Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995
From: Sarah Terzo
NOTE: these quotes are all true, and a footnote will appear at the end.
Some of them are very difficult to read. Abortion is not a subject that
can easily be made palatable. I consider this information to be vital to
making an informed decision about abortion. However, due to the graphic
content of certain of these statements, please use discretion when
reading or forwarding this document. I suggest using this as a resource
guide, quoting from it as apropriate in letters to the editor, speeches,
and debates.
1. "Following [the Doctor's] directions, I took the collection bottle and
poured its contents into a shallow pan. Then I used water to rinse off
the blood and smaller particles which clouded the bottom of the pan.
'Now look closely,' the doctor said. It is important that we
have got all the stuff out.'
I looked into the pan to find that the 'stuff' consisted of the
reamins of what had been, a few minutes before, a thirteen-week old
fetus. I could make out the remains of arms and legs, and trunk and
skull. I tried to piece them back together in my mind, to see if there
were any missing parts.
Most of the pieces were so battered and bloody they were not
recognizably human. Then my eyes locked upon a perfect little hand, less
than half a centimeter long. I stared at four tiny fingers and a tiny
opposed thumb, complete with tiny translucent fingers.
And I knew what I had done.
-'Chi An' psuedonym of former abortionist and family
planning worker from China, now living in the U.S.
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2. "I got to where I couldn't stand to look at the little bodies anymore."
-Dr. Beverly McMillan, when asked why she stopped performing abortions
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. "I have been there, and I have seen these totally formed babies as
early as ten weeks. . . with a leg missing or with their head off. I
have seen the little rib cages...." -Debra Harry, former abortion
assistant in a Michigan clinic who gave instruments to the doctor during
the abortion procedure
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4. "We do abortions here. That is all we do. There are weary, grim
moments when I think I cannot bear another basin of bloody remains, utter
another kind phrase of reassurance. So I leave the procedure room in the
back and reach for a new chart....I prepare myself for another basin,
another brief and chafing loss -abortion clinic nurse
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5. "We all wish it were formless. But its not.....and its painful.
There is a lot of emotional pain." -another clinic worker
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6. "Reconstruction of the fetal sections after removal is necessary to
ensure completeness of the abortion procedure. Clearly, D & E transfers
much of the possible psychological trauma of the abortion from the
patient to the professional." --Family Planning Perspectives Journal
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7. "One viewing of the footage [The Silent Scream, a film made by former
abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson, which shows an abortion via
ultrasound] was enough. Like the ultrasound technician, the doctor who
had performed the abortion became so nauseated by what he had witnessed
on the screen that he was forced to turn away in order to compose
himself. He has never performed another abortion."
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8. "Every woman has these same two questions: First, 'Is it a baby?'
'No' the counselor assures her. 'It is a product of conception (or a
blood clot, or a piece of tissue)' Even though these counselors see six
week babies daily, less than an inch long, with arms, legs, and eyes that
are closed like newborn puppies, they lie to the women. How many women
would actually have an abortion if they told them the truth?"
-Carol Everett, former owner of two clinics and manager of four
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9. "if a woman we were counseling expressed doubts about having an
abortion, we would say whatever was necessary to persuade her to have the
aboriton immediately." -Judy W., former office manager of the second
largest abortion clinic in El Paso, Texas
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9. "They [the fetuses] were next to the garbage cans in paper buckets,
like the take home chicken kind. I looked inside the bucket in front of
me. There was a small naked person in there, floating in bloody liquid."
-clinic worker Susan Lindstrom, M.D.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
10. "You have to become a bit schizophrenic. In one room, you incourage
the patient that the slight irregularity in the fetal heart is not
important, that she is going to have az fine,, healthy baby. THen, in
the next room, you assure another woman, on whom you just did a saline
abortion, that the it is good that the heartbeat is already
irregular...she has nothing to worry about, she will NOT have a live
baby....Somebody has to do it, and unfortunately we are the executioners
in this instance." --Abortionist Dr. John Szenes
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11. "The first time, I felt like a murderer, but I did it again and
again and again, and now, 20 years later, I am facing what happened to me
as a doctor and as a human being. Sure, I got hard. Sure, the money was
important. And oh, it was an easy thing, once I had taken the step, to
see the women as animals and the babies as just tissue." --abortionist,
name withheld
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12. "I have never known a woman who, after her baby was born, was not
overjoyed that I had not killed it." --Abortionist Aleck Bourne
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13. "I hate Christians because they know they are forgiven, and I know
God will never forgive me for what I do." --abortionist, name withheld
------------------------------------------------------------------------
14. "When discussing a sonogram, you are supposed to tell the client that
it is a measurement sa far as the pregnancy is concerned, but not a
measure of the fetal head or anything like that." --Rosemary Petruso, on
her training to be an abortion counselor. Her story appeared in the St.
Louis Review
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"Oh no, I've done 13 year olds before. Maybe when they're ten, I'll
notice." --abortionist Alen J. Kline, on doing an abortion on 13 year old
Dawn Ravenall, which killed her as well as the fetus she was carrying.
This quote appeared in various newspapers at the time of Ravenell's death.
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15. "Abortion is the taking of a life." --Former Planned Parenthood Medical
Director Mary Calderone, who is pro-choice
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16. "We know that its killing, but he state permits killing under certain
circumstances." --Dr. Neville Sender, abortionist
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17. "....the emotional turmoil that the procedure inevitably wreaks on
the physicians and staff...There is no possibility of fenial of an act of
destruction by the operator....the sensations of dismemberment flow
through the foceps like an electric current." --Abortionist, name withheld
----------------------------------------------------------------------
18. "Remember, there is a human being at the other end of the table
taking that kid apart. We've had a couple of guys drinking too much,
taking drugs, even a suicide or two." --Dr. Julius Butler, a professor of
obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Minnesota Medical School
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19. "Arms, legs and chests come out in the forceps. It's not a sight for
everybody." --Dr. William Benbow THompson at the University of California
at Irvine
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The following are from the book "Abortion Practice" by Warren Hern, M.D.,
Boulder Colarado abortionist, and the book was published inb 1984 by the
J.B. Lippincott Company. Hern performs abortions up until the 24th week
of pregnancy.
"THe procedure changes significantly at 21 weeks because fetal tissues
become much more cohesive and difficult to dismember" pg 154
"The relationship between the gravid female and the feto-placvental unit
can best be understood as one of host and parasite." p 14
A long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember
the fetus. -p 154
The aggregate fetal tissue is weighted, then the following fetal parts
are measured, foot lenght, knee to heel length, and biparietal diameter"
p 164
"Thi is a controversial area, but most professionals in the field feel
that it is not advisable for patients to view the products of conceptionk
to be told the sex of the fetus or to be informed of multiple pregnancy."
--pg 304
'Television interviews in particular should focus on the public issue
involved (right to confidential and professional medical care, freedom of
choice, and so forth) and not on the specific details of the procedure
itself." p 323
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20. "Nobody wants to perform abortions after ten weeks, because by then
[the abortionist] sees teh features of the baby, hands, feet. It's
really barbaric." --abortionist, name withheld
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21. "For the most part, the aboriton industry stopped using saline and
prostaglandin procedures because of the number of live births. A live
birth means you have to let the baby die, or dispose of it in some
distasteful way. Most second and third trimester abortionists use the D
& E method (editors note, the D & X method has recently become popular
with third trimester abortions. This is known as a 'partial birth')The
abortionist uses large forceps to crush the baby inside the mother's
uterus and removes it in pieces. The side effects of live births and the
mother going through labor are avoidee. But it is a horrible procedure
in which the baby must be re-constructed outside the uterus to be certain
all parts have been removed." --Carol Everett
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22. "I was for abortion, I thought it was a woman's right to terminate a
pregnanfcy she did not want. Now I"m not so sure. I am a student nurse
nearing the end of my OB_GYN rotation at a major metropolitan hospital
and teaching center. It wasn't until I saw what abortion involves that I
changed my mind. After the first week in the aboriton clinic several
people in my clinical group were shaky about their previously positive
feelings about abortion. THis new attitude resulted from our actually
seeing a Prostaglandin abortion, one similar in nature to the widely used
saline abortion.
. . . This method is being used for terminations of
pregnancies of 16 weeks and over. I used to find rationales. The fetus
isn't real. Abdomens aren't really very swollen. IT isn't 'alive.' No
more excuses.
. . . . I am a member of the health profession and members of my
class are now ambivalent about abortion. I now know a great deal more
about what is involved in the issue. Women should percieve fully what
abortion is; how destructive an act it is both for themselves and their
unborn child. Whatever psychological coping mechanisms are employed
during the process, the sight of a fetus in a hospital bedpan remains the
final statement."
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23. "I found much distress in the clinic, but it involved not only the
women. I saw the pain of the babies who were bron burned from the saline
solution used for late-term abortions. I saw the bits of feet, bits of
hands, the mangled heads and bodies of the little people. I saw pain and
felt pain. Most of the patients weren't 14 year old girls who had been
seduced by some insensitive boy. Most of them were (they said) happily
married women who just didn't want he hassle of another baby." --One time
clinic worker Paula Sutcliffe
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24. "The picture of the baby on the ultrasound screen bothered me more
than anything else." --Dr. Joseph Randall, former abortionist
--------------------------------------------------------------
25. "The doctors would remove the fetus while performing hysterotomies
and then lay it on the table, where it would squirm until it died. . .
. They all had perfect forms and shapes. I couldn't take it. No nurse
could" --Joyce Craig, director of a Brooklyn clinic of Planned
Parenthood. She worked in surgery, assisting in abortions for two
months, then quit
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26. "we tried to avoid the women seeing them [the aborted babies] They
always wanted to know the sex, but we lied and said it was too early to
tell. It is better for a woman to think of a fetus as an 'it.' . . .
I couldn't take it any longer, so I quit." --Abortion clinic worker Norma
Eidelman
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27. "After an abortion, the doctor must inspect these remains to make
sure that all the fetal parts and the placenta have been removed. Any
tissue left inside the uterus can start an infection. Dr. Bours squeezed
the contents of the sock into a shallow dish and poked around with his
finger. "You can see a teeny tiny hand' he said." --abortion clinic worker
---------------------------------------------------------------
28. "Financially, after years of struggle, I can't help feeling like the
Texan who drilled for water and struck oil." --Mark Juliene, "Suddenly
I'm a Legal Abortionist" Medical Ecomonics, Nov 23,1970
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29. "Our statistics clearly reflected that . . . the shorter the
period of time a woman had to consider her abortion, the more likely whe
was to abort....a physician can accomplish ten to twelve abortions per
hour. . . Our physicians were payed in cash. No records were kept."
--Affidavit of Carol Everett
---------------------------------------------------------------
"From May to Novermber 1988, I worked for an abortionist. He specializes
in third-trimester killings. I witnessed evidence of the brutal,
cold-blooded murder of over 600 viable, healthy babies at seven, eight,
and nine months gestation. A very, very few of these babies, less than
2%, were handicapped. . . I thought I was pro-choice and I was glad to be
working in an abortion clinic. I thought I was helping provide a noble
service to women in crisis....I was instructed to falsify the the age of
the babies in medical records. I was required to lie to the mothers over
hte phone, as they scheduled their appointments, and to tell them that
they were 'not that far along.' Then 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...one day, Dr. Tiller came up
the stairs from the basement, where
the mothers were in labor. He was carrying a large cardboard box, and
ducked into the employees only area of the office so that he wouldn't
have to walk through the waiting room. He passed behind my desk
as I sat working on the computer, and he turned the corner to go around a
short hall. He called out for me to come and help him. The box was so
big and heavy in his arms that he couldn't get the key into the lock. SO
I unlocked the door for him and, pushing the door open, saw very clearly
the gleaming meatl of the crematorium- a full sized crematorium, just
like the one's used in funeral homes.
I went back to my computer. I could hear Dr. Tiller firing up
the gas oven. A few minutes later I could smell burning human flesh.
Mine was the agony of a participant, however reluctant, in the act of
prenatal infanticide. I felt guilt and shame, worse than after my own
two abortions in 1977...." --Luhra Tivis, now a member of Operation
Rescue, on her experiences in the abortion business
---------------------------------------------------------------
The following are from the film "Meet the Abortion Providers" 1989
"I want the general public to know what the doctors know- that this is a
person, this is a baby. THat this is not some kind of blob of
tissue."-Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levantino
"Women who were having abortions were never allowed to look at the
ultrasound" --former abortionist Joseph Randall
"My heart got callous against the fact that I was a murderer, but that
baby lying in a cold bowl educated me as to what abortion really was."
--Dr. David Brewer, former abortionist
"The counselor at our clinic could cry with the girls at the drop of a
hat. She would find their weakness and work on it. The women were never
given any alternatives. They were told how much trouble it is to have a
baby." --former abortion worker Debra Harry
"I have taken the lives of innocent babies, and I have ripped them from
their mother's wombs with a powerful suction machine." --McArthur Hill, M.D.
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31."I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I have in fact
presided over 60,000 deaths. There is no longer serious doubt in my mind
that human life exists from the very onset of pregnancy" Dr Bernard Nathanson
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32. "Can a physician or a medical center, in good conscience, do an
abortion one day, and a life-saving medical operation [on an unborn baby]
the next?" --Dr. Hugh Barber in the August 1982 issue of "the Female Patient"
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33. "I dare say that any thinking, caring individual can't not realize
that he is ending life or potential life." --abortionist, name withheld
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34. "[Powell] said 'Is this a fair way of expressing what you have just
said, Doctor? You tell the mother, 'Because your baby is defective, you
have the right to kill it or not to kill it. If you choose to kill it, I
will do the killing."
"Of Course," he [the abortionist] said. "There is no other way to say
it and be honest.
-an interviewed abortionist
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35. "I wanted to be the world's best abortionist, for the good of my
patients. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. So,
after I met each patient, reviewed the medical informtion gathered by my
nurse, examined the patient and performed tha abortion, I would then
carefully sift thorugh the reamins to be sure all the parts were
accounted for. I had to find four extremities (two arms and two legs) a
spine, a skull, and the placenta, or my patient would suffer later from
an incomplete abortion. SOmetimes people ask me, 'how could you look at
body parts and believe you hadnt destroyed a human being?' . . . it
bothered me at first, but with time I became desenstitized to what was
really happening. My attention was so focused on my perceived patient
that I managed to deny that there were, in fact, two patients involved-
the expectant mother and a very small child....I had to wonder, how can
having a child be so wrong for some people that they will pay me to end
its life?....."--Former abortionist Dr. Beverly McMillan
-------------------------------------------------------------
36. "One doctor who will do saline abortions (where he can potentially
avoid
seeing the fetus) but refuses to abortions by D & E, in which he would
have to remove the fetus in pieces, gave this as his reason for doing one
and not the other- "Killing a baby is not the way I want to think about
myself."
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37. "Abortions are very draining, exhausting, and heart-rending. There
are a lot of tears. Some patients turn on you. . . I do them because
I take the attitude that women who are going to terminate babies deserve
teh same kind of treatment as women who carry babies...I've done a couple
thousand and its been a significant financial boon . . . the only way I
can do an aboriton is to consider only the woman as my patient and block
out the baby."
---------------------------------------------------------------
>From the article "Abortion Providers Share Inner Conflicts"
which appeared in the July 12 1993 issue of AAA News, a publication of
the American Medical Association;
One abortionist is quoted "I have angry feelings at myself for feeling
good about grasping the calvaria, for feeling good about doing a
technically good procedure that destroys a fetus, kills a baby."
"When I put my hands on somebody to feel how big they are and I get
kicked, I am barely able to talk at that moment."
an abortionist stated that 'somebody had asked her what they could say to
the staff to make them look less shocked when they look at a 20 week
fetus..."it's hard to be in a profession where you have a hard time
answering the questions that other people ask you about what you do."
Endnotes
1. Mosher, Steven "A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's Fight Against China's
One CHild Policy" pgs 60-61
2.Mary Meehan, THe Ex-Abortionists- They have Confronted Reality"
Washington Post April 1, 1988 p a 21
3. Ibid.
4. Sallie Tisdale "We DO Abortions Here" Oct 1987 Harpers Magazine p 66
5. Ibid.
6. "Emotional Impact of D&E vs. Instillation "Family Planning
Perspectives" dec 1977
8. Carol Everett "A Walk Through an ABortion Clinic" ALL About Issues
Aug-SEpt 1991, p 117
9. Dr. Magda Denes "Performing Abortions" Commentary OCt 26, pp 35-37
10. Ibid
11. Quoted (From a radio talk show) by John Rice, D>D In "Abortion" Litt
D. Murfreesboro, TN, Sword of the Lord publishers
12. "A Doctor Speaks" London Express, Jan 25 (quoted ny James Wilkerson)
13. Women Exploited: the Other Victims of Abortion Paula Ervin, p 127
14. Ibid.
15. American Journal of Public Health
16. Quoted in "Abortion: the silent holecaust"
17. "Meeting of American Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians"
OB/GYN News p 196
18. Melody Green and Sharon Bennett "THe Crime of Being ALive: abortion,
Euthanasia, Infanticide" p 3
19. Ibid.
20. John Pekkanen "M.D. Doctors Talk about Themselves." P 93
21. "A Walk Through an Abortion Clinic" Carol Everett
22. "The Zero People" "Abortion, a nurses view" Mary Roe Jeff Lane
Hensley editor
23. "Prescious in my Sight" by Paula Sutcliffe, "PRo-life feminism:
Different Voices" Gail Garnier-Sweet, editor
24. quoted in"Now Wombs Have WIndows" Shari Richards
25. "Rachel Weeping" James Brtchaell, ed 1982 p 34
26. Ibid.
27. quoted in "Is the Fetus Human?"
"Dudley Clendinen, "The Abortion Conflict: What it Does to One
Doctor" New York Times Magazine, Aug 11 1985 p 26
28. Sisterlife
29. Ibid
30. Luhra Tivis Where is the Real Violence" Celebrate Life Sept/Oct. 1994
31. Bernard Nathanson, "Deeper Into Abortion"New England Journal Of
Medicine, Nov 1974 p 1189
32. "We the people" June 1992
33. The Zero People p. 9
34. Ibid.
36. Beverly McMillan, M.D. "How One Doctor Changded Her Mind about
Abortion" Focus on the Family, COlorado Springs, COlorado
37. M.D.
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