Category: Born Alive after an Abortion

Pro-lifer Nancy Creger Tells the following story. She was doing research for Georgia State Senator Joe Burton on a pro-life bill at Vital Records.

“As I was writing down the names of clinics, the Vital Records director looked at me and said:

“They are having live births at Midtown Hospital.”

Midtown, I learned, specialized in late-term abortions, and advertised in newspapers up and down the East Coast. I asked her how she knew this, and she said she got the death certificates. She explained that birth records were confidential, but death records were public information. We put in a request for a computer search to be done of all births at Midtown. Since Midtown was an all-abortion hospital specializing in late-term, we knew that there should not be any live births reported. However, since birth records were confidential, the Vital Records specialist had to do a computer search of all of the death certificates and compare them with the birth records – a computer match. These guys were anxious to get this information out. I was the perfect vehicle.

They photocopied the death certificates and greatly enlarged them, put them in an envelope and gave them to me.

I took them home, spread them out on my bedroom floor, and cried.

Then I called Ted Turner’s CNN. I knew that this was a huge scandal, and that CNN would give it national coverage. The reporter for CNN was young, and this story was hot. She met with me and I gave her all of my documents – the death certificates – everything. In those days I was very naive, just beginning my long career in investigative journalism. She had the camera team reserved for the day and they were scheduled to start filming at Midtown. Later she informed me that the story had been cancelled. It took many, many phone calls to CNN to get my documents returned to me. Someone at CNN wanted the story buried, just like today with the abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell story of the massacre of babies at his clinic. I never met her again, and my stuff was left at the guard shack at CNN.”

….

Death certificates revealed that in 1980 10 babies survived abortions at Midtown, in 1981 three survived and as of October 1982 one had survived.

One baby lived for 13 hours and five minutes, the longest time; one died in 20 minutes. In addition to the 13-hour survivor, seven others lived for more than an hour, ranging from one hour and 45 minutes to six hours and 20 minutes. Death certificates gave no indication any of the 14 were transported to the neonatal unit at Grady Hospital or any other facility specializing in the care of premature babies. Midtown Hospital asserted that transporting a surviving baby to a hospital was the attending physician’s decision to make.

Nine of the 14 death certificates listed “hospital disposal” or “Midtown Hospital” under the category of “cemetery or crematory name.”

Nancy Creger “Gosnell is Not New: Babies Were Born Alive After Abortions in 1983” LifeNews.com 5/5/13

This is far from an isolated incident. Read more cases of babies born alive after abortions, and denied medical care, here. Hear the testimony of a woman who was born alive after an abortion and survived..

From an article in The Pittsburgh Press about babies born alive after abortions:

“One nurse testified that the [aborted alive] child gasped for breath for at least 15 minutes following the abortion and no attempts were made to help it in any way. She said she observed a pulse in the upper chest, left neck area. Another nurse said she had seen the baby move and that “one of the foreign residents, who was observing, baptized the child.” According to testimony, someone in the room ordered a lethal dose of morphine, but no one administered it.”

John Martin, editor, The Daily Chronicle, Centralia – Chehalis, WA, citing the Pittsburgh Press of November 1, 1974

Read more about babies born alive after abortions

An article in the Medical World News from 1977 contains the following disturbing statement:

“About once a day, somewhere in the US, something goes wrong and an abortion results in a live baby.”

The article also gives this statistic:

“45 of the 670 trimester abortions done in Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut between 1974 1976 resulted in live births.”

“Avoiding Tough Abortion Complications, a Live Birth” Medical World News, November 14, 1977

Why were live births after abortion so common then? It may have been because many abortions were done by saline injections, which were supposed to poison the baby, and then labor was induced – but sometimes the saline failed, and a live baby was born. Live births still happen today, generally when poison is injected into the baby’s amniotic sac, but fails to kill him or her. More often, however, babies in the second trimester are killed through D&E, where they are dismembered in utero and therefore there is no chance of them being born alive. Read more about babies born alive after abortions in this section

During the 1980s and early 90s, the most common type of 2nd and 3rd trimester abortion was saline abortion, where a caustic salt solution was injected into the woman’s womb, slowly poisoning the baby and burning her skin. The woman would then go into labor and give birth to a dead baby. In some cases, however, the baby would be born alive.

Here is how one abortion clinic dealt with their live births:’

“At the time of delivery, it has been our policy to wrap the fetus in a towel. The fetus is then moved to another room while our attention is turned to the care of [the woman]. She is examined to determine whether complete placental expulsion has occurred and the extent of vaginal bleeding. Once we are sure her condition is stable, the fetus is evaluated. Almost invariably, all signs of life had ceased.”

Liz Jeffries and Rick Edmonds, “Abortion: the Dreaded Complication.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 2, 1981.

An abortionist said

“We use urea to be certain that we affect fetal death. It is unsettling to all personnel to deliver these fetuses when they are not stillborn.”

Ferguson JE, Burkett BJ, Pinkerton JV, Thiagarajah S, Flather MM, Martel MM, at al. Intraamniotic 15 (s) – 15 methyl prostaglandin, F2 Alpha and Termination of Middle and Late Second Trimester Pregnancy for Genetic Indications; a Contemporary Approach. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1993 August; 169 ((2 PT 1)) 332 – 9; discussion 339 – 40, P340