Late Term Abortions Archives - Page 4 of 9

Teenager, drug addict, and clinic worker all have late term abortions

An abortion clinic covered in a news story does late term abortions. The reporter describes the cases of two people who come in for them.

“Leslie” was 23 weeks. Her baby was healthy and so was she.

“I didn’t know how they’d respond,” said Leslie, explaining why she kept her pregnancy secret[from her family]. She is still not sure why she took 23 weeks to make her decision, but her youth finally convinced her to abort. “I can’t take care of it,” she said. “I’m still in high school. Some [friends] told me to keep it, but …” Her voice trailed off.”

The article talks about the other late term abortion taking place that day

The other was a mild-mannered IV drug user with hepatitis and an abusive boyfriend. She’d gone through counseling at the clinic early in her pregnancy and was so conflicted that she repeatedly canceled appointments and didn’t show up for the procedure until she was 18 weeks along.

One of the clinic workers had also had a late term abortion. She says:

In her own case, Greenough chose to abort because her daughter was found to have a potentially fatal heart condition…

Greenough remembers the first question she was asked by her doctor: How are you with termination? … an eventual heart transplant might have saved Greenough’s daughter, though she would have been severely handicapped….

The abortion procedure would have consisted of poisoning the baby in utero and then inducing labor.

““We gave birth,” said Greenough, who explained that the process didn’t include the usual contractions. “She came out on her own.”

When Greenough thinks back on the procedure, she has no regrets about her decision, but she does wish that she had been more interactive, taking the opportunity to hold, bathe and dress the fetus that arrived with recognizable facial features. “I was scared to death of her. No one explained that she would be perfectly formed,” she said.

Greenough treasures the mementos she does have, the pictures and the footprints the hospital provided.

Chrisanne Beckner “Inside the abortion clinic” Newsreview.com January 29, 2004

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Clinic worker gives reasons women have second trimester abortions

The article “Inside the abortion clinic” on why late term abortions are done

Most [patients] awaited first-trimester abortions (a simple suction procedure performed in the first three months of pregnancy).

But every week, the clinic serves at least a few women who are deep into their second trimesters, which necessitates a more-complex procedure performed up to the end of the sixth month—California’s legal limit of 24 weeks.

According to clinic staff, women who wait past the first three

months of pregnancy do so for countless reasons, some of them tragic, such as when a wanted pregnancy develops some fatal abnormality.

Other women can’t decide whether to risk parenthood as teenagers; have partners who discourage abortion; didn’t know they were pregnant (extreme athleticism can disrupt normal menstruation); have partners who die or leave; have a condition in which pregnancy dangerously affects their health; can’t handle the financial burden; are in denial; or postpone their decisions because of drug addiction.

Sometimes, women seek abortions because they only want boys, and they’re pregnant with girls.

“It’s different every day,” said [clnic worker] Britta.

….

In a year, the clinic handles between 2,000 and 3,000 first-trimester abortions, estimated Britta, and anywhere from 500 to 800 second-trimester abortions.

Chrisanne Beckner “Inside the abortion clinic” Newsreview.com January 29, 2004

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Doctor: “Therapeutic” abortion is never necessary

“Thousands of physicians across the United States, each of whom has cared for hundreds of mothers and infants during their respective years of practice, state firmly that they have never in these thousands of pregnancies seen a single instance where the life of the infant had to be sacrificed to save the mother, nor have they seen a situation where a mother has been lost for failure of the physician to perform an abortion. In fact, in more than 13 years of obstetrical practice, I never lost a mother from any cause… With today’s advanced medical knowledge and practice, a “therapeutic” abortion is never necessary, because competent physicians, using the latest medical and surgical techniques, can preserve the lives of both the mother and the child.”

Dr. John L Grady, former Chief of Staff at Glades General Hospital in Florida

Quoted in Kent Kelly Abortion (Southern Pines: Calvary Press, 1981) 96

If this was true in 1981, and must be even more true today, more than 30 years later, when medicine has advanced

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Pro-choice author: 2nd & 3rd trimester abortions are “overwhelmingly” done for reasons other than health

From pro-choice author Sarah Erdreich:

“While 88% of abortions are performed within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, women who have abortions later in their pregnancies overwhelmingly cite a delay in making the necessary arrangements, including raising money and getting an appointment as the reasons for having 2^nd or 3^rd trimester procedures.”

Sarah Erdreich Generation Roe: inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2013) 19

This means that babies aborted in the 2nd and 3rd trimester are “overwhelmingly” aborted because their mothers had difficulty making arrangements to kill them. These women, therefore, are not suffering from serious health problems. Rather, 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions are done “overwhelmingly” on healthy mothers with healthy children. Below you can see the hand of a baby aborted at 28 weeks. Is it acceptable for a woman to have an abortion this late because she was unable to arrange an abortion earlier?

Incidentally, price is often cited as a major reason why women have late abortions. Women have a hard time coming up with the money to pay for the procedure, which can be very expensive and which gets more expensive as each week goes by. Perhaps if abortion clinics are so dedicated to women having access to abortion, they could lower their prices and take slightly smaller profits. Pretty unlikely though.

Sonogram at 26 weeks. Candidate for an abortion for convenience — Sonogram at 26 weeks. Candidate for an abortion

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Abortionist: abortions at 26 weeks are “not unusual”

Dr. Leroy Carhart, who sends women to his Germantown, Maryland clinic to evade late-term bans in other states, was caught on tape speaking to the frequency of elective late term abortions. The women who was asking the questions was 26 weeks along:

WOMAN: [Seeking elective abortion at 26 weeks] So you don’t see a lot of women like me?
CARHART: Well, saw four this week, so.
WOMAN: Ok. At 26 weeks?
CARHART: Yeah.
WOMAN: Wow.
CARHART: Or more.
WOMAN: All right.
CARHART : Or more.
WOMAN: So I’m not unusual?
CARHART: No not at all.

Marjorie Dannenfelser Most late-term abortions are elective The Hill’s Congress Blog 10/15/13

This quote is from an undercover Live Action video.See this video and others here.

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Dr. Warren Hern and abortion in the 9th month of pregnancy

“She was raped. I’m very sympathetic, but I can’t risk my medical license for someone who just didn’t get around to doing anything about it. I’ve done some cases over thirty-six weeks, but very few.”

JOHN H. RICHARDSON “The Last Abortion Doctor” EsquireAugust 5, 2009

Late term abortionist Dr. Warren Hern, on how he refused to do an abortion on a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy

Note that his fear of losing his license is the main concern. He does not seem to have any moral qualms about doing an abortion in the days right before birth, and, in fact admits that he has done them.

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Women having abortions after 16 weeks are wealthier, article says

An article in Salon magazine reveals that women seeking late term abortions are often wealthier than those who have early abortions.

“If they’re having abortions after 16 weeks, they tend to be slightly more affluent. This was a slightly surprising finding of the study – that “women with family incomes 200-plus-percent of poverty were more likely than poor women to be second trimester abortion patients obtaining abortions at 16-plus weeks.”

IRIN CARMON “Why women have second trimester abortions” Salon DEC 21, 2011

These are not necessarily poor, uneducated women who are getting late term abortions. Most late term abortions are on healthy women with healthy babies.

See a picture of what a 16 week old baby looks like after an abortion

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Late-term abortionist: injecting poison into the baby’s heart is the only way to guarantee death

“I have been unable in certain cases to actually put a needle into the heart for technical reasons or because the mother is obese or the fetus is in a particularly difficult position to gain access to the heart. When you put these agents not in the heart or near the heart, you can’t guarantee fetal death.”

Dr. Marilynn C. Frederiksen, abortionist, in sworn testimony in National Abortion Federation, et. al. v. Ashcroft, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, April 6, 2004

She is describing a late-term abortion technique, usually practiced in the late second and third trimester, were poisoned (usually digoxin) is injected into the baby to kill him or her and then labor is induced. These abortions are more dangerous to the mother then going through the birth of the baby would be, and babies are sometimes born alive.

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Former clinic worker: abortionist was like “a spider trapping insects,” convincing women to abort

Luhra Tivis Worked with Dr. George Tiller, the infamous late-term abortionist who was assassinated a few years ago. (An act that was condemned by all mainstream pro-life groups). She says of her time working there:

“It became apparent to me, after about eight weeks, that something was horribly wrong. I was frightened by what I saw. These late abortions were not, as Dr. Tiller had told me, being done for compelling medical reasons. Viable babies were being destroyed simply on demand. Week after week, I saw in the medical records the clear evidence of a violence beyond anything I could’ve imagined.

Like a spider trapping insects, Dr. Tiller lured the mothers into his clinic each week. I was instructed to falsify the ages of the babies in the medical records. I was required to lie to the mothers over the phone, as they scheduled their appointments, and tell them that they were “not that far along.” That I had to note, in the records, that Dr. Tiller’s needle had successfully pierced the walls of the baby’s heart, injecting the poison that brought death. It was a horror that pierced my own heart.

Each week, as the mothers came in and I checked them off for their appointment, I tried to maintain my composure. I hid my impulse to turn them away, to plead for the lives of their children. It was particularly sinister that this great evil was being conducted and, what, to all appearances, was an ordinary medical clinic.”

Luhra Tivis “Where is the real violence?” Celebrate life, September – October 1994, 31 – 33

28 weeks – Dr. Tiller regularly aborted babies at this age and older

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Abortion is “technically problematic” after 24 weeks

From one medical textbook:

24 weeks – still legal to aborted many US states and throughout Canada — 24 weeks – still legal to abort in many US states and throughout Canada

“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

In fact, children have survived being born at as early as 21 weeks.

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