A woman who flies from clinic to clinic doing abortions told a reporter about the pain her own abortion caused her. Abortionist “Clara” had an abortion when she was younger, and does abortions. now. “Clara” recalls:
“I felt fine when I walked in the room, laid down, and then all of a sudden I had pain that I didn’t know was possible. Labor pain starts slowly and goes on and on and on. This is much shorter. You feel absolutely fine, and then you suddenly feel attacked by this person between your legs.”
Now she is the attacker.
Sharyn Jackson “Undercover” The Santa Fe Reporter October 5, 2011
Pro-choice activist Judith Arcana, who has done abortions, says:
“I think abortion belongs in the same context as assisted suicide, euthanasia, even war and domestic self-defense – all situations that require the taking of life with moral, ethical knowledge and acceptance of responsibility.”
“Aerial and satellite views of urban centers taken over a period of years bore a striking similarity to images of cancerous tissue (particularly melanoma) invading the healthy surrounding tissue. … In many parts of the world the increase in human numbers is rapid and uncontrolled, that it invades and destroys habitats, and that by killing off many species it reduces the differentiation of nature. All of these features are characteristics of cancerous tumors.”
Warren Hern, speaking at the November 1998 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Philadelphia he organized, in answer to the question “Is the human species a cancer on the planet?” “Anthropologist Symposium Calls Human Beings a Cancer Infecting Planet Earth.” Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (CAFHRI) Friday FAX, January 1, 1999.
An abortion doula, who encourages women while they have abortions, recalls talking to a girl about to have an abortion:
“Another patient asks, “Do you think I’m too young for an abortion?” I tell her no; I think she’s making a really responsible choice. She looks at me, says, “Do you even know how old I am?” I shake my head no. “I’m 14,” she says.”
A supervisor at an abortion clinic says the following:
“I feel it’s important for women to acknowledge that sometimes they have got a choice, even though it’s not a very good one. Like living on welfare, it is a choice, even though it’s not attractive. You acknowledge that people have got a choice, even if it is a very small amount of choice because of their circumstances…
Women may say, oh, I don’t want to have a baby because I haven’t enough money, or my partner and I haven’t known one another very long. When I feel it’s good just to say, I don’t want a baby at the moment. I think that’s perfectly all right. There’s nothing stronger than that, when you think of what it takes to have a baby.”
Dr. Robert Spencer was an illegal abortionist who operated before Roe Vs. Wade. He did over 100,000 abortions over the years.
According to his biography, he was devastated when, as a child, he accidentally killed a duck:
“Robert [Spencer] had convinced his father to buy him some baby ducks. He delighted in herding them around the yard with a stick. One day, he accidentally struck one of them too hard in the head, killing the duckling. For days he was inconsolable. He made a vow never to mistreat another animal.”
Vincent J Genovese The Angel of Ashland: Practicing Compassionand Tempting Fate (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2000) 18
He would go on to kill 100,000 babies and leave 100,000 women emotionally (and sometimes physically) scarred for life.
An abortion doula, who works in a clinic comforting women who have abortions, writes about the small talk she engages in while the woman’s baby is being killed:
“Some of the doulas and some of the patients believe in astrology. Mitchell had said that it was a great thing to talk to patients about because everyone loves hearing about themselves, but I never memorized all the signs. Instead, I default to the Kardashians, whom most patients either love or hate. Waiting for the doctor, we exchange theories, discuss which sister is the most annoying, and debate whether anything on the TV show is real. We also talk about what food they will eat when they’re out, since they’ve been fasting since midnight to meet anesthesia requirements. To the morning patients, I say, “Well, at least you’re not in the afternoon.” To the afternoon patients, I just say, “You’ll be able to eat soon.” The doulas I talk to in North Carolina tell their patients the protestors will be gone by the time they leave.”
In this quote, an abortion doula (a volunteer who comforts women while they have their abortions) responds to a woman who is on the table about to have an abortion. The woman having an abortion is named Kim:
“Kim exhales, looks up at the ceiling then back at Kat [the doula]. “Is it gonna hurt?”
Kat pauses. This is one of the most common questions a doula gets asked before a procedure. It’s covered extensively in training, and while every doula has a slightly different turn of phrase, there is a standard approach that the Doula Project and the clinics we work with use. “Do you get cramps with your period?”….
“You will feel something,” Kat explains, carefully choosing her words. “Everyone has a different reaction but for a few minutes it will feel like very strong period cramps.”
Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People (New York: Feminist Press, 2016) 86-87
Based on the anesthesia they get and their individual tolerance for pain, women say different things about the pain from an abortion. Some women say the pain was extreme
From a reporter who interviewed abortion doulas, abortion doulas work in clinics and help comfort women as they kill their babies:
“Vicki Bloom, who does birth and abortion work in New York, told me that … seeing tears on the table doesn’t mean the patient is having an emotional response — sometimes it just physically hurts. “There are people who can say, ‘I made this decision it was kind of tough; it was a really crappy day, but life goes on,’”
Two doulas who work in abortion clinics wrote in their book that they knew being honest about abortion (how it looked, and how it hurt women) would give ammunition to the pro-life side:
“We knew that acknowledging complicated feelings about abortion was going to be a delicate task and that being real about what an abortion actually looked like would be even more delicate. Asserting that someone might need support during an abortion? Forget it. Those were acknowledgments that many felt could be dangerous to the policies and laws in place that protect our right to choose.
Frequently, there was concern that we could be feeding the anti-choice [pro-life] movement with our perspectives.”
Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People (New York: Feminist Press, 2016) 18-19
