They said it.
An author quotes an activist who helped thalidomide victims:
“Marjorie Wallace, who conducted the Sunday Times campaigns to win compensation for thalidomide victims, has personally interviewed over 100 thalidomide people and says:
“They represent the full range of perfectly normal personalities, and are not unhappier than any other random group of 100 fully able-bodied people.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 130
Share on FacebookAn abortion doula named Whitney describes being in the room during a second trimester abortion. The woman is asleep from anesthesia.
“In the background, music is playing. The doctors talk quietly about their upcoming vacations and the weather.
The doulas almost all say that they expect a certain reverence to fill the OR during an abortion, an air that is hushed, respectful, sometimes somber, and maybe even celebratory…We are often surprised when we see that for some people, especially the doctors and the nurses who do surgeries and abortions all day, every day, sometimes it’s just a job.”
Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People (New York: Feminist Press, 2016) 93
The author witnessed abortions and interviewed postabortion women and men. She remarked that many women give up smoking to protect the baby, even when they plan to have abortions:
“The maternal instinct manifests itself in many curious ways; it is not so very unusual to encounter a woman who has an abortion appointment for eight days hence – but who has given up smoking cigarettes for the waiting interval “so as not to damage the baby.” This might be sensible if the woman was still uncertain as to whether she would proceed with the pregnancy or not, but it occurs even when the woman is certain she will terminate it. Yet there is a feeling that while the foetus is there, it elicits a sense of protection.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 226-227
Read stories of women who have had abortions
Share on FacebookPro-abortion advocate Sady Doyle comments on Katha Pollit’s idea that abortion is a great thing:
Abortion saves lives, improves lives, and makes for a stronger society. ….Personally, I like abortion. I’ve never needed one. I’m still glad to have the option. I’m glad for the people I’ve known who got pregnant at the wrong time, with the wrong people, and didn’t have their lives ruined by it.
If Pollitt gets her way, more of us might feel free to admit that, hey: We like abortion.
Sady Doyle “Abortion Isn’t a Necessary Evil. It’s Great” In These Times OCTOBER 3, 2014
It didn’t save or improve the life of the baby below.
A writer who witnessed women having prostaglandin abortions (where labor is induced) recalled:
I asked to see the fetus in it 24th week of development. “No way,” said the midwife, forbiddingly. “I’ve had enough young nurses fainting on me at the sight of a late abortion without you creating a nuisance by passing out.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 168
A psychologist talking about how a baby’s brain develops in the uterus remarks on what a preborn baby does:
Heidelise Als, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist at Harvard Medical School, is fascinated by the amount of tactile stimulation a fetus gives itself. “It touches a hand to the face, one hand to the other hand, clasps its feet, touches its foot to its leg, its hand to its umbilical cord,” she reports.
Janet L. Hopson “Fetal Psychology” Psychology Today, Sep/Oct98, Vol. 31 Issue 5, p44, 6p, 4c.
In a book for and about abortion doulas (people who “emotionally support” women while they have their abortions, under “Tips for Self-Care” it says:
“You are not responsible if she went through with an abortion she ultimately didn’t really want to have.”
Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People (New York: Feminist Press, 2016) 221
Does any woman really WANT an abortion? Shouldn’t we be helping women find alternatives that both they and their baby can live with, rather than encouraging them to do something they can never undo?
Share on FacebookAn author who witnessed abortions describes the abortionist, and mentions that most doctors want to do things other than abortions:
“[T]he surgeon, a beautiful young Indian woman, wearing a filmy, canary-colored sari and bangles around her ankles, arrived. There is a rota of doctors, most of whom work in other fields of gynecology and family planning as well, since it is considered repetitious and medically unrewarding to do abortions all the time.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 150
Share on FacebookAn author who witnessed abortions said the following:
“As the patients paid, I recalled one observation of an American woman that it was the only operation in the world for which you pay in advance.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 150
Share on FacebookIn a study, a 20 year old woman who had an abortion was asked the reasons why:
Q: What kinds of things did you consider in your decision to have an abortion?
A: I guess my personal identity was the basic thing. Everything else is pretty much tied to that. Because I really don’t know what I want to do, exactly, like, if I were to have a child now, that would definitely limit my life. And right now I’m fighting any kind of limit like that….It would really limit the direction I could take, you know, in choice. And I don’t know enough of what I want that I would feel satisfied having my choices limited like that.”
Judith G. Smetana Concepts of Self and Morality: Women’s Reasoning about Abortion (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1982) 73
In 1982, before the abortion pill was released, abortions could only be done after 7 weeks. A 7 week abortion leaves hands and feet behind:
it is sad that adoption was not an option for this woman.
Share on Facebook