They said it.
Julia Dixon, director of the Anderson Crisis Pregnancy Center, on clients seeing an ultrasound:
“Once the mother sees that heartbeat, they realize there is life at conception. I’m not saying every girl that has an ultrasound places their baby up for adoption but that’s the trend we are seeing here.”
Doug Staley “Bill would require women considering abortion to have ultrasound” Independent Mail Jan 10, 2007
Share on FacebookOne of the members of Feministing’s community in a comment posted on July 28 2008:
“I made an appointment at Planned Parenthood and scheduled it for Friday, December 17th; I will never forget that day. I looked more and more information up about the baby and that it had a heart beat and what it would look like and so forth and I shared this information with my boyfriend. I asked him what he thought about me keeping the baby and he said “I would resent you and I wouldn’t see us together in the future”…..
So from 8 AM until 7PM I had contractions. It felt like my insides were being torn out. I would fall asleep and be awaked [sic] by this horrible pain….
He decided to get a tattoo of a black rose on his arm and told me that it represented the abortion. I was infuriated. It’s much easier to scar your skin than to scar your soul and sadly my scar will never fade. I will always remember how alone I was, how he didn’t care how selfish he was and how he gave me a choice and I chose him.
It’s been four years now, and this august I would have had a 3 year old, so every time august rolls around or December I get very emotional about what happened.”
“It’s been four years now…” JivinJehoshaphat July 28, 2008
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In a take-off of 40 days for life, pro-choice activists have written their own prayer. This actually happened a while ago, but I just found out about it. An abortion clinic worker talked about the 40 days of prayer for choice and reproduced the prayer on her webpage.
I have decided to post it here- and intersperse it with pictures of what they are REALLY praying for.
40 Days of Prayer to Keep Abortion Safe and Legal
Day 1: Today we pray for women for whom pregnancy is not good news, that they know they have choices.
Day 2: Today we pray for compassionate religious voices to speak out for the dignity and autonomy of women.
Day 3: Today we pray for our daughters and granddaughters, that they will always know the power of making their own good decisions.
Day 4: Today we give thanks for the doctors who provide quality abortion care, and pray that they may be kept safe.
Day 5: Today we pray for medical students who want to include abortion care in their practice. May they receive good training and find good mentors.
Day 6: Today we ask for blessings upon the women who pass through hostile protesters on their way into an abortion clinic. May they be shielded from physical and emotional harm from those who do not know them.
Day 7: Today we pray for the 45 million American women who have had safe, legal abortions. May they stand tall and refuse shame.
Day 8: Today we pray for elected officials, that they may always support a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions.
Day 9: Today we pray for women who are afraid of their lovers. May they find the confidence to turn away from abuse and take care of themselves.
Day 10: Today we pray for women who were joyfully expecting a child, but have learned that the pregnancy is not sustainable.
Day 11: Today we pray for better access to all forms of birth control.
Day 12: Today we pray that women know the power of their own stories. May they find their voices and tell their truths.
Day 13: Today we pray for the men in our lives, that they may offer their loving kindness and support for women’s difficult decisions.
Day 14: Today we pray for Christians everywhere to embrace the loving model of Jesus in the way he refused to shame women.
Day 15: Today we pray for parents whose teen daughters are pregnant. May they help their daughters through this difficult time with kindness and openness.
Day 16: Today we pray for the counselors in abortion clinics that they may listen with their hearts and offer wise guidance.
Day 17: Today we pray for increased financial support for low income women to access contraception, abortion, and childcare.
Day 18: Today we pray for all the staff at abortion clinics around the nation. May they be daily confirmed in the sacred care that they offer women.
Day 19: Today we pray for all pregnant women. May they be surrounded by loving voices.
Day 20: Today we pray for the families of yesteryear who still mourn the loss of their mothers, sisters, and aunts due to illegal abortion.
Day 21: Today we pray for women in developing nations, that they may know the power of self-determination. May they have access to employment, education, birth control, and abortion.
Day 22: Today we pray for an end to all violence against abortion providers.
Day 23: Today we give thanks for the strong women in our lives who have given us examples of good decision-making.
Day 24: Today we pray for an end to hateful language that diminishes the dignity of women.
Day 25: Today we pray for women who have been made afraid of their own power by their religion. May they learn to reject fear and live bravely.
Day 26: Today we give thanks for the intelligence, talent, wit, and wisdom of all the women and girls in our lives.
Day 27: Today we give thanks for abortion providers around the nation whose concern for women is the driving force in their lives.
Day 28: Today we pray for the women who travel hundreds of miles to get an abortion. May their determination be rewarded with spiritual strength.’
Day 29: Today we pray that all women will know that they are created in the image of God, good and holy, moral and wise.
Day 30: Today we pray for women to throw away their secrets and claim their histories with power and truth.
Day 31: Today we pray for all discrimination against women to cease.
Day 32: Today we pray for an end to the stigma perpetrated against women who have abortions.
Day 33: Today we offer a prayer of remembrance for abortion providers who lost their lives because of their commitment to women.
Day 34: Today we give thanks for abortion escorts who guide women safely through the hostile gauntlets of protesters.
Day 35: Today we pray for girls everywhere, that they may have every opportunity for education, sport, health, art, and vocation.
Day 36: Today we pray for the families we’ve chosen. May they know the blessing of choice.
Day 37: Today we pray for women to claim their equality and demand their rights as citizens.
Day 38: Today we pray for a cloud of gentleness to surround every abortion facility. May everyone feel calm and loving.
Day 39: Today we pray for a contagious love to overflow from our spirits.
Day 40: Today we give thanks and celebrate that abortion is still safe and legal.
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A 13-year-old girl came to Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s abortion clinic, and was anxious about her abortion. A nurse encouraged her to have the abortion. The author recounting the story says the following:
At the moment requiring the most courage from the child, the nurse communicated with her on a level she understood, and urged her to be brave for her mother, and if she believed in Jesus, for Jesus. That calmed her a lot.
Eleanor Wright Pelrine Morgentaler: The Doctor Who Couldn’t Turn Away (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Formac Publishing Company Limited, 1983) 54
Share on FacebookAuthor Phoebe Lee relates the following story:
“In one case, a 19-year-old asked a Planned Parenthood counselor for adoption options. According to her, they could not provide her with adoption assistance. The reasons for this are unknown. They told her she could go to the local health department or children’s services to learn about such options, but “her privacy may not be guaranteed.” The girl chose to abort.”
[According to the interview, the representative from the Planned Parenthood office in question indicated that most health departments and children’s services offices would not guarantee the anonymity of the birth mother. Research showed this to be untrue.]
Phoebe Lee Casualties of Indulgence: from Life to Aborted (New York: Writer’s Showcase, 2001) 52
Share on FacebookA pro-choice author who had an abortion herself tells the story of Mindy, who experiences postabortion grief:
“Right after it was done, I was hysterical for how long?”
Kurt responds, “at least 30, 40 hours.” Mindy nods. “I just couldn’t function. I was hysterical, crying, and all that kind of crap.”
The emotional storm took her half by surprise. “It was worse than I thought it would be. I didn’t really think it would affect me emotionally as much as it did,” she muses, calling her response “a nightmare – a very big nightmare.”…
The intensity decreased after those first couple of days, except when commercials for home pregnancy tests or Planned Parenthood reminded her of her experience. She also had trouble on the projected due date, when she realized sadly, “Oh geez, I’d be giving birth right now.” One weekend near the one-year anniversary of her abortion, she read an article about women’s pregnancy choices. “That ruined my weekend, she recalls. “I thought that I had pretty much gotten over it. And then it all came back to me.”
Seeing kids and new mothers has also sparked memories and feelings. She pictures herself as the mother, thinking, “Maybe that would be me pushing the stroller.” The odd thing about her new desire for kids is that she has never wanted any. But after her pregnancy, she says, “Every time I saw kids, I was like; “Oh my God, a baby. It’s so cute.” She finds herself staring at infants often. This new interest in babies may stem from unresolved emotions; she might want a child because she feels grief or guilt for her abortion, and they find that her interest in babies will fade when these feelings do.”
Eve Kushner Experiencing Abortion: A Weaving of Women’s Words (Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Press, 1997) 11
Share on Facebook“Because the fetus feels no pain, a function of the brain as yet undeveloped, and the woman acts under her own will and conscience, it is still not violence to a human being.…
It is not enough to say that abortion is not violent. Abortion is a positive decision and not a lesser evil. It gives women control over their lives, their fertility, their education, their vocations, and their responsibility to their families, and is therefore profamily and pro-life.”
Pro-choice Methodist pastor John M Swomley
John M Swomley Compulsory Pregnancy: the War against American Women (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1999) 82
this isn’t violence?
Share on FacebookPro-choice activist Ellen Willis, whom the book Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement describes as a “well-known feminist journalist,” was interviewed in 1996. She said that her early abortion rights work was about:
“asserting autonomy and subjecthood; it was about the right to have sex, play God, to bring life into the world.”
Jennifer Nelson Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2003) 3
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An abortion doctor named David Peters made the following creepy comment in a 2013 article about clinic regulations:
I can stick needles in babies’ lungs. I can put tubes up penises and into bladders, and do all sorts of crazy stuff in my office with no regulations whatsoever. No government supervision… But for an abortion, I’ve got to have the sterile room–the size of the building matters–so, it just becomes nonsensical.
Terence P. Jeffrey “Virginia Abortion Clinic Owner: ‘I Can Stick Needles in Babies’ Lungs…” Cybercast News Service 4/28/2013
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The ACLJ posted this story from a European midwife who talks about babies born alive after abortions at the hospital where she works:
As a midwife for almost 9 years, I can testify that babies born from late abortions (case of abortion on medical grounds (ITG)) without feticide, that is to say usually between 20 and 24 weeks gestation, may be born alive. The medical team is then often uncomfortable and either puts the baby in a tray in a separate room until he stops showing signs of life, or asks a gynecologist, anesthetist or pediatrician for a morphine injection in the cord that some accept … or not. For my part, I have already proposed to concerned couples, if the baby was alive at birth, to lay him on the woman’s stomach for him to die with dignity; two couples agreed. I recently decided not to participate in abortions on demand or abortions on medical grounds and to apply my conscience clause, which I can do because I am incumbent. I will probably leave the relevant services, including the delivery room. Those contractual employees who would apply their conscience clause are threatened with dismissal.
Gregor Puppinck “Infanticide and Late Term Abortions: Doctors and Midwives Testify” ACLJ April 20
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