“I took drugs to wake up in the morning. I took speed while I was at work. And I smoked marijuana, drank lots of alcohol. . . . [T]his is the way that I coped with what I did. It was horrible to work there, and there was no good in it.”
Mary Meehan, “The Ex-Abortionists: Why They Quit,” Human Life Review26:2–3 (Spring-Summer 2000), 19.
Whitten had to see babies like the one below torn to pieces every day. It’s not surprising she turned to substance abuse.
9 weeks – babies at this age are torn apart and dismembered by a powerful suction machine in an abortionShare on Facebook
said working in abortion clinics has made him an outcast among physicians and denied him “a life with a house and a white picket fence and a wife and 3 children.” He lives alone, he says “thrown into a war zone,” and he “drinks beer at night to ease the pain.”
The Washington Post, May 7, 1993. Quoted in Mark Crutcher Access: the Key to Pro-Life Victory Life Dynamics Incorporated
Late term abortionist Dr. Warren Hern talks about the emotional impact of providing late term abortions:
In passing, the abortionist says you can never get used to this. Next time he gives you a minute, you ask him to elaborate.
You can’t, he says. I think we’re hardwired, biologically, to protect small, vulnerable creatures, especially babies. The fetuses may not be babies, but some of them are pretty close.
Since you’ve become wary of even saying the word baby around him, always using fetus instead, this surprises you. But he refuses to say any more. He suggests you read an essay called “What About Us? Staff Reactions to D&E.” The antiabortion people quote the shit out of it. It’s kind of antiabortion porn for them. But the pro-choice people don’t like it either. They don’t like it when you talk about how it really feels to do this work. His voice is somewhere between bitter and proud.
John H. Richardson “The last abortion doctor” EsquireSeptember 1, 2009
Hern provides abortions all the way up until birth at his Boulder, Colorado clinic. You can see him advertising to do third trimester abortions on his website.
Child in the womb at 7 months. Hern aborts babies this lateShare on Facebook
Shelley Mehigan, 42, is a clinical nurse who has specialised in family planning for 18 years. She says that watching abortions was hard at first, but she became hardened:
The longer I work in this area, the easier it becomes for me to cope with the issues.
I’ve taken part in some terminations, but I try to detach myself so I don’t feel so bad.
“The first time I attended a late termination it was upsetting. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t sometimes question what I was doing. But above all I believe that the woman must come first. In fact, I feel so strongly about this that when I was 20 weeks pregnant, I assisted in an NHS termination when all my colleagues refused on moral and religious grounds. …
I don’t look at it as the taking away a life because embryos cannot sustain life outside the womb. If women could not have abortions, what would happen to the thousands of unwanted babies?”
From an article in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology:
“Nurses. The experience of participating in any abortion procedure goes directly against the medical emphasis on the preservation of life. On the gynecology hospital floor, amnio abortions are viewed by the nurses as the most upsetting experiences which occur and a symbol of abandonment by the medical staff. The ward nurses’ comments speak clearly to the point of being left to cope with an upset patient who delivers late at night. … The nurses found the physical contact with the fetus particularly difficult; it reminded them of the “preemies” just down the hall and made them uncomfortable about their own potential future pregnancies.”
Nancy B. Kaltreider, Sadja Goldsmith, and Alan J. Margolis. “The Impact of Midtrimester Abortion Techniques on Patients and Staff.” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, September 15, 1979, pages 255 to 238.
Dr. Julius Butler, then professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said the following about abortionists:
“Remember, there is a human being at the other end of the table taking that kid apart. We’ve had guys drinking too much, taking drugs, even a suicide or two.”
Dr. Julius Butler, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Minnesota Medical School
Quoted from the Philadelphia Inquirer In Melody Green and Sharon Bennett “The Crime of Being Alive: Abortion, Euthanasia & Infanticide” last days ministries 1984 Publication 10 – 84
Note that he refers to a baby being aborted as “that kid” and not “that tissue” or “that collection of cells.”
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.
Abortionist Lisa Harris speaks about performing an abortion while she was pregnant, and feeling her own baby Just as she was pulling the leg off of the baby she was aborting.Sadly, this did not make her stop doing abortions.
18 week old unborn baby
When I was a little over 18 weeks pregnant with my now pre-school child, I did a second trimester abortion for a patient who was also a little over 18 weeks pregnant. As I reviewed her chart I realized that I was more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts when I was done, since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus. I went about doing the procedure as usual, removed the laminaria I had placed earlier and confirmed I had adequate dilation. I used electrical suction to remove the amniotic fluid, picked up my forceps and began to remove the fetus in parts, as I always did. I felt lucky that this one was already in the breech position – it would make grasping small parts (legs and arms) a little easier. With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick – a fluttery “thump, thump” in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a “thump, thump” in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes – without me – meaning my conscious brain – even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling – a brutally visceral response – heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life. Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.
Abortionist Bruce Ferguson quit doing abortions. When an undercover pro-lifer asked why he was decided to stop doing abortions. he said:
“[I’m] just leaving the practice, retiring. Stemming to my health, my family and my sanity… The past several years, each year has been a little slower than the year before as far as numbers of patients, so… It’s just time to let someone else carry on the burden.”
It is understandable that ripping unborn babies (like the one below) from the womb and examining their dismembered bodies is emotionally taxing after a while. I hope this abortionist finds help, perhaps through And Then There Were None, Abby Johnson’s ministry to former clinic workers and abortionists.
8 week old unborn baby – most abortions are done at this time or laterFrom a baby aborted at eight weeksShare on Facebook
