There was a National Institute of Health meeting that discussed the ethics of experimenting on human embryos.
Diane Irving, professor of philosophy , DeSales School of Theology, referred the panelists to her 400 page dissertation, which analyzed 23 articles claiming that “human personhood appears at some point after conception.” When she began her research, she expected to agree with the articles. However:
“To my own amazement, I discovered that in all 23 arguments, the science was incorrect, the philosophy was historically incorrect or indefensible and none of the conclusions followed logically from the premises.”
Richard Doerflinger , “the Human Embryo Research Panel: Creating Life to Destroy It”
Marleen worked in a hospital that performed abortions. After 30 years, she’s come forward with her story.
“My husband was a resident at a hospital and I just got “the job of my dreams” at a nearby Oakland hospital. I was very much a believer in the abortion issue and now I felt I was going to be part of it.
24 weeks
I got hired as a charge nurse at this clinic that did late term abortions. I spent about 30 days on the day shift getting familiar with everything. I would witness and assist the doctor in the actual procedure, injection of drugs to the fetus, the seaweed, etc. On the day shift I really never saw the actual start of the contractions or the termination process. I was uncomfortable, but I really thought to myself, this was something new and I needed to get more experience.
26 weeks
One evening a young girl was having a very difficult time. I was there with the doctor. I knew even though the doctor wrote this patient was 15 weeks, she was close to 30 weeks. This happened quite a bit, but no one ever said anything.
When she delivered this tiny baby (it looked full term to me) she was actually alive and crying. The doctor said to me, “Put it in the room and close the door. Do not enter til the morning shift.” I immediately took the crying baby and wrapped it up and laid it in a room. I then immediately started calling hospitals around (against the doctor’s wishes) to find someone that would take it. None around would take it cause they said it was not viable. I spent many hours trying. I just wanted to leave this place, but I knew I could not walk out and leave other patients without a charge nurse. Til this day I hear this crying infant in my head.
28 weeks
I wish others that promote abortion, especially late term would experience what I did. The next day, I terminated my employment immediately and landed a job in a pediatric unit at another hospital.”
Joyce Craigg, director of a Brooklyn Planned Parenthood clinic, worked in surgery assisting in late abortions for two months, then quit.
“The doctors would remove the fetus while performing hysterotomies and then lay it on the table, where it would squirm until it died. One Catholic doctor would call for sterile water every time he performed a hysterotomy and baptize them then and there. They all had perfect forms and shapes. I couldn’t take it. No nurse could.”…
James Burtchaell, editor Rachel Weeping and Other Essays on Abortion ( Life Cycle Books 1982) 34
A hysterotomy abortion is similar to a C-section, were an incision is made into a woman’s uterus and the baby removed. It is done late in pregnancy, but before the point where a baby can survive on its own. These abortions were rarely done even in the 1980s, they are almost never done today because they result in a live birth of a baby that has to be disposed of. Also, they carry unnecessary medical risks for the mother. Today most late-term abortions are done by D&E, where the baby is dismembered in utero, or by injecting digoxin into the woman’s uterus or directly into the baby’s heart to stop it, then inducing labor.
20 week abortion. The baby was dismembered in the abortion procedure.
Commenting on legislation that would ban abortion after a baby can feel pain:
“[A] fetus after 20 weeks of gestation has all the prerequisite anatomy, physiology, hormones, neurotransmitters, and electrical current to close the loop and create the conditions needed to perceive pain. In a fashion similar to explaining the electrical wiring to a new house, we would explain that the circuit is complete from skin to brain to back.”
Jean Wright, MD, anesthesiologist, Savannah, Georgia, specializing in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Memorial Health University Medical Center and previously Professor and Pediatric Chair of Mercer School of Medicine
Texas Right to Life “ Doctors Confirm Unborn Babies Feel Abortion Pain at 20 Weeks” LifeNews 3/13/13
One woman tells her heartbreaking post-abortion story:
God is calling me to share [my story] with more [people] but I am nervous and scared. The truth is I have been carrying around a deep dark secret. Carrying it on my back, and dealing with it all alone because of what the consequences are if people were to hear the truth. The truth is I no longer care what others think. The truth is I know there are others out there like me, suffering alone when they don’t have to. The truth is…God is calling me to speak out.
The truth is when I was 19 years old I got pregnant. Upon telling my parents; they decided that I would get married. We began to plan a very quick wedding. The boy I was dating at the time turned out to be abusive. He was from an abusive home and had his father had brutally beaten his first wife in front of her two sons. The first time this boy threw me to the ground while I was pregnant I knew there was NO WAY I was going to allow this cycle to repeat. I broke off the engagement and began looking into adoption. I was only 19 and I knew I wasn’t ready to be a mom. When I told him I wanted to make an adoption plan, that I knew that was the best choice for us and the baby, he became very angry. Threatening, yelling, and screaming, he told me no one would EVER take the mother of his child or his child away from him. He wouldn’t allow it – that we WOULD be together. I became scared. Fear set in like I can’t even begin to explain. I realized that I could be a victim of abuse or I could save myself and my unborn child and choose to make this all disappear. I told him I had a miscarriage (which is what I told everyone else too).
Walking into Planned Parenthood the smell of depression and hopelessness lay thick in the room. Yes, I could actually smell it. None of the women looked thankful that they had the “choice” to be there. They all looked empty. Broken. I felt it too. I had always said I would NEVER have an abortion. I was wrong. In my mind I believed it was the only “choice” I had at the time to protect myself and my unborn child from a life of fear and abuse. My name was called and I headed in the back. I was scared and alone.
I hear people talking about the right to “choose.” I wish like HELL I didn’t have the right to choose that day.I wish there had been counseling. I wish there had been adoption agencies out there trying to reach the youth. I wish THOSE things were easy access; NOT Planned Parenthood. I wish more than anything, ANYTHING, I could have taken away MY right to choose and allow my baby to have their right to choose life. I wish there was support out there for girls like me. And maybe there was…but Planned Parenthood was easy to find. Abortion is easy. Walk in, walk out. Done. Pregnant. Not Pregnant. Simple. Except…it’s NOT that simple. They forget to tell you about the rest of the story.
The truth is they don’t tell you about the memory you live with for the rest of your life. For awhile I was able to forget. I had to suppress the memory in order to survive MY right to live. But slowly the memory began to resurface. Back to the room…back to the smells…back to the empty eyes of broken women. Back to the face of the man that literally sucked life out of my body.
Abortion is not about choice. It’s about selfishness. It’s about desperation. And I can say that because I have had one. I have walked a mile in those shoes…and it’s a mile that never ends.
From an article in The Pittsburgh Press about babies born alive after abortions:
“One nurse testified that the [aborted alive] child gasped for breath for at least 15 minutes following the abortion and no attempts were made to help it in any way. She said she observed a pulse in the upper chest, left neck area. Another nurse said she had seen the baby move and that “one of the foreign residents, who was observing, baptized the child.” According to testimony, someone in the room ordered a lethal dose of morphine, but no one administered it.”
John Martin, editor, The Daily Chronicle, Centralia – Chehalis, WA, citing the Pittsburgh Press of November 1, 1974
An article appeared in The Fresno Bee about Catholics United for life, and pro-life sidewalk counselors, that describes some of the women that were helped.
9-10 wkd
“Martha, twenty-one, an unmarried mother of four children (ages five, two, one, and three months). She met the sidewalk counselors as they she [sic] entered a clinic, on her way to abort her fourth baby. Unemployed and on welfare, Martha said she didn’t think she could “handle” another child.
But, she explained, “Molly [a sidewalk counselor] came up and she told me if God didn’t think I could handle another, He wouldn’t give it to me.”
Martha decided against an abortion, but she needed help. She and her children were sleeping on the floor of her sister’s house. She said Catholics United for life gave her family a place to live. It paid the first months’ rent, in addition to purchasing furniture and food.”
And another woman:
14-week-old baby,
“Mary, twenty-four, unmarried, living in California with her brother, had a well-to-do family back home in Latin America. Her brother suggested an abortion because an illegitimate child born to another member of the family had caused major problems.
At the abortion clinic, the sidewalk counselors assured Mary that they would help her with medical care and living expenses if she went through with her pregnancy. Mary and her brother, who had accompanied her to the clinic, both agreed for her to continue with the pregnancy.
Mary said she was relieved. “When I left the house, I didn’t really want to do it. I asked God if I’m not supposed to do it, show me – and that’s when I met these guys [the sidewalk counselors.]”
A third woman. These were all at the same clinic
“Deborah, twenty-seven, married, mother of four children (ages six, four, one, and two weeks) Deborah said her husband didn’t always provide money for the family to live on, necessitating her to work in the fields. The news that a fourth baby was on the way posed a major problem. “When you’re pregnant, they won’t give you a job anymore,” she explained.
Foot of an aborted baby at 9 weeks.
At the abortion clinic, Deborah said the counselors from Catholics United for life, showed her pictures of aborted fetuses….“I was of the belief that a baby is unformed until three months, that before that it was a little ball. But they explained that it was formed from the beginning.”
Catholics United for life gave Deborah financial help.
“Pro-Life Counselors, Pound the Pavement to Dissuade Abortion” The Fresno Bee, Sunday, January 23, 1983
Sidewalk counselors save lives every day. These babies are now in their late teens or twenties. Some may even have children of their own. The good pro-lifers do lasts generations.
Representative Chris Smith told the following story at the Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 112th Congress, First Session. September 22, 2011:
“Over the years, I have chaired 29 Congressional human rights hearings focused in whole or in part on China’s one child per couple policy. At one, the principal witness, Wuijan, a Chinese student attending a US university, testified how her child was forcibly murdered by the government. She said, and I quote in part:
“The room was full of moms who had just gone through a forced abortion. Some moms were crying. Some moms were mourning. Some moms were screaming. And one mom was rolling on the floor with unbearable pain.”
Then Wuijan said it was her turn, and through her tears, she described what she called her “journey in hell.”
I had a surgical abortion when I was 20 years old. I don’t remember many details. But what I do remember was not pleasant.
I don’t remember how far along I was in my pregnancy. I do know that I paid $500.00 for my abortion.
I went through a group counseling session with several other women. My “counselor” told me that she had 9 previous abortions. I think she said it to make us feel better somehow…and it worked.
feet of unborn baby at just 7 weeks after conception
Abby would later go on to have another abortion, then become an employee at Planned Parenthood and the director of one of their largest abortion clinics for a number of years. She would eventually leave and become a pro-life speaker. Read about why she left here.
