Saline abortions were done in the 1980s and early 90s and then were gradually replaced by D&E abortions, where the baby is dismembered via forceps. In a saline abortion, poison was injected into the amniotic sac and kill the baby over the course of several hours. The woman then went through labor to deliver a dead child. Here is one woman’s story of the experience:
“After the fluid was withdrawn, he [the abortionist]injected 200 ccs of the saline solution — half a pint of concentrated salt solution. From then on, it was terrible.
My baby began thrashing about — it was like a boxing match. She was in pain. The saline was burning her skin, her eyes, her throat. It was choking her, making her sick. She was in agony, trying to escape…
For some reason it never entered my mind that with an abortion she would have to die. I never wanted my baby to die; I only wanted to get rid of my “problem.”
But it was too late to turn back now. There was no way to save her.
So instead, I talked to her. I tried to comfort her. I tried to ease her pain. I told her I didn’t want to do this to her, but it was too late to stop it. I didn’t want her to die. I begged her not die. I told her I was sorry, to forgive me, that I was wrong, that I didn’t want to kill her. For two hours I could feel her struggling inside me.
But then, as suddenly as it began, she stopped. Even today, I remember her very last kick on my left side. She had no strength left. She gave up and died.
Despite my grief and guilt, I was relieved that her pain was finally over. But I was never the same again. The abortion killed not only my daughter; it killed a part of me.
Before that needle had entered my abdomen, I had liked myself… when the child I had abandoned suddenly began its struggle within me, I hated myself. It was that fast. Every bit of self-esteem, every value I held dear, every hope of which I ever dreamed — all were stripped away by the poison of that one vain act. Every memory of joy was now tainted by the stench of death…
there was no way to stop it. There was no way to put everything back the way it had been. I no longer had any control, any choice. I was powerless. I was weak. I was a murderer.
A little while after my baby stopped moving they gave me an intravenous injection to help stimulate labor. I was at hard labor for 12 hours, all through the night. When finally I delivered, the nurses didn’t make it into my room in time.
I delivered my daughter myself at 5:30 the next morning, October 31. After I delivered her, I held her in my hands. I looked her over from top to bottom. She had a head of hair, and her eyes were opening. I looked at her little tiny feet and hands. Her fingers and toes even had little fingernails and swirls of fingerprints. Everything was perfect. She was not a “fetus.” She was not a “product of conception.” She was a tiny human being… she was my daughter. Twisted with agony, silent and still. Dead.
It seemed like I held her for 10 minutes or more, but it was probably only 30 seconds — because as soon as the nurses came rushing in, they grabbed her from my hands and threw her — literally threw her — into a bedpan and carried her away.
To add insult to injury, after my daughter was taken away, they brought another woman into the room to finish the last hour of her labor. But this woman wasn’t have an abortion. No, she had a beautiful, healthy baby boy. No words can describe how rough that was on me.
I was released from the hospital eight hours after the delivery. The official report filled out by my abortionist stated that the procedure had been completed with “no complications.” Three days later I went back in to what felt like labor pains, and I passed a piece of placenta about the size of my hand… soon afterwards I began to withdraw from those who loved me, especially from my family since they had supported and encouraged me to have an abortion…
Three weeks after my abortion, I chose to be sterilized by tubal ligation. I couldn’t cope with the idea that I could ever possibly kill again. It was too devastating… My body, which had the potential of creating life was now too easily a host of death.
I became preoccupied with thoughts of death. I fantasized about how I would die. My baby had struggled for two hours. I’ve tried to imagine myself dying a similar kind of death…
Four months after my abortion, the bleeding and infection were so persistent. Too ashamed to go to my own OB/GYN, I returned to Dr. Fong and he performed a D&C to clean out the uterus. He cut off my cervix and left the packing inside of me. Three weeks later I was grossly rotted out inside
Seven months later, at 22 years of age I was forced to undergo total hysterectomy — all because of that “safe and easy” legal abortion.”
David Reardon “Aborted Women: Silent No More” Westchester Illinois: Crossway, 1987) quoted in John Ankerberg and John Weldon “When Does Life Begin? And 39 Other Tough Questions About Abortion” (Brentwood TN: Wolgemuth and Hyatt Publishers, 1989)
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