would offer her hand for the patient to squeeze, or if the abortion were particularly painful, a notepad for the patient to bite…Doris knew what [the abortionist] was doing at the end of the examination table as he pored over the legs and ribs and hands, but she chose not to look. It wasn’t that Doris ignored the truth, but rather that her commitment was to the woman, not the fetus…”

Sue Hertz Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion’s Front Line (New York: Prentice Hill Press, 1991) p 109

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From an author who witnessed in abortion:

“…[the doctor] removed from the glass jar cheesecloth sack which caught the fetal parts, dumping the parts into a basin at the end of the table, between [the patient’s] feet. Two legs, two arms, two fists, a skull, a backbone, a placenta. “We’ve got it” he announced.”

.Sue Hertz Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion’s Front Line (New York: Prentice Hill Press, 1991) 114

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A spokesperson for an abortion clinic met with pro-choice leaders to discuss a legislative plan to defend legal abortion. The group was discussing a plan to defend abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, up until birth:

“These people are political activists, Fran thought. Their work was critical to protecting abortion rights, but how many of them knew the reality of abortion, had seen the reality of what it destroyed? Fran felt like standing up and saying to those arguing for unrestricted abortions,

“You haven’t seen the little feet. They look just like the little feet pushpins that the antis wear.” As a provider at Repro once said, if half the pro-choice people saw the fetal remains of a 2nd trimester abortion, they would jump the fence into the antis’ arms.”

Sue Hertz Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion’s Front Line (New York: Prentice Hill Press, 1991) 122

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“But when I look in the basin, among the curdlike blood clots, I see and elfin thorax, attentuated, its pencilline ribs all in parallel rows with tiny knobs of spine rounding upwards. A translucent arm and hand swim beside.”

Clinic Worker Sallie Tisdale

Tisdale “We Do Abortions Here” Harpers Magazine October 1987

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“I am walking out the back door, and I see a plastic jar of tissue and blood waiting to be sent to the path lab, and in the plastic jar a tiny perfect white hand. . . “

Clinic worker Ann Finger

.Ann Finger Past Due Seal Press 1990, p 86

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