An anonymous abortion provider discusses how he is uneasy with repeat abortions:
”For some it is definitely a kind of birth control…’These women are on their sixth one. They have a troubled family situation, and you feel it’s in the best interest for the possible future child….In some ways I do feel that — but it doesn’t make it any more pleasant.”
Legs of a baby at 14 weeks – legal to abort in every US state and in Canada
Another doctor at the same facility said:
”Some days you just want to shake these people. ‘Why didn’t you take your birth-control pills? Why didn’t you get your Depo-Provera shot?’ ”
Jack Hitt “Who Will Do Abortions Here?” New York Times Jan 18, 1998
“I think that if a woman comes for her 100th abortion it would probably be an injustice to foist her as a mother upon a child. I did have a Yugoslavian woman come to me who had had 24 abortions, mainly in Yugoslavia where abortion is considered a method of contraception. She didn’t know any other way. We taught her about alternative methods of contraception. I never felt any hostility towards her for having so many abortions.”
Telephone interview with Bertram Wainer, M.D., 1986
Miriam Claire “The Abortion Dilemma: Personal Views on a Public Issue” (New York: Insight Books, 1995) 128-130
“Most of the counselors didn’t like dealing with women who had had several abortions, they saw them as irresponsible at best, or, at worst, stupid. But I liked “repeat aborters” because they already knew what to expect and weren’t afraid of the abortion. They offered less emotion for me to soak up; they were easy process in 10 minutes.”
Wendy Simonds. Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996)page 7
Makeka, former patient of abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell:
So when I got pregnant again I went to the clinic and I asked them… “Is it OK that I get, you know, another abortion?” ”Fine, fine”. They even like had this woman sit down and she told me that women in Brazil have at least twenty-one abortions, and she’s like, “They’re still able to conceive…” And, that was it for me. That was where I basically said, you know what, this has to be OK. It was the norm for me after she had coached me into believing that that was the norm. I would say the next fourteen years… within that time I had eight abortions. Eight. And I look back at it and it’s like God, what was I thinking? It just seemed like it was OK, it was so OK to go in there and get it done as long as you had the money.
Clinic worker supports multiple abortions as “birth control”:
Sometimes, just to feel people out, I ask, “How do you feel about repeat abortions?” Some people will answer, “One is OK, but more than that is just irresponsible,” which I may use as a teaching opportunity, or I might just walk away. It depends on my mood. But one person answered, “It’s an expensive type of birth control, but if that’s a woman’s preference, that’s fine with me.” That counted as a good answer.
This comes from the blog “The Abortioneers” found here
One former clinic worker made the following comments in personal correspondence with the webmaster of clinicquotes:
When I first started out nursing in the late 70’s I was working for the Ob/Gyn physicians in this hospital. My duties were not only to care for those that were in for abortions, I also cared for the older folks having hysterectomies and so forth. I didn’t have a personal opinion on abortion until I saw how many were done and for the multitude of ridiculous reasons. Not to mention the actual procedure itself and the “aftermath”. It wasn’t until a few years afterwards that I started to feel this wasn’t right. That is when I transferred to a different department and hospital completely. . . Plus you must understand, I worked for a hospital smack dab in the middle of NYC, I got to know some of the girls getting these abortions on a first name basis, since they had them so often. That really got under my skin, seeing these girls using it as a birth control measure. And why shouldn’t they? The state paid for it anyway! Just not right!
“I’m not completely and wholly for it. We’ve had several patients in here who came three times in two years… Abortion is not to be used for a birth control method. It’s ridiculous.”
Margaret Briggs, clinic bookkeeper
Magda Denes, PhD. In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death in an Abortion Hospital (New York: Basic Books inc 1976) Page 25
Carole Meyers OB GYN who has performed “hundreds of abortions” and worked as medical director of Planned Parenthood of Maryland:
Addressing crowd of students who had gathered to hear her speak at John Hopkins University:
“”If you are going to perform abortions, how is your family going to think about it? How will you tell your kids? What are you going to do if your church doesn’t want you to come anymore? How are you going to feel about a patient who admits she has picketed the clinic in the past? What about the woman who comes in for her third abortion and doesn’t want to hear about birth control? How are you going to feel about that? I’ll tell you how I feel. I get mad, frustrated, angry.”
unborn baby at seven weeks – most abortions are done at this point or later in pregnancy
((Patricia Meisol “A Hard Choice: A young medical student tries to decide if she has what it takes to join the diminishing ranks of abortion providers” Washington Post, Nov 23 2008))
Few doctors want to be abortionists. In this section, you can read about stigma and how it affects doctors.
It’s also interesting to note that this abortionist, like many others who work in clinics, gets frustrated and angry at women who have multiple abortions. If abortion is such a benign procedure, merely the removal of some products of conception and ending a pregnancy, why does it matter for woman has more than one? Why does it matter she relies on abortion instead of birth control? The truth is, the abortionist sees the little babies that were torn apart in every abortion and she or he knows the cost that these little people pay.
Many other doctors are disturbed by the act of abortion itself – pulling pieces of arms and legs off of babies or tearing them apart with the suction machine is not a very easy thing to do emotionally.
An abortion clinic worker who previously had an abortion says the following:
“A number of patients used – or abused, depending on one’s moral perspective – their right to abortion in ways that forced me to question the depth of my own pro-choice stance. For example, I was deeply troubled by “repeaters,” women who came to us for their third, fourth, or fifth abortion, and who often exhibited lifelong histories of spotty – or no – contraceptive use. I also struggled with women who waited until well into their second trimester before presenting themselves for elective terminations. These cases, which on the surface smack of personal irresponsibility, [upset] me because I felt they made the pro-choice platform even more vulnerable to critics.… I’m a bit hesitant to admit that the tough cases took a personal toll as well. They tarnished my innocently romanticized version of abortion as a difficult but worthy, and even admirable, decision.”
Clinic Worker Jenny Higgins
Jenny Higgins “Sex, Unintended Pregnancy, and Poverty: One Woman’s Evolution from “Choice” to “Reproductive Justice” from Krista Jacob. Abortion under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice (Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2006) 35
