Yale Daily News covered the Reproductive Rights Action League at Yale (RALY) and the Yale Medical Students for Choice commemoration of Roe v. Wade. The participants simulated doing abortions.
Here’s what one of the organizers—a medical student at Yale named Rasha Khoury—said in the article.
“It’s not as scary as it seems. It’s just blood and mucus,” Khoury said, referring to the fetus remains in the device. She added, “You’ll be able to see arms and stuff, but still just miniscule.” . . .
She also said of the women coming in to have abortions:
“Often times, women are crying and cursing and saying they’re going to hell,” Khoury said. “It may be a quick and easy medical procedure, but it definitely is a very involved social-medical procedure.”…
8 weeks
After pro-lifers started blogging about the quotes, the online version of the article was edited to remove them.
Also from the original article:
Evans and Khoury also explained the finer points of abortion-clinic etiquette, including some potentially sensitive terminology. Khoury said physicians performing abortions generally refer to the aborted fetus remains as “POC,” an acronym for “product of conception,” and refer to fetus’ hearts as “FH.”
From an editorial on abortion doctor’s emotional response to a D&E (dismemberment) abortion:
“[A] physician performing a D&E must deal with the second trimester foetus in an intimate, physical way…ossified parts, such as the skull, must be crushed. The bone fragments must be extracted carefully to avoid tearing the cervix. Reconstruction of the fetal sections after removal from the uterus is necessary to ensure completeness of the abortion procedure. “
“Emotional Impact of D&E vs. Instillation,” Family Planning Perspectives 1977
From Abortion: A Briefing for Canadian Legislators . National Public Affairs Office, Campaign Life Coalition Suite 100, 1355 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON K1Y 3C2
Dr. Cassing Hammond, abortionist, on what he tells women who come in for a second trimester D&E abortion:
“But does that mean that we don’t share with them, that this involves dismemberment or separation of parts of the fetus or taking the fetus apart? We do. And we use that term. We say we take the fetus apart. We say, it is coming out in pieces and we make sure that that’s clear with the patients. And they understand it.”
Dr. Cassing Hammond, abortionist, in sworn testimony in National Abortion Federation, et. al. v. Ashcroft, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, April 1, 2004
“The size of the conceptus at this stage in pregnancy [Post 24 weeks gestation] makes D&E technically problematic… Delivery of a fetus after 24 weeks gestation will frequently result in an infant capable of survival…”
Joe Leigh Simpson, M.D. and Sherman Elias, M.D. Essentials of Prenatal Diagnosis (Churchill Livingstone, 1993) 327
The baby below was aborted intact at 24 weeks. He or she was most likely injected with poison before being delivered, This method was used because dismemberment with forceps would have been difficult.
Dr. Martin Haskell, an abortionist, said the following:
“It’s not unusual at the start of D&E procedures that a limb is acquired first and that that limb is brought through the cervix … prior to disarticulation and prior to anything having been done that would have caused the fetal demise up to that point.”
Sworn testimony given in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, May 27, 1999, Case No. 98-C-0305-S), by Dr. Martin Haskell,
Dr. Haskell is describing dismembering a baby alive. He brings one arm or leg down into the cervix and dismembers it before proceeding with the rest of the abortion. You can see this in a diagram below
Here is a leg left behind from one such abortion at 16 weeks:
In this excerpt from the testimony at one of the partial-birth abortion ban trials, an abortionist is asked what kills the baby during a late term trimester abortion.
Q. Now, the actions that you just discussed, separating the cord, crushing the skull, or disarticulation, do you know which of any of these would be immediately fatal?
A. No. I have no idea, because I don’t — I don’t know. –
Dr. William Fitzhugh, abortionist, in sworn testimony in Carhart vs. Ashcroft, Lincoln, NE, March 30, 2004.
RH Reality Check had article by Kathleen Reeves in response to another article where another pro-choicer describes witnessing an abortion.
9 to 10-week-old unborn baby – almost half of all abortions happen at this time or later
“I’ve witnessed abortions not as a journalist but as a volunteer at Planned Parenthood. I assist the doctor, scrub technician, and anesthetist with room set-up and other simple tasks during the procedure, and I support the patients before, during, and after the abortion—taking their blood pressure, encouraging them to breathe deeply if they’re upset or in pain, holding their hands. It’s true that it’s an intense emotional experience, especially the first time you witness it. First, it’s overwhelming for someone outside the medical profession, like Sarah Kliff, and me, to be present for a surgical procedure.”…. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, after my first day at Planned Parenthood. I think it’s wise that Kliff, after writing about abortion for years, has finally seen the procedure. If she’d like to further explore her emotional reaction to it, I’m sure her local Planned Parenthood would be glad to have her help.”
While early suction abortion may not reveal recognizable body parts, later abortions do. The person witnessing abortion may not see the recognizable parts traveling down the suction tube, but carefully examining the remains as early as 7 weeks post-conception will show arms and legs in the aftermath.
In the partial-birth abortion ban trials, one abortionist was asked whether or not he tells his patients how he is going to kill their babies when they come in for abortions. The partial-birth abortion procedure is done by delivering an infant part of the way out of the womb and then injecting a pair of surgical scissors or syring into the back of the baby’s head and suctioning out the brain.Here, the abortionist is asked if he tells his patients he will be “sucking out the brain” of the unborn baby they plan to abort:
THE WITNESS: I’m … not exactly sure what using terminology like sucking the brains out would –
THE COURT: That’s what happens, doesn’t it?
THE WITNESS: Well, in some situations that might happen. There are different ways that an after-coming head could be dealt with but that is one way of describing it.
Testimony of abortionist Dr Timothy Johnson, National Abortion Federation, et. al. v. Ashcroft, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, March 31, 2004.
It took years, but partial-birth abortions were finally banned in the United States. Pro-choice activists fought tooth and nail to prevent this from happening; the first time the ban was passed President Clinton vetoed it. Later, it went to the Supreme Court and was found unconstitutional. Finally, with a change of the Supreme Court justices and some revisions, it passed, and now this type of abortion is illegal. However, other abortion techniques just as gruesome are still allowed.
Abortionist Martin Haskell originated the D&X [partial birth] procedure because:
“… most surgeons find dismemberment [i.e., D&E] at twenty weeks and beyond to be difficult due to the toughness of fetal tissues at this stage of development.”
Martin Haskell, M.D. “Dilatation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion.” National Abortion Federation conference proceedings Second Trimester Abortion: From Every Angle, September 13-14, 1992, Dallas, Texas
