Groups like Planned Parenthood fight laws that would require a teenage girl to notify her parents about her abortion. But one clinic worker discusses how the abortion process is hard for a teenager and says that she should have support. She does not come out and say that parental notification bills are good, but at least conveys that young teenagers should not have to deal with their abortions alone:
“I don’t want a 14-year-old coming to my clinic alone for an abortion and walking out alone after she has it. What kind of provider am I if I permit this?”
Quoted in Marion Faux. Crusaders: Voices from the Abortion Front (New York: Birch Lane, 1990) 262
An article in The National Review discusses the horror of partial-birth abortions and late-term abortion in general:
“The campaign against partial birth abortion has revealed that the public’s moral sentiments, if not always its moral reasoning, remain healthy. It has revealed something, too, about the politicians, the writers, the judges, who support abortion on demand. They have watched a baby, partly out of the womb, have her skull punctured and her brains sucked out. They have been asked, “Must even this be tolerated?” and they have looked at this grisly scene and answered “yes. Even this.” The logic of abortion is merciless.”
“Ruling Without Mercy” The National Review 6/28/00
Diagram of a partial birth abortion. Now the partial-birth abortions are illegal, abortions in the second trimester are either done by injecting poison into the womb or by D&E. A D&E diagram is below.
From abortion provider Dr. Warren Hern, in his “how to do abortions textbook”:
” Abortion is a blind procedure that proceeds by touch, awareness, and the nuances of sensations provided by instruments, honesty and caution. While competent orientation in the performance of an abortion is essential, abortion, almost more than any other operation, demands experience to develop skill. Experience that is not interpreted honestly, however, becomes the mere repetition of mistakes. The operator must be brutally honest with himself to make the necessary corrections from second to second while performing the procedure. Has the suction tip passed through the uterine wall? Is the material grasped with the forceps unyielding? Is the material uterine wall and not fetal tissue? Is the patient merely agitated or is she having severe vasovagal episode?
Despite the difficulty of performing abortions, Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice organizations have push for laws allowing nurses and other non-doctors to perform them.
“Resolved, that while physicians have long been united in condemning the act of producing abortion, at every period of gestation, except as necessary for preserving the life of either mother or child, it has become the duty of this Association in view of the prevalence and increasing frequency of the crime, publicly to enter an earnest and solemn protest against such unwarrantable destruction of human life.
Resolved, that in pursuance of the grand and noble calling we profess, the saving of human lives, and the sacred responsibilities thereby devolving upon us, the Association present the subject to the attention of the several legislative assemblies of the Union, with the prayer that the laws by which the crime of procuring abortion is attempted to be controlled may be revised, and that such other action may be taken in the premises as they in their wisdom may deem necessary.
Resolved, that the Association request the zealous cooperation of the various State Medical Societies in pressing the subject upon her legislators of the respective states.”
Quoted in:
Dyer, Frederick “Horatio Robinson Storer, M.D. and the Physicians Crusade against Abortion” Life and Learning IX, 1998
Most people do not know that it was doctors, rather than feminists or laymen activists who opposed legal abortion and fought to protect unborn children in the 1800s. These doctors knew that life began at conception. At this time, also, most feminists such as Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton opposed abortion as well.
Pro-Choice activist Austin Cline talks about poor women and abortion, and seems to make the argument that it is cheaper for society for these women to have abortions than for them to give birth to their babies.
“The lack of funding for abortions can easily put them out of the reach of poor women who are likely seeking abortions because they cannot afford to care for more children. Ultimately, the state pays more to help these families.”
Austin Cline “Religious Groups Aim to Eliminate Women’s Rights” in Lucinda Almond The Abortion Controversy (New York: Greenhaven Press, 2007) 55
The fact that it is cheaper to kill life then to support it should not be an argument in favor of legalized abortion. The argument reeks of disdain for the poor, saying that it is better for them to kill their children than allow them to become a burden on taxpayers.
From an article that a reporter wrote after observing at an abortion clinic: A teenager who had an abortion had to go through a judge to bypass the law that required her to tell her parents about her pregnancy. The article says:
Getting a judicial bypass was not difficult, she said. The clinic scheduled her appointment early in the morning, and after taking a pregnancy test, for which she paid $200, she met with a judge briefly in his chambers.
According to the abortionist who performed the surgery:
“If you go to the judge and say, ‘I’m afraid to tell my parents because they might harm me,’ that’s all you need to say,” said Dr. Tom Tvedten, who has been performing abortions in Arkansas for 20 years, and now works part time at the Little Rock clinic. “It doesn’t have to be true, because how would anybody know?”
He added, “But every time a restriction is placed on us, it increases our costs, and that cost is passed on to the consumer.”
JOHN LELAND “Under Din of Abortion Debate, an Experience Shared Quietly“New York Times September 18, 2005
A Canadian women who says she has aborted five pregnancies told a radio show host that her last abortion was performed while she was 26 weeks pregnant for no serious reason.
“But the last time it happened to me, the fifth time, I got pretty far into the pregnancy,” a caller named Karel told show host Isabelle Maréchal from 98.5 FM in Montreal on April 9.
“I was 26 weeks,” said Karel.
The host was incredulous. “Oh wow, and they aborted you anyway?” she asked.
Karel: At the CLSC on Rue Sanguinet. They handle pregnancies of more than 24 weeks.
Host: Did you have a problem? Was it a [high-risk] pregnancy that endangered your life?
Karel: No, I had no problems. I was O negative, but that was no problem, because today I have a child…
Host: “I don’t understand how they could’ve aborted you at 26 weeks if you weren’t in a high-risk pregnancy…At 26 weeks? That…that’s two-thirds of a pregnancy. We can’t say it’s an embryo any more
…..
Host: We can always debate about the [moral] state of the fetus, but it looks more like a baby than an embryo at 26 weeks.
Karel: Yes, he even moved. I thought it was gas. But it wasn’t gas, it was kicks…The guilt that I experienced with that…I know there are plenty of people who judge but… it’s gone beyond that. I am where I am. And I will tell you I’m very happy. And I don’t regret it to be honest with you.
This would contradict the statement made by pro-choice activist Carolyn Bennett:
No physician in Canada can terminate a pregnancy over 24 weeks without serious indications such as if the life of the mother at risk, or if the fetus has very serious malformations…. I challenge him to find ONE late trimester abortion perfomed in Canada to a healthy mother with a healthy fetus. I am one of many politicians ‘willing to tackle’ this subject. He needs to be one of many journalists who are prepared to admit when their fine prose may have misled Canadian, in this case to admit that late-trimester abortions are NOT happening in Canada without ‘reason’.
Marc Lamont Hill, a Columbia University professor known for his frequent appearance on Fox News
“For what it’s worth, I do think that those of us on the Left have made a decision not to cover this trial because we worry that it’ll compromise abortion rights… Whether you agree with abortion or not, I do think there’s a direct connection between the media’s failure to cover this and our own political commitments on the Left… I think it’s a bad idea…I think it’s [the bias is] dangerous, but I think that’s the way it is.”
I work in Labor and Delivery…we don’t perform elective abortions on our unit, but we do terminate in cases of infection in the amniotic fluid and or risk to the mother, or if the water has broken and not replenished, and the baby is not viable. Yes it’s hard to watch these little ones live after they are born, sometimes they have heartbeats for several hours, but many times they are so small that their eyes and mouths are still fused together…unable to pass a tube through. The difference is that the babies I deal with are wanted….and are mourned by their parents and families. We provide comfort, warmth, and love to these little ones for the short time they are here. We make memory boxes for the families with footprints, molds, and pictures. I can’t imagine working anywhere where this is a “choice.” We also provide our mothers with a high standard of medical care…. from what I am reading these clinics are full of filth and unsafe conditions and treat the women poorly
