In an early Live Action expose, Lila Rose caught an abortion clinic worker on camera discouraging a woman seeking abortion from looking at photos of unborn babies.
The clinic counselor says, in response to a question from the girls’ friend (who is really Lila Rose).:
“Well, no. I mean, it just may make the decision harder for her. You know, when she sees, you know, what the fetus looks like at this point.”
The tape was shot at EMW Women’s Surgical Center, Louisville, Kentucky, June 23, 2008
15 weeks – legal to abort in every US state and all throughout Canada
Reporter MARTIN BASHIR interviewed abortionist William Harrison (now deceased) on Nightline. He asked the abortionist if he ever mentioned adoption to women coming in for abortions:
MARTIN BASHIR: (Off-camera) Do you ever mention in your counseling the possibility of adoption as an alternative?
DOCTOR WILLIAM HARRISON: No. Not unless the patient asks me. You know, it’s easy to say adoption is a better option but…
MARTIN BASHIR: (Off-camera) You don’t even mention it?
DOCTOR WILLIAM HARRISON: Pardon?
MARTIN BASHIR: (Off-camera) You don’t even mention it?
DOCTOR WILLIAM HARRISON: Not unless the patient asks me, no. I’ve had one patient who gave up two babies for adoption. She committed suicide the year before last. And my patients who have given up babies for adoption and then had abortions, tell me that the most difficult thing that they’ve ever done is to give up a baby for adoption. It’s not like giving away a puppy.
It would seem that Dr. Harrison probably does what he can to discourage women from putting their babies up for adoption. While it is true that adoption can be a very hard thing for a woman to go through, today there are many options for women. they can have open adoption where they are still a part of the child’s life, which is often easier for a birth mother than cutting all ties. Also, it should be remembered that when a woman has an abortion, her risk of suicide is six to seven times greater (if she is a teen, she is actually ten times more likely to commit suicide) When a woman gives a baby up for adoption, her child goes to loving home and she is spared the guilt and grief of knowing she participated in the death of her own child.
“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.
There has long been a shortage of abortion providers. Consider this quote from 1991:
“There is nothing more critical [than the shortage of abortionists]. If you don’t have people to provide the service, then political and legal victories become moot.”
Barbara Radford, former director National Abortion Federation
Glamour, September 1991
Mark Crutcher “Access: the Key to Pro-Life Victory” Life Dynamics Incorporated,
Reasons for the shortage include pro-life activities and the distastefulness of performing teh abortions and seeing the bodies of babies on a daily basis.
“The fetus passes through the catheter and either dies in transit as it’s passing through the catheter or dies in the suction bottle after it’s actually all the way out.”
Sworn testimony given in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, May 27, 1999, Case No. 98-C-0305-S), by Dr. Martin Haskell, an abortionist.
He is describing the way an aborted baby passes through the tube attached to the suction machine. The baby can come out intact, or, more often, mangled like the one below
Prochoicer Lana Clarke Phelan comments on doctors who don’t do abortions:
“Another cliche [used by doctors to refuse to do abortions] is the timeworn “life has begun and I cannot play god” bit, yet daily each doctor sees nothing unethical in excising a cancer, performing a vasectomy on a requesting male without question, or using antibiotics to frustrate the will of god regarding life and death.”
Lana Clarke Phelan. “Abortion Laws: The Cruel Fraud.” Speech presented at the First California Conference on Abortion at Santa Barbara, California in March of 1968 by the Society for Humane Abortion, Inc., San Francisco, California
Picture of a seven-week-old baby after she as been abortedShare on Facebook
Stacey Blyth, a medical student at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a member of Medical Students for Choice:
“The medical community seems to have collectively chosen to ignore the medical imperative of safe, legal access to abortion. The issue is somehow avoided as a “private” or “moral” subject. …it is not unusual to complete four years of medical school without even having to discuss abortion, let alone to perform or observe a procedure. Even discussions about its medical necessity are avoided. “
Stacey Blyth “Abortion access under the gun” Free Inquiry December 22, 1998
Medical Students for Choice may have changed some of this the past 16 years, but there is still evidence that many doctors do not get the abortion training that would make them qualified to be abortionists. See here.
An abortion clinic worker describes the stigma of working in the abortion industry. She uses a pen name on her blog, The Abortioneers. She is only one of several writers on that blog. She explains that abortion is still a taboo subject. This stigma against abortion providers is one reason why there is such a shortage of abortionists and the turnover rate for clinic workers is so high.
“We frequently discuss how to talk to friends/acquaintances/family who are not abortioneers about being an abortioneer. Or even, simply, about abortion. Though I’ve been doing this work a long time, I find I go through stages. Sometimes it’s easier to discuss abortion and other times, it just isn’t easy at all. Probably some of it depends on how much is going on at work (if it’s stressful or we’re having a lot of protesters, I tend not to want to discuss work outside work as much. Especially with people who just won’t get it anyway).
It can feel isolating to have the people who are closest to you not understand your work, your commitment to it, and your passion for it. Only recently have I been able to have conversations with my dad about abortion after years of bitter silence. Sometimes, it’s still frustrating to even talk to my husband; for example, if I have a shit day, he is quick to tell me I should just leave the clinic. He reminds me that I already have to put up with protesters and the stigma that comes along with being an abortioneer. He asks why I should stick around if my boss is being…err…unappreciative. It’s hard for me to explain to him that I’m committed to something larger (the “work”) and can put up with a bunch of bullshit in order to feel like I’m making a difference in someone’s life…and I’m motivated by that…not quite as much by recognition from my employer.
It’s stigma that really makes it so difficult to talk about our work.”
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 olderShare on Facebook
