Quotes Archives - Page 132 of 350

Pro-choice author: laws describing sonograms make me “question humanity”

From pro-choice author Roxane Gay:

“In the race to see who can punish women the most for daring to make these choices, Texas has outdone itself, going so far as to require women to receive multiple sonograms, to be told about all the services available to encourage them to be pregnant, and most diabolically, to listen to the doctor narrate the sonogram.

This legislation designed to control reproductive freedom is so craven as to make you question humanity. It is repulsive.”

Laws requiring women to get sonograms in fact make abortion safer for women because they are the most accurate way to date pregnancies (determining which abortion instruments can be used safely) and detect tubal/ectopic pregnancies (which can be fatal if not detected and allowed to rupture) before an abortion, and the most accurate way to find retained bits of tissue that can cause an infection after an abortion

And being forced to learn about the unborn baby on a sonogram makes Gay “question humanity”, is “craven”, and “repulsive” but the abortion depicted below is fine? Which is more repulsive- learning facts about fetal development of doing this to a preborn baby?

21 week abortion, legal in most states — is this repulsive?

Doing this to a baby at this age is legal in most states thanks to the efforts of people like Gay. And to be fair, in case I’m accused of only showing rare late term abortions, here is an abortion at 8 weeks, a time when most abortions are performed

Late term abortionist: ‘I’m proud of what I do’

Dr. Leroy Carhart, late term abortoinist

“Abortion is not a four-letter word. I’m proud of what I do.”

Sarah Kliff “The Abortion Evangelist” Newsweek August 31, 2009

This is what Dr. Carhart is proud to be doing:

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Reporter describes counseling of 14-year-old abortion patient

A reporter at an abortion clinic wrote about a young patient who came in:

DeNeese…has never heard of Roe v. Wade. She’s not even in high school yet. At age 14, five months after losing her virginity, she’s now almost 14 weeks pregnant – the maximum length of pregnancy that this clinic will handle.

“I didn’t realize I was this far along,” says DeNeese, a petite girl with large brown eyes and close-cropped hair….

The father of her baby is her steady boyfriend, and when she got pregnant, there was no discussion of keeping the baby. “I just told him I’m having an abortion,” she says. “I don’t think I ever wanna have kids.

DeNeese has full parental support. With her stepmother at her side, DeNeese listens to counselor Jessica Huertas like a schoolgirl who’s been sent to the principal’s office. DeNeese leans over the table, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes rolling as Ms. Huertas delivers a mini-tutorial on how she must continue to use condoms even after she gets a Depo-Provera shot that will keep her from getting pregnant for three months.

No one suggests that DeNeese might want to try sexual abstinence. “We have to be realistic,” says Ms. Monastersky, the clinic director, later in the day. “This girl is going back to her boyfriend and he’s going to say, ‘Oh baby, I love you….’ and well, you know.”

Linda Feldmann “Abortion: Uneasy Day at the Clinic” The Christian Science Monitor JANUARY 22, 1998

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Unborn babies have “diverse repertoire of movements”

Until healthy [unborn] babies were first observed by ultrasound in extensive studies in the 1980s while the mothers were resting quietly, it was not known that babies have such a diverse repertoire of movements at this early time, and perform these so smoothly and so frequently. It was a revelation that movements are polished almost from their first appearance and do not start in a clumsy and poorly coordinated way… The system is innately fine-tuned from the start and by exercise it is maintained in working order.

Geraldine Lux Flanagan, Beginning Life (New York: DK, 1996) 9.

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Unborn babies can see at 3 months

Does a fetus see anything? It is known that the eye can sense light as early as the third month of pregnancy. Sometimes when an endoscope is inserted into the amniotic sac, a fetus tries to protect its eyes from the light on the instrument, either by turning away or by using its hands and fingers.

Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger, A Child is Born, 4th edition. (New York: Bantum Dell, 2003) 141.

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Atheist Christopher Hitchens on the “unborn child”

As a materialist, I think it has been demonstrated that an embryo is a separate body and entity, and not merely (as some really did used to argue) a growth on or in the female body. There used to be feminists who would say that it was more like an appendix or even—this was seriously maintained—a tumor. That nonsense seems to have stopped… The words “unborn child,” even when used in a politicized manner, describe a material reality.

Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Hachette Book Group. Kindle Edition, 2009), 378-379

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“Some women come in for abortions several times a year” says clinc worker

From one reporter who interviewed clinic workers:

Over the years, [clinic worker] Monastersky has seen it all…[she’s seen] the women who are showing up several times a year and clearly using abortion as birth control, a practice that makes Monastersky wince with disapproval.

Linda Feldmann “Abortion: Uneasy Day at the Clinic” The Christian Science Monitor JANUARY 22, 1998

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Some abortion patients swear they will never have sex again

A reporter explained what clinic workers said about why they gave out information on birth control to patients coming in for abortions:

“Some women come out of the abortion experience swearing they’ll never have sex again, but usually they do, sooner or later.”

Linda Feldmann “Abortion: Uneasy Day at the Clinic” The Christian Science Monitor JANUARY 22, 1998

How bad must an abortion be if sexually active women come out of it swearing to never have sex again in their lives?

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The difference between wanted and unwanted “fetuses”

Pro-choice feminist Naomi Wolf:

This has led to a bizarre bifurcation in the way we who are prochoice tend to think about wanted as opposed to unwanted fetuses: the unwanted ones are still seen in schematic black-and-white drawings while the wanted ones have metamorphosed into vivid and moving color. Even while Elders spoke of our need to “get over” our love affair with the unwelcome fetus, in entire growth industry—Mozart for your belly; framed sonogram photos; home fetal-heartbeat stethoscopes—is devoted to sparking fetal love affairs in other circumstances, and aimed especially at the hearts of over-scheduled yuppies. If we avidly cultivate love for the ones we bring to term, and “get over” our love for the ones we don’t, do we not risk developing a hydroponic view of babies—and turn them into a product we can cull for our convenience?

Any happy couple with a wanted pregnancy and a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting can see the cute, detailed drawings of the fetus whom the book’s owner presumably is not going to abort, and can read the excited descriptions of what that fetus can do and feel, month by month. Anyone who has had a sonogram during pregnancy knows perfectly well that the 4-month-old fetus responds to outside stimulus—“Let’s get him to look this way,” the technician will say, poking gently at the belly of a delighted mother-to-be. The Well Baby Book, the kind of whole-grain holistic guide to pregnancy and childbirth that would find its audience among the very demographic that is most solidly prochoice reminds us that: “Increasing knowledge is increasing the awe and respect we have for the unborn baby and is causing us to regard the unborn baby as a real person long before birth….”

So, what will it be: Wanted fetuses are charming, complex REM-dreaming little beings whose profile on the sonogram looks just like Daddy, but unwanted ones are mere “uterine material”? How can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for prolifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy.

Naomi Wolf, “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” New Republic, 16 October 1995,

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Clinic workers examine abortion “tissue” with limbs

From a reporter who went to an abortion clinic:

In the clinic, a lab sits between the two procedure rooms. After a first-trimester abortion, the physician’s assistant passes the instruments into the lab through a small door, along with a jar with a narrow cloth bag inside that holds the removed tissue.

For early pregnancies, the lab technician rinses the bag in a shallow bowl of water to make sure the feathery tissue of the early fetus was fully removed.

Everything is then collected in small vats that are sent out as medical waste. The vats for the second-term abortions are filled with tissue, as well, though at that stage, the fetus is no longer a feathery half-inch of tissue. Small limbs are clearly visible.

“It’s a medical procedure,” said Britta, who explained that the clinic staff view their work and examine tissue scientifically, just as other medical professionals do.

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

Former clinic workers have said that baby parts are visible as early as 9 weeks

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