ClinicQuotes

Pro-choice activist compares abortion to curing cancer

Prochoicer Lana Clarke Phelan comments on doctors who don’t do abortions:

“Another cliche [used by doctors to refuse to do abortions] is the timeworn “life has begun and I cannot play god” bit, yet daily each doctor sees nothing unethical in excising a cancer, performing a vasectomy on a requesting male without question, or using antibiotics to frustrate the will of god regarding life and death.”

Lana Clarke Phelan. “Abortion Laws: The Cruel Fraud.” Speech presented at the First California Conference on Abortion at Santa Barbara, California in March of 1968 by the Society for Humane Abortion, Inc., San Francisco, California

Picture of a seven-week-old baby after she as been aborted

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Grief for stillbirths and abortions

Katarina, a psychologist from Sydney, Australia,

“My sister has since had two stillbirths – as a family we have grieved and emphasized with her and her husband’s dreadful pain. Inside of me I felt cheated as no one had grieved with me for my two lost children – not even me. My sister’s children died at the same time as both my losses – I felt responsible, guilty, and so alone. When my mom says the no one in the family has experienced pain like my sister my heart cries out silently – but I have.”

Melinda Tankard Reist Giving Sorrow Words: Women’s Stories of Grief after Abortion (Springfield, IL: Acorn Books, 2007) 22

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Abortion and “emotional torment”

From a postabortion woman, identified as Jane:

“Looking back now, if I had known then what emotional torment I would go through as a result of having the abortion, I would never have gone through with it. I told her [the counselor] that I still didn’t know whether I could go ahead with the abortion, but she just fobbed it off by convincing me that this was the best thing for everyone.”

Melinda Tankard Reist Giving Sorrow Words: Women’s Stories of Grief after Abortion (Springfield, IL: Acorn Books, 2007) 179

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Medical students may not even discuss abortions

Stacey Blyth, a medical student at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a member of Medical Students for Choice:

“The medical community seems to have collectively chosen to ignore the medical imperative of safe, legal access to abortion. The issue is somehow avoided as a “private” or “moral” subject. …it is not unusual to complete four years of medical school without even having to discuss abortion, let alone to perform or observe a procedure. Even discussions about its medical necessity are avoided. “

Stacey Blyth “Abortion access under the gun” Free Inquiry December 22, 1998

Medical Students for Choice may have changed some of this the past 16 years, but there is still evidence that many doctors do not get the abortion training that would make them qualified to be abortionists. See here.

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“Abortioneer” talks about stigma of working in an abortion clinic

An abortion clinic worker describes the stigma of working in the abortion industry. She uses a pen name on her blog, The Abortioneers. She is only one of several writers on that blog. She explains that abortion is still a taboo subject. This stigma against abortion providers is one reason why there is such a shortage of abortionists and the turnover rate for clinic workers is so high.

“We frequently discuss how to talk to friends/acquaintances/family who are not abortioneers about being an abortioneer. Or even, simply, about abortion. Though I’ve been doing this work a long time, I find I go through stages. Sometimes it’s easier to discuss abortion and other times, it just isn’t easy at all. Probably some of it depends on how much is going on at work (if it’s stressful or we’re having a lot of protesters, I tend not to want to discuss work outside work as much. Especially with people who just won’t get it anyway).

It can feel isolating to have the people who are closest to you not understand your work, your commitment to it, and your passion for it. Only recently have I been able to have conversations with my dad about abortion after years of bitter silence. Sometimes, it’s still frustrating to even talk to my husband; for example, if I have a shit day, he is quick to tell me I should just leave the clinic. He reminds me that I already have to put up with protesters and the stigma that comes along with being an abortioneer. He asks why I should stick around if my boss is being…err…unappreciative. It’s hard for me to explain to him that I’m committed to something larger (the “work”) and can put up with a bunch of bullshit in order to feel like I’m making a difference in someone’s life…and I’m motivated by that…not quite as much by recognition from my employer.

It’s stigma that really makes it so difficult to talk about our work.”

“Working 9-5: How We Talk (Or Don’t) About Abortion” The Abortioneers Jan 5, 2012

Below; “The work” that she is committed to.

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Doctor in abortion clinic lies about development of fetus

“The doctor said: “Don’t worry, it’s not formed till after 12 weeks.” Then I saw the Human Body program [on the ABC]. I would not have gone ahead if I’d been told the truth about the formation of the baby.”

Sue, who had an abortion. Quoted in

Melinda Tankard Reist Giving Sorrow Words: Women’s Stories of Grief after Abortion (Springfield, IL: Acorn Books, 2007) 180

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Former clinic worker: abortionist was like “a spider trapping insects,” convincing women to abort

Luhra Tivis Worked with Dr. George Tiller, the infamous late-term abortionist who was assassinated a few years ago. (An act that was condemned by all mainstream pro-life groups). She says of her time working there:

“It became apparent to me, after about eight weeks, that something was horribly wrong. I was frightened by what I saw. These late abortions were not, as Dr. Tiller had told me, being done for compelling medical reasons. Viable babies were being destroyed simply on demand. Week after week, I saw in the medical records the clear evidence of a violence beyond anything I could’ve imagined.

Like a spider trapping insects, Dr. Tiller lured the mothers into his clinic each week. I was instructed to falsify the ages of the babies in the medical records. I was required to lie to the mothers over the phone, as they scheduled their appointments, and tell them that they were “not that far along.” That I had to note, in the records, that Dr. Tiller’s needle had successfully pierced the walls of the baby’s heart, injecting the poison that brought death. It was a horror that pierced my own heart.

Each week, as the mothers came in and I checked them off for their appointment, I tried to maintain my composure. I hid my impulse to turn them away, to plead for the lives of their children. It was particularly sinister that this great evil was being conducted and, what, to all appearances, was an ordinary medical clinic.”

Luhra Tivis “Where is the real violence?” Celebrate life, September – October 1994, 31 – 33

28 weeks – Dr. Tiller regularly aborted babies at this age and older

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Children who deliver teddy bears are “exploited”; aborting children is fine

Senator Shirley Smith, on a visit from children bearing gifts of teddy bears to Senators in order to promote the heartbeat bill: (The children were sent into the offices of proabortion Senators with little teddy bears and a brief message asking them to vote to restrict abortion after the heartbeat can be detected)

“I’m not at all supportive of the bill, and I’m not supportive of them sending kids in my office with a teddy bear that mimics a heartbeat, either. I thought that was a very cheap exploitation of kids.”

Laura Bassett, “Antiabortion Group Sends Children with Teddy Bears to Lobby Lawmakers,” Huffington Post, January 12, 2012

From Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio:

“I think a lot of our folks looked at the flowers and other things as stunts. I think that was how it was received in a lot of the Senate offices as well. The one that got a little different reaction was when they had the children come and lobby and deliver the teddy bears. One of the Senate staffers told me that it kind of disturbed them because some of the kids were quite young. Their family walked them to the door of the Senate office, but didn’t go in with them. She told me that the kids that walked into her office looked pretty scared and intimidated. So I think that was received with a little more concern, how the kids may have been exploited.”

Robin Marty, Jessica Mason Pieklo Crow After Roe (Brooklyn, New York: ig Publishing, 2013) 43 – 44

So a child being sent into an office for a few minutes while his parents wait outside his exploitation, but abortion, which actually kills children, is perfectly okay? What about this child: he was legally killed by an abortion in the first trimester. Was he not “exploited” and mistreated?

Or this one, aborted at 21 weeks:

NARAL Pro-Choice argues for keeping 21 week abortions legal. According to them, it is perfectly all right to abort these babies – but not to send children into a senator’s office with a gift of a teddy bear

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A letter to an aborted baby, from her sibling

This appeared at National Right to Life’s blog. It is a letter that was written by the sibling of an aborted baby:

About a week ago my mother told me that she had an abortion before I was born. It devastated me. Mourning someone I have never met seems bizarre to me, yet I am so sad. To help me find closure I wrote my half sibling, that I will never meet, a letter.

I think there is a lot of focus on the baby, the mother, or at most the father, which is great and needed, but I also think pointing out the effects an abortion can have for future children would prove to be very impactful. I did not even exist when my half sibling was killed, yet it has affected me tremendously.

Below is the letter:

She was 15 when your life started, 16 when your life ended. She said no one told her you were more than a lump of tissue. I’m sorry for ignorance.

Your father would be 57 now. She said he doesn’t know. I wish she told him. I wish he fought for you. I wish somebody fought. I’m sorry for secrets.

You would have been my half sibling. 14 years older than me. She took you from me before I even existed…before I could do anything. I’m sorry for unfairness.

You would have been 34 years old. You would have more than likely been married and have your own children. I would have nieces and nephews, you would have a family. But you weren’t even given a name. I’m sorry for abandonment.

Maybe when my other siblings were telling me lies and devaluing me, you would have spoken truth. Maybe you would have stood up for me when no one did. I’m sorry for life being devalued.

Is it possible to miss someone you’ve never even met?…because my heart longs for you. It longs for you to have life. I’m sorry for death.

I wish you could have come to my graduation, I wish I could have gone to yours. I wish we were friends. I wish I could call you right now. I wish we could share all of our joys and griefs. I wish we were at least given a chance.

I’m sorry for selfishness.

It’s just so unfair for you…for us. How could she have killed you? How could our grandmother drive our mother to the clinic so that they could murder you? I’m sorry for silence.

I miss you. I love you.

I’m so sorry no one loved you

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