Gwen Goldsmith, a 42-year-old actress and seminary student from Brooklyn, was recently interviewed by Lane for “The Abortion Diaries.” On the abortion she had:
“I believe that an abortion is a murder of a fetus — different ethically than the murder of a child, but still a death,…But I swatted a fly earlier; I’m a murderer. I’m also a carnivore. It’s a choice.”
From pro-choice activist and author Alexander Sanger:
“The pro-choice idea that abortion should be legal and available to all women who want one no matter their circumstances garners in polling the support of about one quarter of the American people. We have to do better than that.”
Alexander Sanger Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century (New York: Public Affairs, 2004) 16
In a paper put out by the Family Planning Associates medical group, a group of abortion clinics in Southern California, the following risks are described:
“However, it is clear to us that even when the surgeon is highly skilled and experienced in the method dilation and extraction [abortion] that there is a risk of perforation of the uterus by the various instruments that are required. There is an additional risk of laceration of the uterus either by the instruments or by the fetal tissue itself.
… The most common problem encountered in termination of early pregnancies is infection and retained tissue (incomplete abortion).”
Diane Monahan and Karen Sullivan–Ables “What to Know before You Choose… Abortion As Your Option” The Precious Feet People, undated
An Ob/Gyn doctor who operated two abortion clinics in Jackson, Mississippi is now a pro-lifer who works with the American Rights Coalition. According to her, abortion-related deaths are usually hidden from the public’s view.
“It’s a very scary thing,” says McMillin. “If a woman has an abortion and some placenta is retained and gets infected, she starts bleeding. If she dies due to blood loss, the cause of death will not even mention that she had an abortion. And if she didn’t tell anyone she was having an abortion, the whole thing could go undetected.”
A woman who had an abortion gives advice to other women facing the same dilemma:
“You’ve got to tell yourself, I am worth a hell of a lot, and I come first. ….my well-being, my peace, my value comes first. The focus of my life should – and can – be me,… So when the outside says you should be thinking of the child, say No. The only thing you should be thinking about is you.”
Quoted in Patricia Launneborg Abortion: a Positive Decision (New York: Bergin & Garvey, 1992) 72
From an abortion at 8 weeks. Over 1600 abortions are done at this stage or later every dayShare on Facebook
Dr. Landrum Shettles (Rites of Life,The Scientific Evidence for Life Before Birth, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1983) described the activities and development of the fetus in utero from the third month on, based on his own observations:
“Activity is far from merely random, by the end of the [third month]. There is a purpose in what the fetus does. It is already practising for life outside the womb. Brain development is sufficiently advanced that the fetus can react to touch, turn its head, kick its legs, flex its wrists, make fists and even curl its toes. It also sucks its thumbs and swallows amniotic fluid, getting ready for the day when it will have something more substantial to consume. It practices breathing, even though it still has no air; using features that are no distinctly baby-like, the fetus begins to perfect some of the facial expressions by which is till later let its parents know its moods, its likes and its dislikes.”
…..
3 months
By the end of the third month all arteries are present, including the coronary vessels of the heart. Blood is circulating through these vessels to all body parts. The heart beat ranges during the fetal period from 110 to 160 beats per minute. All blood cells are produced by the liver and spleen, a job soon taken over by the bone marrow. White blood cells, important for immunity, are formed in the lymph nodes and thymus.
4 months
During the fourth, fifth and six months, the fetus more than quadruples its weight, going from one ounce to as many as seven ounces. By the end of the sixteenth week, it is likely to be six inches or more in length. During the fourth month the ears begin functioning, and the heart is pumping several quarts of blood each day.
The fifth month adds about two more inches of growth. The fetus may weigh a pound, and if born prematurely at one of the best neonatology centres has a 70 percent chance of survival. By the end of the fifth month, fingernails and toenails are present and growing, and the nipples have appeared in the mammary glands of both sexes.
In the sixth month, movement, which
5 months
began much earlier, becomes more pronounced. Hair follicles and sweat glands develop. Cartilage gives way to real bone. The eyelids are open. The fetus weighs almost two pounds and by
the end of the second trimester will measure a foot in length.
6 months
Abortion: A briefing book for Canadian Legislators, National Public Affairs Office, Campaign life coalition, Suite 100, 1355 Wellington Street, Ottawa, ON K1Y 3C2
A former clinic worker identified as “Sandra” describes late-term abortions at the clinic where she worked. According to a mailing sent out by And Then There Were None, a ministry for former clinic workers:
Sandra” began her work in the abortion industry as a translator, but eventually, she was “there holding the instruments as the baby came out, alive.” Sandra continued, “The largest I saw done illegally was 28 weeks. They were supposed to go up to 25 weeks… the doctor would fudge the numbers on her chart.”
In an article profiling late-term abortionist Doctor William Rashbaum (now deceased) the writer said that late-term abortions are more dangerous that early ones, but that this is not why abortionists don’t like to perform them:
Technical difficulty, however, is not why many doctors don’t want to do second-trimester abortions. What troubles them is that as a pregnancy progresses, the fetus increasingly resembles a baby….
She goes on to say:
20 weeks
The procedure is gruesome, as anyone who has seen it, including Rashbaum, will attest. One of his former interns remembers watching Rashbaum do a D&E on well-developed twins one hot summer day. He intently leaned in closely and methodically pulled piece after piece of the fetuses out of the mother’s uterus, ignoring the attending staff’s whispers of horror — “It’s twins. It’s twins” — to each other. The intern reacted violently, running home, throwing up, and asking herself, “Is this right?
And then:
Rashbaum pisses people off with his cranky, despotic ways, but the other doctors are relieved he’s around to do a job they don’t want.”
