Is this what they mean?
- Aug 5, 2008 - 1
A Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the only abortion clinic in the state, closed last month. It was either that or comply with a law recently upheld by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals that requires abortionists in the state to tell women seeking their services that “the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”
According to this law abortion practitioners also must inform each patient that if she aborts, she is giving up her relationship with her child, a relationship that is protected by both the U.S. and South Dakota constitutions. In addition, she must be told about the present and future physical and emotional risks she is taking by having the abortion. The physical risks include hemorrhage, infection, premature births in subsequent pregnancies and infertility. The emotional risks are depression, “suicide ideation and suicide.” The woman must sign off on all of this. Any questions she has must be answered in writing.
An abortion practitioner who refuses to obey this law faces the loss of his or her medical license, imprisonment for at least two years and various lawsuits. No wonder Planned Parenthood of South Dakota cancelled the abortions it had scheduled the first day the ruling took effect. The “blob of tissue” reassurances just are not going to fly anymore in South Dakota. And the other six states covered by the 8th circuit now have precedent to pass similar laws requiring women seeking abortion to be fully informed regarding its risks and possible repercussions.
Telling the truth about abortion is the most effective way to reduce its numbers. That’s the idea behind the South Dakota law and also the basis for a new challenge launched by Priests for Life: the “Is This What You Mean?” project.
In the July 5, 2008 edition of his radio program, Life on the Line, Priests for Life director Father Frank Pavone discussed the fact that pro-choice politicians don’t even like to use the word abortion much less talk about what abortion really is. (Full disclosure: I’m the show’s announcer.) But Father Pavone has devised an easy way to help these politicians open up on the subject. In candidate forums, townhall meetings, on radio and television programs and in letters to the editor, Americans should ask candidates who support keeping abortion legal what they really mean.
The “Is This What You Mean?” campaign relies on the words of abortionists describing the procedure in court testimony and medical textbooks. This information is completely credible because it comes from those who perform abortions and teach the procedures to others. And it provides a starting point for the average citizen to challenge a politician who takes a “pro-choice” position and elicit a simple yes or no answer to the question: “Is this what you mean?”
The following testimonies and descriptions, found on the Life on the Line Web site, refer to legal procedures:
First Trimester Abortions: At this stage most abortionists perform the Suction Curettage Abortion. A plastic tube called a cannula is inserted into the uterus. It is connected to a plastic hose, which is connected to a suction bottle, which is connected to a vacuum. Sometimes the baby remains intact as it exits the body:
- Dr. Martin Haskell testified before U.S District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin: “The fetus passes through the catheter and either dies in transit as it’s passing through the catheter or dies in the suction bottle after it’s all the way out.”
- In sworn testimony before the same court, in the same case: Dr. Raymond Giles was asked, “Can the heart of a fetus or embryo still be beating during a suction curettage abortion as the fetus or embryo comes down the cannula? Dr. Giles answered: “For a few seconds to a minute, yes.”
Often the catheter tears the fetus or the suction action causes the baby to come out in pieces.
- In a medical textbook entitled Abortion Practice, Dr. Warren Hern describes what comes out during a first trimester suction abortion: “The physician will usually first notice a quantity of amniotic fluid, followed by placenta and fetal parts, which may be more or less identifiable.”
Second Trimester Abortions: Although the ban on partial birth abortion was upheld in Gonzales vs. Carhart, the D&E (dilation and evacuation) abortion is still perfectly legal. This form of abortion is commonly used during the second trimester and involves the disassembling of the child before extraction. Keep in mind that pain experts believe that an unborn child feels pain by 20 weeks gestation.
- Dr. Hern’s textbook explains: “The procedure typically changes significantly at 21 weeks because the fetal tissues become much more cohesive and difficult to dismember.” After further describing the difficulty, the text explains, “A long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember the fetus. . . .”
- The D&E procedure was described in Gonzales vs. Carhart: “The doctor grips a fetal part with the forceps and pulls it back through the cervix . . . continuing to pull even after meeting resistance from the cervix. The friction causes the fetus to tear apart. For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus as it is pulled through the cervix and out of the woman. The process of evacuating the fetus piece by piece continues until it has been completely removed.”
Remember, this procedure remains legal.
- Dr. Haskell’s testimony in the Wisconsin court contained a description of the D&E abortion: “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.”
- He continued: “It’s not unusual at the start of D&E procedures that a limb is acquired first and that limb is brought through the cervix . . . prior to the disarticulation and prior to anything having been done that would have caused fetal demise up to that point.”
- Dr. Haskell also testified: “When you’re doing a dismemberment D&E, usually the last part to be removed is the skull itself and it’s floating free inside the uterine cavity. . . . So it’s rather like a ping pong ball floating around and the surgeon is using his forcep to reach up and to try to grasp something that’s freely floating around and is quite large relative to the forcep we’re using. So typically there’s several misdirections, misattempts to grasp. Finally, at some point either the instruments are managed to be in place around the skull or a nip is made out of some area of the skull that allows it to start to decompress. And then, once that happens typically the skull is brought out in fragments rather than as a unified piece.”
So the question at the townhall meeting would be something like: “This is what a prominent abortionist, Dr. Martin Haskell, said about an abortion done in the second trimester: ‘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.’ Sir/ma’am, when you say the word abortion, is this what you mean?”
Or perhaps: “Dr. Haskell also says, ‘Typically the skull is brought out in fragments rather than as a unified piece.’ When you say abortion, is this what you mean?”
Ask the question. Leave it there. Candidates asking for the power to ensure that abortion remains legal must be required to admit what they are defending. And voters will get a real education in the process.
Penna Dexter is a conservative activist and an announcer on the syndicated radio program “Life on the Line” (information available at www.lifeontheline.com). She currently serves as a consultant for KMA Direct Communications in Plano, Texas, and as a co-host of “Jerry Johnson Live,” a production of Criswell Communications. She formerly was a co-host of Marlin Maddoux’s “Point of View” syndicated radio program.
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
1 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Aug 6th, 2008, at 6:06pm, htarry wrote:
I have always been against abortion. When I read this, I became ill. I cannot help but wonder how anyone could be so evil as to want to treat little unborn babies with such cruelty. Surely, one day, God will bring us to judgment for the great evil our nation has done. I’m sure that these same people who are for abortion would say that burning little babies on the altar to a pagan god was wrong, but they do not see that they are sacrificing little babies to the altar of convenience. I am glad that the evil Planned Parenthood is gone from one state anyway. People need to get back to cleaning up their lives and maybe so many little inconvenient babies would not be aborted. Back to marriage and then babies that are loved and wanted.