Some interesting statistics on amniocentesis and its dangers cited in Randy Alcorn’s book Why Pro-Life?
“In 2000, the National Vital Statistics Report indicated that 28.9 women per 1,000 suffered complications from amniocentesis, placing the risk factor at nearly three per hundred women. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that in early amniocentesis the rate of death to the unborn through miscarriage is “between one in 400 and one in 200 procedures.” The study also found a striking tenfold increase in the risk of clubfoot deformity after early amniocentesis. Ironically, then, a procedure designed to identify fetal deformity actually has a considerable chance of causing it.
Amniocentesis is frequently done to identify Down syndrome children so parents have the option of abortion. The risk of miscarriage as a result of amniocentesis is almost exactly the same as the risk for Down syndrome.”
World Congress of Families Update, vol. 3, issue 1119, March 2002, www.worldcongress.org/WCFUpdate/Archive03/ wcf_update_3 1 1.htm citing R. E. Gilbert, et al., “Screening for Down’s Syndrome: Effects, Safety, and Cost-Effectiveness of First- and Second-Trimester Strategies”; and Euan M. Wallace and Sheila Mulvey, “Commentary: Results May Not Be Widely Applicable,” BMJ 2001; 323:1-6 (25 August 2001); www.bmj.com.
“I always felt that Malthus was right. The population bomb was going to explode, that we are developing an underlying population for which we have no use, a part of society that doesn’t fit in.”
Faye D Ginsburg Contested Lives: the Abortion Debate in an American Community (Berkeley and Los Angeles California: University of California Press, 1989) 68
Thomas Malthus was an 18th century British essayist who believed that overpopulation was a danger to society and that people, especially those of “lower” classes, should have fewer children.
What people comprise the “underlying population” that there is “no use” for?” It is an elitist and possibly racist way of thinking.
Did her concern about curbing the population (particularly by eliminating certain people) influence the way she dealt with people coming in for abortions?
14-week-old baby, who could be aborted by this method
A late-term abortionist describes what he does:
“We would attack the lower part of the lower extremity first, remove, you know, possibly a foot, then the lower leg at the knee and then finally we get to the hip.”
Sworn testimony given in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, May 27, 1999, Case No. 98-C-0305-S), by Dr. Martin Haskell, an abortionist
According to a study in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, 97% of obstetrician-gynecologists have encountered patients wanting an abortion, but only 14% performed them.
The study determined what percentage of OBGYNs performed abortions based on religion. Here were the results:
40.2 percent of Jewish doctors say yes, compared with
1.2 percent of Evangelical Protestants
9 percent of Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox
10.1 percent of Non-Evangelical Protestants
20 percent of Hindus
26.5 percent of doctors who said they had no religious affiliation
The study was based on a self-administered confidential survey sent to a sample of 1,800 ob-gyns practicing in the United States. A total of 1,144 doctors responded.
It is interesting that almost 10% of Catholics were willing to perform abortions.
Foot of an aborted baby at 9 weeks. Thousands of abortions are done at this stage every year. Over a 3rd of abortions are done after this pointShare on Facebook
“Here is a startling revelation: I am a mother of two and a woman who earlier in her life had an abortion. I am unapologetically pro-choice. And I knowlife *begins* at conception …. because I kinda already knew that having a child required, as a first step, the successful integration of a sperm and an egg, or fertilization.
In other words, “life” begins at conception, if by “life,” we mean the essential starting place of a potential human being. Neither my 16-year-old daughter nor my 13-year-old son would be here if they were not first conceived,if the fertilized eggs had not gone through the process of cell division, successfully implanted in my uterus and developed into healthy embryos, and subsequently gone successfully through the many other phases of development leading to their births.
[commenting on a quote from Congressman Paul Ryan, where he said that seeing his unborn baby on the ultrasound screen, convinced him that life began at conception]
“I understand that seeing the sonogram of a wanted child is a powerful thing and a connection to the potential person whose birth is much awaited. But if it took Paul Ryan to see a sonogram of his daughter in utero to get him to believe his wife was pregnant and that his daughter’s “life” began with conception, the state of GOP knowledge on sex and biology is even worse than I thought.”
In a recent article, former Planned Parenthood clinic worker Marianne Anderson tells her story – here are some excerpts from the article:
When did you start having qualms or misgivings about working for Planned Parenthood?
A. “I started feeling uneasy working there when people came from [the] national [office] in New York City to teach us the conscious sedation process. It was disgusting. These two ladies had this chant they would do: ‘Abortion all the time!’ I thought, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ That was about six to eight months after I started.
“Those women from New York acted like an abortion was a rite of passage. They were like, ‘How can you not offer abortion to women? It’s their body. They should be able to do whatever they want. How can you force them to have a baby? Abortion should be free to anybody, anytime.’ ”
10-week-old unborn baby. Thousands of abortions are done at this stage every year.
Q. How many abortions are done at the Georgetown facility per day?
A. “In the upper 20s to low 30s, including medical abortion by pill. Abortions are done there every Tuesday and Friday, and then they alternate between Thursday and Saturday.”
Q. Were there ever any difficulties with the abortion procedures?
A. “Several times, there were difficulties with abortions while I worked there, where they had to call the hospital to come pick the woman up.
“One girl almost bled out. She was passing clots, her blood pressure was dropping.
“A lot of the cases we had were from excessive bleeding or reactions to the sedation.
“When we had to call 911 for an ambulance, we were told never to say the word ‘abortion’ because they don’t want that broadcast. They knew that the calls were recorded, and could be made public.” Q. What was it like working there?
A. “It was a money-grubbing, evil, very sad, sad place to work.
“We would get yelled at if we didn’t answer the phone by the third ring. They would tell us we’d be fired [if we didn’t] because they needed the money.
“They would remind us in our weekly staff meeting that we need to tell everyone [who called to schedule an appointment] to avoid ‘those people’ [the sidewalk counselors] because we need the money. We were to tell them, ‘Don’t make eye contact with them, and don’t stop in the driveway. If you make eye contact with them or if you stop and roll down your window, they’re going to try their darnedest to talk you out of it.’
Unborn baby at 8 weeks
“You have to have so many [abortions] a month to stay open. In our meetings they’d tell us, ‘If abortions are down, you could get sent home early and not get as many hours.’
“They would allow girls to have ultrasounds that were obviously way too far along [the legal limit for having an abortion in Indiana is 13 weeks and six days]. They said, ‘If they want to be seen, you just put them through, no problem,’ just taking advantage to make money.
“I was always getting in trouble for talking too long to the girls, asking if they were sure they wanted to do this.
“It was absolutely miserable going in there.”
Q. What experiences stick with you?
A. “One young girl came in with her mom. She was about 16. Her mom had made the appointment. That’s not supposed to be how it works. It’s supposed to only be the patient who makes the appointment. I checked her in, and she thought she was there for a prenatal checkup. The mom was pushing it. She blindsided her own daughter.
“This guy brought in a Korean girl. I had no doubt in my mind this girl was a sex slave. This guy would not leave her side. They could barely communicate. He wanted to make all the arrangements.
“During the ultrasound, she told one of the nurses that there were lots of girls in the house, and that the man hits them. She never came back for the abortion. I always wondered what happened to her. One of my co-workers said, ‘You’re better off to just let it go.’
“These girls would start crying on the table, and Dr. [Michael] King [the abortion doctor for whom Anderson worked] would say, ‘Now you chose to be here. Sit still. I don’t have time for this.’
8 weeks
“One doctor, when he was in the POC [products of conception] room, would talk to the aborted baby while looking for all the parts. ‘Come on, little arm, I know you’re here! Now you stop hiding from me!’ It just made me sick to my stomach.
“The sound the suction machine made when it turned on still haunts me.” Q. Did you ever interact with the sidewalk counselors?
A. “One day I was coming in, and I’d written out a note to one of the [sidewalk counselors] that said, ‘I’ve worked here for a little over two years. I’m actively looking for something else. Please pray for me. I don’t want to be here.’ All I could do was hand it to her. She tried to give me a pamphlet, but I told her no, I had to go because there are cameras that watch the drive.”
Magda Denes wrote a book after spending time in an abortion clinic interviewing doctors and clinic workers. From one clinic worker:
2nd trimester
“When we do D&C’s, it’s under general anesthesia, so the patient comes in and the doctor does the dirty work. And when she wakes up, and it’s his sin, and she is cured. But with a saline she’s participating in this sin, because she’s awake, she knows what’s going on, she feels it coming out.”
Magda Denes, PhD. In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death in an Abortion Hospital (New York: Basic Books inc 1976) 140
Here she writes about how when one goes in for an abortion, she is unconscious and does not see the baby being taken from her, piece by piece, but in a saline abortion (which was done by inducing labor after injecting poisonous saline solution to kill the baby). The woman would see the child and it would be more emotionally difficult for her. It is always easier to kill without seeing the victims – it is psychologically easier to drop a bomb on the city or program a drone then it is to kill people face-to-face.
Victim of a saline abortion. These abortions are seldom done today because they caused so many live births, and because they were dangerous to the mother.Share on Facebook
From Mark Crutcher’s book Lime 5, which has horrible stories of abortion malpractice.
In the fall risk management seminar, the National Abortion Federation again discussed malpractice suits. The malpractice consultant they brought in said “there are a lot of really bad abortion places out there….”
Mark Crutcher “Lime 5: Exploited by Choice ” (Denton, Texas: Life Dynamics Incorporated, 1996) 115
