From Benjamin Graber, abortionist, Pompano Beach, Florida:
16 week old unborn baby
“Although the procedure [partial birth abortion] is viewed as distasteful, alternative procedures are equally distasteful. Whether a 16-week fetus is delivered by dilatation and extraction (by which the fetus is dismembered within the uterus) or whether the fetus is delivered intact by decompressing the cranium, or whether the mother’s womb is injected with a substance that kills the fetus in utero, the outcome is the same for the fetus. The resulting complications to the mother from each procedure should be the question.”
.Palm Beach Post, “Opinion: Benjamin Graber, The Partial Birth Abortion Bill Sets Terrible Precedent” May 13, 1997
“… As you get into the second trimester, if we remove the pregnancy using forceps, and if a heartbeat is the measure of being alive, that happens all the time.”
Dr. Dennis Christensen, Madison Abortion Clinic, Wisconsin. From The New York Times; May 15, 1998; page A14
Note: The fetal heart starts beating at 18 –21 days after conception
Brief of Dr. Carhart et Al. in Stenberg vs Carhart:
After approximately 16 weeks gestation, the fetal head cannot typically be safely drawn through the woman’s cervix unless it is compressed. J.A. 296 (Stubblefield) …the physician either compresses the skull with forceps before pulling it into the vagina or removes the cranial contents.”
The affidavit of “Employee B,” a certified surgical technician employed at Midtown Hospital for a month and a half before resigning, describes Midtown’s patient care:
On April 18, 1998, at approximately 7:00 a.m., I witnessed a patient deliver an intact fetus in the toilet of a bathroom in the waiting room area. After expelling the baby and the afterbirth, the patient walked to the operating room because there were no wheelchairs. I opened the fetal sac so that the fetus could be weighed. The weight was approximately 3029 grams [over 6 pounds, 10 ounces]. It was a very big fetus. My impression is that at Midtown Hospital a procedure will be done at any gestational age as long as the patient has the money.
22 to 24 weeks sonogram, legal to abort in every state
“Complete Disregard” National Review November 23, 1998 p40
Abortionist Dr. Warren Hern, in his textbook on how to do abortions, describes the procedures a little more plainly. Here he describes a first trimester abortion. During the procedure:
“The physician will usually first notice a quantity of amniotic fluid, followed by placenta and fetal parts, which may be more or less identifiable.”
Warren Hern, M.D. Abortion Practice J.B. Lippenott Company 1984 p 114
Later he says:
“The procedure changes significantly at 21 weeks because fetal tissues become much more cohesive and difficult to dismember.”
p 154
And
“A long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember the fetus.”
20 to 22 weeks
p 154
He also instructs:
“The aggregate fetal tissue is weighted, then the following fetal parts are measured, foot length, knee to heel length, and biparietal diameter”
Abortionist Dr. Crist discusses an abortion he performs on a young woman. This is what he says to her:
“Okay, Robin,” [abortionist] Crist says after administering anesthesia. “You’re going to feel some cramping sensations as I’m dilating your cervix.”
The paper states,
“He does this using a series of metal rods so he can get to the uterus, where the fetus is. The fetus is about6 inches long and weighs about four ounces. It has arms and legs and fingers and toes.”
Later in the article:
“Here’s an arm,” he says, beginning an inventory that he does after every procedure to make sure all of the fetus has been removed.
“This is the head. Here is part of the spine . . .
It’s all there. On to the next patient.”
A Chain of Tears: A Doctor and Abortion” St Petersburg Times June 3, 1990
One book documents two conversations between abortion clinic staff and reluctant abortion patients. Here is one:
“Peggy’s (the patient’s) mind is off on a different track. “Is it true that at six weeks it has a heartbeat?” Carye (the counselor) says nobody is sure exactly when the heart begins beating, and tries to deflect that concern. “This pregnancy and you are the same thing,” she adds, explaining to Peggy that prior to twenty-four weeks the fetus cannot survive outside her womb.”
In this second passage, a young woman in her fourteenth week of pregnancy named Tiffany does not want to abort.
This is the clinic counselor speaking:
“I’m not here to change your mind. I’m not here to force your opinion. But I’m sitting here seeing this beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her, and you have so many other things you can do right now. Why don’t you go ahead with your dreams and have kids later?” Tiffany had no answer so Anneke continued, “We’re always here for you.”….Before ending the session Anneke left Tiffany with some figures that she recently had learned from Carye: One in ten high school girls who become pregnant finish high school, and one in ten thousand girls who have babies during high school finish college. And a third statistic: Over 80 percent of the men in this country don’t pay their child support. “The statistics are stacked against you,” Anneke said.”
Tiffany did, reluctantly, agree to an abortion. Here is a picture of a 14 week old unborn baby, similar to the one Tiffany aborted.
14 weeks
Peter Korn. Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press) 1996 p 25
NARAL Pro-Choice America, a pro-abortion group, opposes crisis pregnancy centers, which are centers that help pregnant women. Their fact sheet says the following:
“Unfortunately, reports indicate that CPCs frequently misinform, mislead, and coerce women with unintended or crisis pregnancies. Staff and volunteers at CPCs often use anti‐abortion propaganda to dissuade women from exercising their right to choose….Women are entitled to accurate, comprehensive and unbiased medical information with which they can make their own decisions.”
THE TRUTH ABOUT CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTERS, NARAL PRO‐CHOICE AMERICA, January 6, 2006
