Abortion Quotes/Quotations

"After an abortion, the doctor must inspect these remains to make sure that all the fetal parts and 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 quoted in "Is the Fetus Human?" 

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Dudley Clendinen, "The Abortion Conflict: What it Does to One Doctor" New York Times Magazine Aug 11 1985 p 26  

"It [the fetus] is a form of life...This has to be killing...The question then becomes "is this kind of killing justifiable? 

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In my own mind, it is justifiable, but only with the informed consent of the mother" 

--abortionist quoted in "Democrat and Chronicle" 7/5/92

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From the Dallas Observer 3/18/95

Former clinic administrator Charlotte Taft, "We were hiding from the women some of the pieces of truth about abortion that were threatening.... It is a kind of killing."

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From the book "Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic" by Peter Korn, one worker says:

"I have never denied that human life begins at conception. If I have a complaint about our society, its that we don't deal with death and dying. Do we believe human beings have a right to make decisions about death and dying? Yes we do, and those decisions are made every day in every hospital."

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In "Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion's Front Line" by Sue Hertz (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1991)the author documents what she saw in and at one busy abortion clinic. From the author:

"It was easy to shrug off an aborted pregnancy as nothing more than a sack of blood and globs of tissue - as many pro-choice activists did- if one never saw fetal remains, or products of conception (POC) as they were known in medical circles. But the nurses, medical assistants, and doctors who worked inside procedure rooms ...knew that an eleven week old POC harbored tiny arms and legs and feet with toes. At twelve weeks, those tiny hands had tiny nails. Althouth the fetal head was too small at this stage to withstand the evacuation machine's suction, pieces of face- a nose and mouth, or a black eye...were sometimes found in the aftermath...Later abortions spawned even more grusome fetal remains...the head did not come out whole during the evacuation, but the legs and arms and rib cage made it through intact. The hand of a second trimester fetus, as a Preterm doctor described it, seemed big enough to shake."

"The counselor/medical assistants (CMAs) met regularly to discuss their feelings about their work...Inside a procedure room, facing the contents of the uterus, there was no denying what abortion was." "During the procedure, Doris [Merrill] would offer her hand for the patient to squeeze, or if the abortion were particularly painful, a notepad for the patient to bite...Doris knew what [Dr. Waldo Fielding] was doing at the end of the examination table as he pored over the legs and ribs and hands, but she chose not to look. It wasn't that Doris ignored the truth, but rather that her commitment was to the woman, not the fetus..."

"...Waldo removed from the glass jar cheesecloth sack which caught the fetal parts, dumping the parts into a basin at the end of the table, between [the patient's] feet. Two legs, two arms, two fists, a skull, a backbone, a placenta. "We've got it" he announced."

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Quoted in Melody Green and Sharon Bennett "The Crime of Being Alive: Abortion, Euthanasia, Infanticide" p 3 

"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 

"Arms, legs, and chests come out of the forceps. It's not a sight for everybody" --abortion provider Dr. William Benbow Thompson

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"If I see a case...after twenty weeks, where it frankly is a child to me, I really agonize over it because the potential is so imminently there...On the other hand, I have another position, which I think is superior in the hierarchy of questions, and that is "who owns this child?" It's got to be the mother."

--Dr. James MacMahon, who performs D & X abortions, in Nat Hentoff "It's Just Too Late: Third Trimester abortions are an Outrage and an Insult to the Human Race" July 27, 1993 Pittsburg Post-Gazette

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From "Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of The Abortion Wars" by Cynthia Gorney (New York: Simon& Schuster, 1998.)

"Never. I would never look down. Some of the nurses watched as he removed the tissue, but I never looked. If I looked, I would never be able to work there [the clinic] again." --Carlean Turner, Kansas City, on D&E abortions

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In the book "Abortion: Debating the Issue" (New York: Enslow Publishing, Inc., 1995) Nancy Day quotes abortionist Dr. Ed Jones, who had worked at a Planned Parenthood Clinic for 4 years at the time of the interview, saying the following:

"This can burn you out very, very quickly...not so much by the physical labor as the emotional part of what's going on. When you do an ultrasound, particularly if you have children, and you see a fetus there, kicking, moving, living, doing things that your own child does, bringing it's thumb to its mouth, and things like that- it's difficult. Then, after the procedure, sometimes we have to actually look at the specimen, and you see arms and legs and things like that torn off...It does take an emotional toll."

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"Is abortion murder? All killing isn't murder...."

--Don Sloan, MD, abortion provider, author of "Abortion: A Doctor's Perspective, A Woman's Dilemma." Quoted in "Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints" edited by Tamara L. Roleff

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"It is when I am holding a plastic uterus in one hand, a suction tube in the other, moving them together in imitation of the scrubbing to come, that woman ask the most secret question. I am speaking in a matter-of-fact voice about 'the tissue' and 'the contents' when the woman suddenly catches my eye and says 'How big is the baby now?' These words suggest a quiet need for definition of the boundaries being drawn. It isn't so odd, after all, that she feels relief when I describe the growing buds bulbous shape, its miniature nature. Again, I gauge, and sometimes lie a little, weaseling around its infantile features until its clinging power slackens."
--abortion worker Sallie Tisdale "We Do Abortions Here" Oct 1987 Harpers Magazine p 68

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"Counselors are just to give the appearance of help. . . [They] think of themselves as company for the women."
--abortion counselor

"I have never yet counseled anybody to have the baby. I'm also doing women's counseling on campus at Albany State, and there I am expected to present alternatives. Whereas at the abortion clinic you aren't really expected to."
--abortion counselor

Rachel Weeping and Other Essays About Abortion. James Tunstead Burtchaell, editor. New York: Universal Press, 1982

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"Vital signs should be observed regularly, and a Doppler [for listening to the fetal heartbeat] inaudible to the patient should be used at intervals to determine the presence or absence of fetal heart tones.. This [informed consent] is a controversial area, but most professionals in the field feel that it is not advisable for patients to view the products of conception, to be told the sex of the fetus, or to be informed of a multiple pregnancy."

--Abortionist Warren Hern in "Abortion Practice" J.B. Lippincott Company, 1984 pgs 145 and 304

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"They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn't want to have an abortion."

-former abortion doctor Dr. Randall 

'Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet" by David Kuperlain and Mark Masters in Oct "New Dimensions" magazine

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"When discussing the sonogram, you are supposed to tell the client that it is a measurement as 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 and was also quoted in "Women Exploited: The Other Victims of Abortion" Paula Ervin, editor. Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1985

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"Sometimes we lied. A girl might ask what her baby was like at a certain point in the pregnancy: Was it a baby yet? Even as early as 12 weeks a baby is totally formed, he has fingerprints, turns his head, fans his toes, feels pain. But we would say 'It's not a baby yet. It's just tissue, like a clot.'"

--Kathy Sparks told in "The Conversion of Kathy Sparks" by Gloria Williamson, Christian Herald Jan 1986 p 28

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"In fact many women will come to me considering abortion, and I have been personally told that I am to turn the monitor away from her view so that seeing her baby jump around on the screen does not influence her choice."

--Shari Richards, quoted from the John Ankerburg Show on 3/7/90

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quoted in "Articles of Faith" was Sylvia Hampton, who worked in an abortion clinic. She acknowledged the truth about fetal development if directly confronted, but tried to redirect. In her own words:

"Sometimes, they [the partners of those having abortions] would say 'Have you ever seen the abortion afterward?' and I would say, 'Yes, I have.' Then they would say, 'Well, what does it look like?' And I would say, 'Well, it depends on the stage of the pregnancy. ''Does it have little feet and a heartbeat?' And I would say, 'Yes, at the early stages it does. But you have to have a magnifying glass to see it. And that's beside the point. The point is that this is a developing embryo that is going to become a child, a teenager, an adult. Is this what this woman wants? Is this what this woman is ready for?....' I would kind of put it back on them: Yeah, it is a developing human being, but why isn't she carrying it to term? And then they would start to talk about that."

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"I have seen hundreds of patients in my office who have had abortions and were just lied to by the abortion counselor. Namely 'This is less painful than having a tooth removed. It is not a baby.' Afterwards, the woman sees Life magazine and breaks down and goes into a major depression."

--Psychologist Vincent Rue quoted in "Abortion Inc" David Kupelian and Jo Ann Gasper, New Dimensions, October 1991 p 16

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In "Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments" by Randy Alcorn, quotes a former abortion clinic counselor:

"I was totally uninformed of available alternatives to abortion. I never recommended adoption or keeping the child. Furthermore, I was completely unaware of the medical facts, including the development of the fetus. I received no training in factual matters- my job was just to keep women happy and make sure they went along with an abortion."

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"If you can't sell abortions over the phone, you will not last." 

--Hellen Pendley, former owner-director of an abortion clinic, Quoted in Mary Meehnan "The Ex-Abortionists: Why They Quit." 

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"I can remember...the resident doctor sitting down, putting the tube in, and removing the contents. I saw the bloody material coming down the plastic tube, and it went into a big jar. My job afterwards was to go and undo the jar, and to see what was inside. I didn't have any views on abortion; I was in a training program, and this was a brand new experience. I was going to get to see a new procedure and learn. I opened the jar and took the little piece of stockingnet stocking and opened the little bag. The resident doctor said "Now put it on the blue towel and check it out. We want to see if we got it all.' I thought, "that'll be exciting-hands on experience looking at tissue.' I opened the sock up and put it on the towel, and there were parts of a person in there. I had taken anatomy, I was a medical student. I knew what I was looking at. There was a little scapula and an arm, I saw some ribs and a chest, and a little tiny head. I saw a piece of a a leg, and a tiny hand and an arm, and you know, it was like somebody put a hot poker into me. I had a conscience, and it hurt. Well, I checked it out and there were two arms and two legs and one head and so forth, and I turned and said "I guess you got it all.' That was a very hard experience to go through emotionally.
--Dr. David Brewer

'Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet" by David Kuperlain and Mark Masters in Oct "New Dimensions" magazine

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"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. 

"I have been there, and I have seen these totally formed babies as early as ten weeks... with the leg missing, or with their head off. I have seen the little rib cages..."
--Debra Harry

"We all wish it were formless, but its not...and its painful. There is a lot of emotional pain."
--abortion clinic worker

Quoted in "The Ex Abortionists: They Have Confronted Reality" Washington Post April 1, 1988 p a 21

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"I was for abortion, I thought it was a woman's right to terminate pregnancy 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 really involves that I changed my mind. After the first week in the abortion 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 sixteen 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 perceive 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."

Quoted in "The Zero People: Essays on Life" by Jeff Lane Hensley, editor. Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1983

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From Norma McCorvey's book Won By Love:

At least 80 percent of the women would try to look down at the end of the table, wondering if they cold see anything which is why our doctor always went in with the scalpel first. Once the baby was already cut up, there was nothing but blood and torn up tissue for the woman to see. When a later abortion was performed, workers had to piece the baby back together, and every major part--head, torso, two legs, and two arms --had to be accounted for. One of our little jokes at the clinic was, "If you ever want to humble a doctor, hide a leg so he thinks he has to go back in." Please understand, these were not abnormal, uncaring women working with me at the clinic. We were just involved in a bloody, dehumanizing business, all of us for our own reasons. Whether we were justifying our past advocacy (as I was), justifying a previous abortion (as many were) or whatever, we were just trying to cope--and if we couldn’t laugh at what was going on, I think our minds would have snapped. It's not an easy trying to confuse a conscience that will not stay dead.

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