Author Mary Kenny, who did much research for her book on abortion, tells the following story of a woman who begged to be denied an abortion:
“Please refuse me an abortion,” begged a 26 year-old, pregnant with her third child, to a woman doctor assiduously filling out forms in London’s Charing Cross Hospital. “We never refuse abortions – it’s our policy,” she replied, continuing to fill out the forms. In this case, the patient wanted the protection of the doctor while she was under pressure from her lover who wished to avoid a scandal. Feeling pressed into the abortion by her circumstances, the woman went through with it…Perhaps the doctor should have suggested some further, outside counseling.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 11
She wanted to be denied an abortion. Her ambivalence should’ve been a red flag to the abortion provider that she would have a hard time coping after her abortion.
In an article of the OC Weekly, the author talks about the political beliefs of Edward Allred, an abortionist who owns a chain of abortion clinics. He describes his “contempt for feminism”:
Although his gambling and abortion practices may not publicly fit today’s “family values” GOP, Allred calls himself a Reagan conservative. He has proclaimed nothing but contempt for feminists and lesbians, and he opposes women getting equal pay for equal work. And while he has unabashedly supported the continuation of Medi-Cal payments for abortions (government funds that go directly to him and other abortion doctors), he favors the elimination of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (which goes directly to poor patients). The government has a fundamental obligation, he has said, to pay doctors for abortions to prevent overpopulation.
This abortionist is not a fan of feminism or champion of women. He is also quoted making some extremely racist statements. He insults minorities when he says:
Population control is too important to be stopped by some right-wing pro-life types. Take the new influx of Hispanic immigrants:their total lack of respect for democracy and social order is frightening. I hope I can do something to stem that tide; I’d set up a clinic in Mexico for free if I could. . . . The survival of our society could be at stake.
“Looking back on the newspaper cuttings of the great abortion debate, the editorials in serious newspapers such as the Observer and the Sunday Times constantly referred to the foetus as “a blob of jelly”, “a piece of tissue”. But in the years in between the science of embryology has developed extraordinarily, and the “blob of jelly” is now known to have human organs all in place after eight weeks and an entire nervous system after ten weeks. I have watched many abortions taking place, and in the early stages the operation is so swiftly destructive that nothing can be properly perceived by the naked eye. Into the second trimester (after thirteen weeks) however, it is evident that this is a very tiny human being. Once past twenty weeks, the baby begins actually to try to resist the needle, which draws away its amniotic fluid.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 6
Dr. Timothy Black, abortionist at Marie Stopes, talks about his hopes for the future of abortion:
“One day very soon, women will have their abortions, perfectly happily, in the morning, go out to lunch and spend the afternoon shopping. It will be as simple as having a cup of coffee.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 176
Nola and Anders had no qualms about abortion, When Nola’s boss told her to abort or quit her job, they decided to have the pregnancy aborted. Nola was told by the abortionist that she would pass the “discharge” at home, and she should flush it down the toilet.
Nola describes what happened::
“Nothing to it, right? Only it didn’t work out that way. I was laying down on the sofa trying to relax. The kids were here, sitting on the floor, watching TV. All of a sudden, blarp! This huge gush, blood all over the place. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. Right there, right there in front of me – in front of the kids, for God’s sake – this little baby. Alive. I could see his heart beating. A little baby boy.
Anders didn’t know which way to go. The kids were screaming, I was screaming. I think he shut them up in the powder room. I couldn’t touch it, but I couldn’t stop looking at it. Its heart was beating until, slowly, it stopped. I didn’t know it would be like that. Nobody told me it was a baby.”
Nola was rushed by ambulance to a hospital – she was hemorrhaging. She had a “lengthy” hospital stay.
Ann Saltenberger Every WomanHas a Right to Knowthe Dangers of Legal Abortion (Glassboro, New Jersey: Air – Plus Enterprises, 1983) 59
In a book on abortion, one pro-choice man was surprised to see his baby on ultrasound:
“I must say, seeing Edward on the ultrasound screen at 12 weeks’ pregnancy did make me think again about abortion. It certainly presents you with rigid evidence of the living reality of the unborn child.”
From the author:
“He is still, he says, not antiabortion. But he is now in little doubt of what exactly it entails.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 294
Pro-choice author Frances Ryan claims aborting disabled babies is “the humane choice”:
“There are times when abortion is the humane choice… It’s okay to say that out loud. The thought doesn’t suggest a disabled life is worth less, but acknowledges the extra time, energy, and money a severely disabled life needs.”
Frances Ryan “How Pro-Lifers Hijacked the Paralympics” The Guardian, October 30, 2012
Abortion at 10 weeks. Is this ever a “humane choice?”Share on Facebook
From the book The Tentative Pregnancy: How Amniocentesis Changes the Experience of Motherhood, in which the author describes studies showing a preference for sons among US families:
“The libraries are piled high with studies showing that both women and men prefer boys to girls as their first child. In three child families, they prefer two boys and a girl to two girls and a boy. This finding shows up in surveys when the question is posed abstractly, say, to college students about the “ideal family.” It shows up in action when we see that all girl families are more likely to go on to a next pregnancy that are families with the same number of children but including a son; and when we see shorter birth intervals following the birth of a daughter than following a son.
The existence of son preference is further substantiated in the more detailed studies of women’s experiences with pregnancy and early motherhood. Myra Leifer, a psychologist who closely followed 19 women through their first pregnancies, found that 14 of them reported a preference for a boy and two hoped to have a girl. Three women expressed no clear preference. Ann Oakley, interviewing 60 women in depth and repeatedly throughout their first pregnancies, found less willingness to report boy preference ahead of time. 54% said they wanted a boy, 22% a girl, and 25% said they didn’t mind which it was. But she found a very great difference once the baby arrived. The women said they were unwilling to admit a preference beforehand, but once the babies were born, 93% of the mothers of sons said that they were pleased with the sex of their babies, and only 55% of the mothers of daughters said they were pleased.
In all of the reported instances where sex selection techniques are offered… It is boys people try to achieve.” ”
Sources cited:
Myra Leifer, Psychological Effects of Motherhood: A Study a First Pregnancy (New York: Praeger, 1980) 84
Ann Oakley, Becoming a Mother (New York: Schocken Books, 1980) 118
Both the studies above show a preference for sons among Americans. This preference for sons might lead to sex-selection abortions.
Barbara Katz Rothman. The Tentative Pregnancy: How Amniocentesis Changes the Experience of Motherhood (New York: WW Norton & Company, 1993) 133 – 134
18 weeks. Around the time sex can be determined via ultrasound. Abortions for sex selection would happen at this time or laterShare on Facebook
Abortion clinic worker Brenda Pratt-Shaffer she took care of a teenage abortion patient. The teenager had 3 abortions:
One of the things that really bothered me that day [At the abortion clinic] was a fifteen-year-old girl having her third abortion. Her parents did not even know that she was there. She was laughing the whole time she was in the clinic. I wondered if this was a nervous laugh or if she truly just did not care….I just kept thinking about my fifteen-year-old daughter that I had to sign for to have her ears pierced. But here was a fifteen-year-old having such a horrific procedure for the third time that her parents didn’t even know about.
Brenda Pratt-Shafer, David Shafer What the Nurse Saw: Eyewitness to Abortion (Mustang, Oklahoma: Tate Publishing & Enterprise, LLC, 2016) 27
Margo, who worked at a late-term abortion facility, on how the clinic managed to avoid parental involvement:
Where I worked we were a privately owned late term abortion clinic up to 20 weeks, and Michigan did pass a 24 hour consent law, and we did have parental overrides, judicial overrides that the counselors would help the minors obtain. And some of those things were pretty sketchy…It was more of a goal to keep them [parents] out as much as possible, because we did notice that outcomes would change when there was parental involvement. And so there was a whole system in place to help the kids get a judicial bypass, which basically was a rubber stamp, just go before the judge and say, “I’m afraid of what my parents will do to me if they find out that I am pregnant.” And the judge would ask, “Do you feel like you would be in danger?” “Yes.” “Ok.” And it’s just that sort of thing.
