“These may seem very, very insignificant to us, but to the patient it can really imply that you are using a judgment, and quite often we are not aware of what we are saying. We have to be very, very sensitive, and very, very aware of what words we’re using to describe the procedures used. Use the word “fetus”; This is a fetus; this is not a “baby.”
Abortion clinic worker Henry Etta Blackmon
Paul Marx The Death Peddlers: War on the Unborn (Collegeville, Minnesota: St. John’s University Press, 1971) 21
Below is part of a transcript from an undercover video from THE CENTER FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS.
Speakers: -Savita Ginde, MD, Vice President and Medical Director, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (“Ginde”)
“J.R.” Johnstone, Clinical Research Coordinator, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains
(“J.R.”) -Medical Assistant, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains (“Jess”)
They are having this conversation in an abortion clinic, while poking at the dismembered remains of babies that have just been aborted.
Ginde: I know I’ve seen livers, I’ve seen stomachs, I’ve seen plenty neural tissue, usually we can see the whole brain.
9-10 weeks
….
Ginde: The legs. There’s an eyeball.
Buyer: Do you see an trunk or a body cavity?…
Jess: The posterior spine
Jess: So cute.
Ginde: (inaudible)
Buyer: That is cute. The kidney would be pink
Buyer: Was that crack, was that the skull?
Jess: Mhm.
Jess: I just want to see another leg, with a foot.
Savita: It’s a baby. …
Buyer: In the middle? Yea, liver is often similar in color to the vaginal lining. …This is placental sac. With the umbilical cord. If you want to get [Name] and let her know we have cases. J
.R.: Ok.
Ginde: (Inaudible)
Buyer: I see why they’re all concerned about Stericycle because they’re- it’s a surprising total volume there just for an eleven-six.
Ginde: Yea, let me see if I can get you some picks.
Buyer: This is the placenta. This part of
Ginde: This is part of the head.
Buyer: Oh wow. That- this is high quality.
9 weeka
Ginde: Yea. The nose?
Buyer: Yea, I see the mouth and everything.
Ginde: Oh look, here’s some intestines. Once we take it out of water it will be harder to identify.
Buyer: This is
Ginde: That’s the pelvis.
10 weeks
Buyer: This is pelvis with rib cage. …If we flip this over, maybe that’s stomach.
Ginde: This is the head, I think. This is the cervical spine, and this is the lumbar/thoracic spine.
Buyer: Got it. This is the beginnings of the- so maybe if I flip it over, we might see heart.
Ginde: Possibly, it looks like a spleen (Inaudible)
Buyer: Yea, nothing.
Ginde: There is also some more stuff in here so, it’s possible that it’s in this. So we can float this out here too. Did she say she was going to pick up (inaudible)
11 weeks
Buyer: This is the hand…we’ve almost got a complete cal over here, with the jaw…. the cervical spine area over here.
Ginde: Cool.
Buyer: Let me flip that over. You know what? Actually, because it’s the same white matter is coming out where the head was attached.
Ginde: Yea.
Buyer: Yea, so this is all neural matter.
Jess: Usually the organs are cleaner
Ginde: Oh, look here’s the heart. Is that right?
Buyer: Yea.
Ginde: Here’s the heart.
Jess: I’m trying to get in on it.
Ginde: My fingers will smoohs it if I try to pick it up. The heart is right there.
Buyer: You found the heart right there. I wonder if this is spleen. I’m sorry not spleen, pancreas. ..
Ginde: So you said they would want the cal?
Buyer: Yea, they want the cal because they want the brain. This is neural matter over here, because this is the lower part of the jaw and cervical spine. So this is spinal cord and
7 weeks
Ginde: So, that’s what you want?
Buyer: So, yea this is neural matter I believe this might be thymus and stuff…
Buyer: So, it looks to me like it’s got two lobes here, connected
Ginde: A lot of times ‘ll get a full torso, I’ll spine, kidneys, you could send the whole thing or pick that apart. …
Buyer: That’s a great heart specimen right there.
Ginde: The hearts I can say we usually get…
Buyer: These are intact kidneys. So, if somebody needed-
Ginde: Because if I looked at that, I’d say that’s good to go.
16 weeks
Buyer: Oh yea.
Jess: I’d say five stars….
Ginde: So, that would be it, because no one ever wants hands or legs, or anything like that.
Buyer: Sometimes.
Ginde: Really?
12 weeks
Buyer: Probably from larger gestations though because they want muscle or bone marrow like, from the long bones. And that would- this is very tiny. it would be difficult to extract bone marrow from this. You would want something a little bigger, it’s easier to get in there. Oh, we’ve got a whole- is this long bone Jess?
Jess: No, I think it’s shoulder.
….
Ginde: But sometimes with the residents, I tell them to poke around, and sometimes embryology will come full circle. Find all the parts you know, see what you can see. Especially with the thirteen, fourteen, fifteen weekers, I think it’s pretty amazing. We find heart, we’ve see kidneys and adrenals, sometimes there’s thing I don’t know what that is but it’s a part. I don’t’ know if it’s lungs, if it’s brains, if it’s heart
….
Jess: This is nine. B
Buyer: Oh, this is nine….
9 to 10 weeks
Buyer: That’s the whole bottom half of the cadaver, right there. You’ve got two legs and
Ginde: There’s two arms missing. Here’s the head, is this spinal column?
Ginde: Because, here’s her thorax.
Buyer: Must be. Yea.
Ginde: Interesting. It’s so big. Here’s her heart.
Buyer: Oh. Wow….that’s a very intact looking heart.
Ginde: Yea, it is. Jess: Do they want the spinal column?
Buyer: There are some researchers who have used neural tissue at seven weeks actually.
Ginde: I can get one at seven weeks. (Inaudible)
…..
Buyer: Yea, that looks better than what we saw earlier- that looks even more that’s not even all split up the way it was before. Its holding together a lot better.
Jess: So fast, it’s the twelve weeks and everyone wants to know, is it twins?
Buyer: You’ve been looking for twins all day.
12 weeks
Nurse: This might be, (inaudible)
Jess: As a trainee my blood pressure goes up anytime I can’t find it all right away. I’m like ahh, where is it?
Nurse: I found it in there.
Jess: Oh, the other one? Ok great.
Buyer: The other leg?
Jess: Yea the other leg. That’s why I said thank you, it was stressing me out. She said she saw it- oh there it is, there’s a little foot.
Jess: There’s another heart, completely perfect.
Buyer: Is that the cal?
Jess: Yes. The cervical
7 weeks
Buyer: Yea, and there’s brainstem in there
Jess: Yea, I don’t see the eyeballs
Ginde: Very interesting. Do they want brain? What do they do with it?
Buyer: Yea. Well brain, with brain they-
Ginde: Can they do anything with eyeballs?
Buyer: Oh yea. Although, eyeballs they generally want more developed than this. Eyeballs, you get the retinal pigment epithelium from the back of them and you culture those out, you know, into big cell cultures and you get, you get all kinds of real interesting stuff out of that. Is that the heart?
Ginde: It’s too soft right?
Buyer: Nah, we saw the heart earlier….
Buyer: I think this big thing right here is liver.
Ginde: Yea. It’s so soft though, but I guess maybe it doesn’t
8 weeks
Buyer: No, it’s definitely not like an older liver. It’s not doing all the same functions. I saw a kidney in here. And the cal, at first there was brain in here but
Ginde: It got blasted out.
Buyer: It got blasted out with water
Ginde: Well you know a lot of times especially with the 2nd tris, we won’t even put water because it’s so big you can just put your hand in there and pick it up, the parts.
Buyer: Right, just pick it up.
Ginde: And so, I don’t think it would be as…war-torn.
………….
Ginde: Here’s some stomach, a heart, kidney, and adrenal. I don’t know what else is in there. Jess: Head, arms, I don’t see any legs. Did you see the legs?
Ginde: I didn’t’ really look but
Buyer: Yea, there it goes. yup, you got all of them right there.
Jess: Another boy. Should I just put it
Ginde: Yea, just put it over here, I’ll wash it out. yea, so you guys staying the night or are you leaving?
In this way, my belief in God has boosted my enthusiasm for the pro-choice movement. When I found the reproductive justice movement, I found God’s calling for my life. God’s purpose for our lives isn’t to spend our time hurting people, lying, and gossiping like many anti-choicers do. Instead of hurting, lying, and gossiping, wouldn’t it make more sense that God wants us to fight, with love and passion, for the rights of all people, women included? Isn’t that who God really is?
“I do not intend to respond to your question which has no basis in what public policy we do here.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, responding to a reporter who asked her this question:
“Leader Pelosi, in reference to funding of Planned Parenthood, is an unborn baby with a human heart and a human liver a human being?”
Pelosi also said:
“I am a devout, practicing Catholic. A mother of five children. When my baby was born, my firth child, my oldest child, was six years old. I think I know more about this subject than you, with all due respect.”
In an October 25, 2010 post, the blog JivinJehoshaphat Wrote about a pro-abortion website called “Thanks, Abortion!” The site, now down, allegedly had stories from women who were grateful they had abortions. Interesting to notice the T-shirts that they were selling. Here are two designs:
The first T-shirt implies that women should have an abortion because they might argue with their future children. Children are a pain, so you should abort. The second one is even worse – it shows that these pro-abortion activists know exactly what abortion is. According to their now-defunct Facebook page, Ron Fitzsimmons, former head of the National Abortion Federation, was a fan
Marie Stafford, 50, a nurse who has worked in the abortion field since 1989 (interview was from 1996)
I was brought up a Roman Catholic to believe that life was sacred, but I have no qualms about abortion.
I feel strongly about the woman’s right to choose. …
However, there are times when the reality of it all hits you. When you are at the operation, particularly with the later terminations, it can be difficult. You might think: “Oh God, that’s a potential life.” But you learn to distinguish between the procedure itself and the need to support the woman’s right to choose….
I would have no qualms about having an abortion. …
You see a lot of trauma and tragedy. It’s awful when girls come to you when they have gone over the 24-week limit And sadly some GPs who are anti-abortion delay referring patients until it’s too late. .”
“Do unto others as they want you to do unto them.It’s called the Platinum Rule.In this moral universe, real people count more than potential people, hypothetical people or corporate people….
I’m pro-abortion because I believe in mercy, grace, compassion, and the power of fresh starts.”
“Abortion might be killing a life. Bu if there is a sin, it is the sin that we adults perpetuate on the children of the earth – who truly are innocent and defenseless – by bringing those children into the world when they will not be cared for.”
Actress and pro-choice supporter Margot Kidder
Paul M Clark “The Source of Human Dignity” quoted in Paul T Stallsworth The Right Choice (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997)
Which is a worse “sin”?
Killing a baby to prevent her from being unwanted?
Like pregnancy, the bubonic plague is a natural phenomenon that we, fortunately, now have a way to control and contain. Both the bubonic plague and pregnancy, though obviously to different statistical degrees… can cause death. Before modern medical interventions and the advent of reliable birth control methods, it was common for women to die in childbirth, especially because of the complications that would arise from having had multiple pregnancies. Just because childbirth is natural does not mean that it is always a great experience for the mother…
She is not the only prochoicer I’ve heard calling pregnancy an illness that can be “treated” with abortion.
