Dear Friends,

Today will mark the beginning of (what I hope to be) the end of elective abortion.I am writing you today in hopes of educating you on all aspects of this horrible holocaust in America and world-wide. My introduction; my own story for all to read, it is of course, the basis of my argument and the reason I became Pro Life in the first place.

Some of you know me pretty well; my faith, my views, and my beliefs. But what most of you may not know is that, seven years ago, I had an abortion at 13 weeks gestation.This decision was--what I thought to be at the time--the best decision for me, as a 15 year old, high school student with no means of supporting a child. What I didn’t realize at that time, was how that tiny decision would affect the rest of my life. I didn’t know then what I know now (as many have said in regret).

The decision to abort my first child has not only affected my physical and mental health, it has nearly ruined my entire life. I’ve made numerous suicide attempts (behind closed doors of course), I self mutilated for years just to feel the pain my baby went through, I abused drugs and alcohol, I became promiscuous because I wanted so badly to feel loved because I hurt so badly, emotionally. I began to starve myself and eventually became anorexic (most people never knew I didn’t eat and when I did, made myself sick when I was alone, my mother will find out by reading this letter). I was in physical and emotional pain most of the time because of one tiny decision I made as a frightened teenager who thought she knew best. Of course I didn’t realize why I was doing those things at the time I was doing them, but now I look back and know exactly why and it hurts to remember, I wish I could forget.

I suppose my own history wouldn’t be so bad if I was the only woman in the world who felt this way following an abortion. Sadly, I am not. I frequent a post abortive message board online with over 7,000 members (both women and men) who have some kind of remorse and/or regret over their abortion(s), and the number just keeps going up. Everyone has a story to tell, everyone has a history. It is truly sad to read their stories and not be able to offer them some kind of hope for their future because abortion is so permanent, it’s so final, there is no future with that child. The “what-ifs” are overwhelming and only get worse after birthing subsequent children. The worst part about the whole thing, is knowing I can never tell them; “You’ll get over it, it just takes time.” because I’ve never really gotten over it and I never will.

I will never know what that child would have been like, I will never know what s/he would have looked like. Would s/he have looked anything like me? Would s/he have had my personality; demanding and bold, or would s/he have had her/his father’s charm and compassion? I will never know the undeniable and unconditional love that children have for their mother, I will never have that peace in my heart when I watch him/her sleep at night. There will be no joy for me the day s/he would have graduated high school, college, or wed. There is not and never will be peace and pride in my heart from that child, I know no peace. It forever haunts me. I look into the eyes of my two wonderful and beautiful children and I am so thankful that God has allowed me to raise two of his angels, two of his most precious gifts. But I also see the face of a child that never was and never will be. And this is one reason I write you today; not only does abortion kill innocence, it wounds the mother for life. Regardless of what statistics “prove,” I know from my own experience and witnessing thousands of other women’s pain, abortion hurts women! It is not a solution, it is a death sentence for all involved; physical for the baby and emotional for the mother (and father). It causes one death of the soul that never was and one death of a soul that use to be.

A few thoughts for you, as I continue on my journey.

No doubt an unwanted pregnancy can cause intense stress and hardship in a variety of ways, but, as you’ll read in this booklet, the medical evidence is clear -- the physical and psychological consequences of abortion can be far worse. Nine short months of pregnancy is a relatively small cost to pay in light of a lifetime of potential physical and mental health problems.

Think about it.



Defining "Abortion"

The term "abortion" actually refers to any premature expulsion of a human fetus, whether naturally spontaneous, as in a miscarriage, or artificially induced, as in a surgical or chemical abortion. Today, the most common usage of the term "abortion" applies to artificially induced abortion, which is the subject of this booklet.

In 1973, the Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions legalizing abortion in all 50 states during all nine months of pregnancy, for any reason, medical, social, or otherwise.

The vast majority of all abortions performed today are done for social, not medical reasons -- because a woman doesn’t feel ready for a baby at the time, because her partner wants her to have an abortion, etc. Approximately 93% of all induced abortions are done for elective, non-medical reasons such as these.

Abortion ends a pregnancy by destroying and removing the developing child. That baby’s heart has already begun to beat by the time the mother misses her period and begins to wonder if she might be pregnant (about 31 days after the mother’s last menstrual period or LMP). Surgical abortions are usually not performed before seven weeks, or 49 days LMP. By that time, the baby has identifiable arms and legs (day 45) and displays measurable brain waves (about 40 days). During the seventh through the tenth weeks, when the majority of abortions are performed, fingers and genitals appear and the child’s face is recognizably human.

In this booklet, I will attempt to explain these medical details which involve elective abortions. I will warn that the explanation is quite graphic and not suited for the sensitive, the descriptions of abortion procedures are not only graphic but heart wrenching and may cause severe stress, physically and emotionally. Please read with caution but take what you do read to heart. I pray this packet will affect you and your stance on abortion. This is my attempt to inform the uninformed in hopes that more people will come forward with their time and money to support the Pro Life movement in stopping elective abortion for good. So many people are overwhelmed with the war on terrorism but this is what's happening at home, in our own communities. Please, I beg you to help me and others
stop violence in the womb!



Abortion Techniques

·Surgical
·First Trimester

Suction Aspiration

Suction aspiration, or "vacuum curettage," is the abortion technique used in most first trimester abortions. A powerful suction tube with a sharp cutting edge is inserted into the womb through the dilated cervix. The suction dismembers the body of the developing baby and tears the placenta from the wall of the uterus, sucking blood, amniotic fluid, placental tissue, and fetal parts into a collection bottle.

Great care must be taken to prevent the uterus from being punctured during this procedure, which may cause hemorrhage and necessitate further surgery. Also, infection can easily develop if any fetal or placental tissue is left behind in the uterus. This is the most frequent post-abortion complication.



Dilatation (Dilation) and Curettage (D&C)

In this technique, the cervix is dilated or stretched to permit the insertion of a loop shaped steel knife. The body of the baby is cut into pieces and removed and the placenta is scraped off the uterine wall.Blood loss from D & C, or "mechanical" curettage is greater than for suction aspiration, as is the likelihood of uterine perforation and infection.

This method should not be confused with routine D&C’s done for reasons other than undesired pregnancy (to treat abnormal uterine bleeding, dysmenorrhea, etc.).



RU 486

·Chemical
·First Trimester

While many people focus solely on RU 486, the so-called " French abortion pill," the RU 486 technique actually uses two powerful synthetic hormones with the generic names of mifepristone and misoprostol to chemically induce abortions in women five-to-nine weeks pregnant.

The RU 486 procedure requires at least three trips to the abortion facility.In the first visit, the woman is given a physical exam, and if she has no obvious contra-indications ("red flags" such as smoking, asthma, high blood pressure, obesity, etc., that could make the drug deadly to her), she swallows the RU 486 pills. RU 486 blocks the action of progesterone, the natural hormone vital to maintaining the rich nutrient lining of the uterus. The developing baby starves as the nutrient lining disintegrates.

At a second visit 36 to 48 hours later, the woman is given a dose of artificial prostaglandins, usually misoprostol, which initiates uterine contractions and usually causes the embryonic baby to be expelled from the uterus. Most women abort during the 4-hour waiting period at the clinic, but about 30% abort later at home, work, etc., as many as 5 days later. A third visit about 2 weeks later determines whether the abortion has occurred or a surgical abortion is necessary to complete the procedure (5 to 10% of all cases).

There are several serious well documented side effects associated with RU 486/prostaglandin abortions, including prolonged (up to 44 days) and severe bleeding, nausea, vomiting, pain, and even death. At least one woman in France died while others there suffered life-threatening heart attacks from the technique.In U.S. trials conducted in 1995, one woman is known to have nearly died after losing half her blood and requiring emergency surgery.

Long term effects of the drug have not yet been sufficiently studied, but there are reasons to believe that RU 486 could affect not only a woman’s current pregnancy, but her future pregnancies as well, potentially inducing miscarriages or causing severe malformations in later children.



Methotrexate

The procedure with methotrexate is similar to the one using RU 486, though administered by an intramuscular injection instead of a pill.

Originally designed to attack fast growing cells such as cancers by neutralizing the B vitamin folic acid necessary for cell division, methotrexate apparently attacks the fast growing cells of the trophoblast as well, the tissue surrounding the embryo that eventually gives rise to the placenta. The trophoblast not only functions as the "life support system" for the developing child, drawing oxygen and nutrients from the mother’s blood supply and disposing of carbon dioxide and waste products, but also produces the hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) hormone which signals the corpus luteum to continue the production of progesterone necessary to prevent breakdown of the uterine lining and loss of the pregnancy.Methotrexate initiates the disintegration of that sustaining, protective, and nourishing environment. Deprived of the food, oxygen, and fluids he or she needs to survive, the baby dies.

Three to seven days later (depending on the protocol used), a suppository of misoprostol (the same prostaglandin used with RU 486) is inserted into a woman’s vagina to trigger expulsion of the tiny body of the child from the woman’s uterus. Sometimes this occurs within the next few hours, but often a second dose of the prostaglandin is required, making the time lapse between the initial administration of methotrexate and the actual completion of the abortion as long as several weeks. A woman may bleed for weeks (42 days in one study), even heavily, and may abort anywhere -- at home, on the bus, at work, etc. Those found to be still pregnant in later visits (at least 1 in 25) are given surgical abortions.

Even doctors who support abortion are reluctant to prescribe methotrexate for abortion because of its high toxicity and unpredictable side effects. Those side effects commonly include nausea, pain, diarrhea, as well as less visible but more serious effects such as bone marrow depression, severe anemia, liver damage and methotrexate-induced lung disease.

The manufacturer warns in the package insert that while methotrexate has shown itself useful in treating certain types of cancer and severe cases of arthritis and psoriasis, "deaths have been reported with the use of methotrexate," and recommends that its use be limited to "physicians whose knowledge and experience includes the use of antimetabolite therapy." Though researchers performing methotrexate abortions have dismissed such concerns because of the low dosage used, other doctors in the abortion trade have disagreed, and the package insert clearly warns that "toxic effects may be related in frequency and severity to dose or frequency of administration but have been seen at all doses" (emphasis added).



Dilatation (Dilation) and Evacuation (D&E)

·Surgical
·Second Trimester

See Through the eyes of an abortionist



Salt Poisoning

·Chemical
·2nd and 3rd Trimesters

Otherwise known as "saline amniocentesis," "salting out," or a "hypertonic saline" abortion, this technique is used after 16 weeks of pregnancy, when enough fluid has accumulated in the amniotic fluid sac surrounding the baby.

A needle is inserted through the mother’s abdomen and 50-250 ml (as much as a cup) of amniotic fluid is withdrawn and replaced with a solution of concentrated salt. The baby breathes in, swallowing the salt, and is poisoned. The chemical solution also causes painful burning and deterioration of the baby’s skin. Usually, after about an hour, the child dies. The mother goes into labor about 33 to 35 hours after instillation and delivers a dead, burned, and shriveled baby. About 97% of mothers deliver their dead babies within 72 hours.

Hypertonic saline may initiate a condition in the mother called "consumption coagulopathy" (uncontrolled blood clotting throughout the body) with severe hemorrhage as well as other serious side effects on the central nervous system.Seizures, coma, or death may also result from saline inadvertently injected into the woman’s vascular system.



Urea

Because of the dangers associated with saline methods, other instillation methods such as hypersomolar urea are sometimes employed, though these are less effective and usually must be supplemented by oxytocin or a prostaglandin in order to achieve the desired result. Incomplete or failed abortion remains a problem with urea methods, often precipitating the additional risk of surgery.

As with other instillation techniques, gastrointestinal side effects such as nausea or vomiting are frequent, but the most common problem with second trimester techniques is cervical injuries, which range from small lacerations to complete detachments of the anterior or posterior cervix. Between 1% and 2% of patients using urea must be hospitalized for treatment of endometritis, an infection of the lining oft he uterus.



Prostaglandins

Prostaglandins are naturally produced chemical compounds which normally assist in the birthing process. The injection of concentrations of artificial prostaglandins prematurely into the amniotic sac induces violent labor and the birth of a child usually too young to survive. Often salt or another toxin is first injected to ensure that the baby will be delivered dead, since some babies have survived the trauma of a prostaglandin birth and been born alive. This method is used during the second trimester.

In addition to risks of retained placenta, cervical trauma, infection, hemorrhage, hypothermia, bronchoconstriction, tachycardia, more serious side effects and complications from the use of artificial prostaglandins, including cardiac arrest and rupture of the uterus, can be unpredictable and very severe.
Death is not unheard of.



Partial-Birth Abortion

·Surgical
·2nd and 3rd Trimesters

Abortionists sometimes refer to these or similar types of abortions using obscure, clinical-sounding euphemisms such as "Dilation and Extraction" (D&X), or "intact D&E" (IDE) which mask the realities of how the abortions are actually performed.

This procedure is used to abort women who are 20 to 32 weeks pregnant -- or even later into pregnancy.* Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist reaches into the uterus, grabs the unborn baby’s leg with forceps, and pulls the baby into the birth canal, except for the head, which is deliberately kept just inside the womb. (At this point in a partial-birth abortion, the baby is alive.) Then the abortionist jams scissors into the back of the baby’s skull and spreads the tips of the scissors apart to enlarge the wound. After removing the scissors, a suction catheter is inserted into the skull and the baby’s brains are sucked out. The collapsed head is then removed from the uterus.



Hysterotomy

Similar to the Caesarean Section, this method is generally used if chemical methods such as salt poisoning or prostaglandins fail (see pp. 12-14). Incisions are made in the abdomen and uterus and the baby, placenta, and amniotic sac are removed.Babies are sometimes born alive during this procedure, raising questions as to how and when these infants are killed and by whom.

This method offers the highest risk to the health of the mother, because the potential for rupture during subsequent pregnancies is appreciable.In the first two years of legal abortion in New York State, the death rate from hysterotomy was 271.2 deaths per 100,000 cases.





Through the eyes of an abortionist

WARNING!

This is the graphic, detailed, description of
a second trimester procedure.

Please be advised!

A Medical Doctor describes the Dilation and Evacuation Procedure
Dr. Tony Levatino, M.D.

Imagine for a moment that you are a "pro-choice" obstetrician-gynecologist as I once was. Your patient today is seventeen years old and she is twenty weeks pregnant. At twenty weeks, her uterus is up to her umbilicus and she has been feeling her baby kick for the last two weeks. If you could see her baby, she would be as long as your hand from the top of her head to the bottom of her rump not counting the legs. Your patient is now asleep on an operating room table with her legs in stirrups. Upon entering the room after scrubbing, you dry your hands with a sterile towel and are gowned and gloved by the scrub nurse.

The first task is remove the laminaria that had earlier been placed in the cervix to dilate it sufficiently to allow the procedure you are about to perform. With that accomplished, direct your attention to the surgical instruments arranged on a small table to your right. The first instrument you reach for is a 14-French suction catheter. It is clear plastic and about nine inches long. It has a bore through the center approximately ¾ of an inch in diameter. Picture yourself introducing the catheter through the cervix and instructing the circulating nurse to turn on the suction machine which is connected through clear plastic tubing to the catheter. What you will see is a pale yellow fluid the looks a lot like urine coming through the catheter into a glass bottle on the suction machine. This amniotic fluid surrounded the baby to protect her.

With suction complete, look for your Sopher clamp. This instrument is about thirteen inches long and made of stainless steel. At one end are located jaws about 2 ½ inches long and about ¾ on an inch wide with rows of sharp ridges or teeth. This instrument is for grasping and crushing tissue. When it gets hold of something, it does not let go.

A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The baby can be in any orientation or position inside the uterus. Picture yourself reaching in with the Sopher clamp and grasping anything you can. At twenty weeks gestation, the uterus is thin and soft so be careful not to perforate or puncture the walls. Once you have grasped something inside, squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard – really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg about 4 to 5 inches long. Reach in again and grasp whatever you can. Set the jaw and pull really hard once again and out pops an arm about the same length. Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart and lungs.

The toughest part of a D&E abortion is extracting the baby’s head. The head of a baby that age is about the size of a plum and is now free floating inside the uterine cavity. You can be pretty sure you have hold of it if the Sopher clamp is spread about as far as your fingers will allow. You will know you have it right when you crush down on the clamp and see a pure white gelatinous material issue from the cervix. That was the baby’s brains. You can then extract the skull pieces. If you have a really bad day like I often did, a little face may come out and stare back at you.

Congratulations! You have just successfully performed a Suction D&E abortion. You just affirmed her right to choose. You just made $600 cash in fifteen minutes.





Quotes by abortion providers

From "Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic" by Wendy Simonds. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996 included a chapter on how to repel abortion protestors or "antis"

"You're going from dealing with people to dealing with what most people here at the Center consider a real hurdle, to do sterile room, because you have to deal with the actual abortion tissue. And for some people, that's really hard. They can be abstractly in favor of abortion rights, but they sure don't want to see what an eighteen-week abortion looks like."

"It's just- I mean it looks like a baby. It looks like a baby. And especially if you get one that comes out, that's not piecemeal. And you know, I saw this one, and it had its fingers in its mouth...it makes me really sad that that had to happen, you know, but it doesn't change my mind. It's just hard. And it makes me just sort of stop and feel sad about it, the whole necessity of it. And also....it's very warm when it comes into the sterile room because it's been in the mother's stomach. It feels like flesh, you know..."

"It's going to be weird now because you're going to see the sonogram. You're going to see the heart beating- little hearts, you know- and then, all of a sudden, you're going to put his cardiac medicine in it to make it stop- to kill it. So you're going to see the exact moment when you kill the fetus. I won't kill it, the doctor will kill it...and, I mean, it might be more humane...[if] the fetuses do feel something, why not kill it, you know, fast, [rather] than rip its leg off?"

"I feel some sadness [about abortions] and I think part of the problem is that we don't talk about that...we don't talk about it as much as we think about it...somehow your pro-choice stance is compromised by saying the word "baby."...We don't allow ourselves to say or think that word...."

"At nine weeks...you start seeing fetal parts. And by the second trimester it's, you know, it's a baby, and by eighteen weeks it's definitely a baby. And by like, you know, twenty-two weeks, you go in and you watch someone do a sonogram, and you're like, "Oh my." There it is just moving, moving around. And it's really hard because I always thought of abortion in terms of just the woman, just her body."

"You're looking between the woman's legs; you're seeing, you know, what the doctor's doing. And it's what a lot of people would call kind of, I guess, gruesome- that's not really the word because- it's identifiable. I mean, when he...takes the forceps and pulls out a foot, you can see the foot, and my reaction- because I feel so strongly that women who want to have a twenty week abortion should be able to have that- but I mean when I look and was just like, you know, my first reaction was, you know, I was pretty horrified."

"So by it looking like a baby, you're associating it with yourself because...you used to be a baby, you used to be a fetus."

"...when you're, you know, putting a fetus's feet in over its head in a baggie, there's just this brief moment of ‘This could have been me,’ which I fundamentally believe is okay.She should have the right to choose..."

"...it looks like a baby.That's what it looks like to me. You've never seen anything else that looks like that. The only other thing you've ever seen is a baby...You can see a face and hands, and ears and eyes and, you know...feet and toes...It bothered me real bad the first time..."

"The destruction I can't deny....I wish we lived in a world where abortion didn't have to exist."

"You know, we still say "products of conception." Well, why don't we say it looks like- you know, a twenty week fetus looks like a baby. Why can't we say that in public? Because that's what the antis (pro lifers) say, you know."

"I think the tough part was seeing actual pieces of fetus being removed.And in the beginning, yes, I remember looking, standing behind this woman's shoulder [as she performed an early second- trimester-abortion] and thinking, ‘I can't do this.’There's something emotionally upsetting about this.Features are discernible; you can count five fingers on a hand and five toes on a foot. You know, all the organ systems are formed. You know, you can see ears as structures, and the nose and eyes as structures...I have gotten to the point now that because I've been doing this work five months, four months, I look at it a little differently. I don't see the same things that I did. And, honestly, when I sit down to do one of these now, I am watching to be sure that I'm getting everything that I need to get. It's 'Do I have two lower extremities? Do I have two upper extremities? Is there a spine? ....and the skull?...It does become a bit routine after a while. I don't fear it."

"I hate it when people put it together to look like a baby. I hate that...I don't want to look at it when its like that because it's like a broken doll, and that grosses me out."

"Abortion Practice" by Warren Hern, M.D., Boulder Colorado Abortionist published in 1984 by the J.B. Lippenott Company.. Hern performs abortions up until the 4th month of pregnancy.

"The procedure changes significantly at 21 weeks because fetal tissues become much more cohesive and difficult to dismember" p 154 "A long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember the fetus." - 154

"The aggregate fetal tissue is weighted, then the following fetal parts are measured, foot length, knee to heel length, and biparietal diameter" p 164

"I do think abortion is murder -- of a very special and necessary sort. What else would one call the deliberate stilling of a life? And no physician involved with the procedure ever kids himself about that .... legalistic distinctions among "homicide," "justified homicide," "self- defense," and "murder" appear to me a semantic game. What difference does it make what we call it? Those who do it and those who witness its doing know that abortion is the stilling of a life."
-- Dr. Magda Denes, PhD

From Magda Denes. "Performing Abortions." Commentary Magazine, October 1976, pages 33 to 37:

"You have to become a bit schizophrenic. In one room, you encourage the patient that the slight irregularity in the fetal heart is not important, that she is going to have a fine, healthy baby. Then, in the next room you assure another woman, on whom you just did a saline abortion, that it is a good thing that the heartbeat is already irregular....she has nothing to worry about, she will NOT have a live baby...All of a sudden one noticed that at the time of the saline infusion there was a lot of activity in the uterus. That's not fluid currents. That's obviously the fetus being distressed by swallowing the concentrated salt solution and kicking violently and that's to all intents and purposes, the death trauma. ..somebody has to do it, and unfortunately we are the executioners in this instance..."
--abortionist Dr.Szenes

"And then to see, to be with somebody while they're having the injection when they're twenty or twenty-four weeks, and you see the baby moving around, kicking around, as this needle goes into the stomach, you know."
--Susan Lindstrom, M.S.W.

"I look inside the bucket in front of me. There is a small naked person in there, floating in a bloody liquid- plainly the tragic victim of a drowning accident. But then perhaps this was no accident, because the body is purple with bruises and the face has the agonized tautness of one forced to die too soon. I have seen this face before, on a Russian soldier lying on a frozen snow-covered hill, stiff with death, and cold."
--Denes

Also quoted by Magda Denes, "[the doctor] pulls out something, which he slaps on the instrument table. "there," he says, "A leg." . . . I turn to Mr. Smith. . . He points to the instrument table, where there is a perfectly formed, slightly bent leg, about three inches long. . . "There, I've got the head out now." ...There lies a head. It is the smallest human head I have ever seen, but it is unmistakably part of a person."

"We know that its killing, but the state permits killing under certain circumstances"
--Dr. Neville Sender, abortionist

"Even now I feel a little peculiar about it, because as a physician I was trained to conserve life, and here I am destroying it."
--abortionist

"There was not one [doctor] who at some point in the questioning did not say "This is murder."'
--Magda Denes on her two years of research done for her book In Necessity and Sorrow; Life and Death Inside an Abortion Hospital.

"You know there is something in there alive that you are killing."
--another abortionist interviewed by Denes

"I went up to the lab one day and on the pathologist's table I saw what I thought was little rubber doll until I realized it was a fetus. . .I got really shook up and upset and I couldn't believe it. It had all its fingers and toes, you know, hands and feet. . . I never thought it would look so -real. I didn't like it."
--Planned Parenthood employee quoted in Magda Denes book "In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death Inside an Abortion Hospital" New York: Basic Books 1979

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:

"I have angry feelings at myself for feeling good about grasping the calvaria [head], 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."

"It [abortion] is a form of killing. You're ending a life."
Ron Fitzimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, in David Stout, "An Abortion Rights Advocate Says He Lied about Procedure" New York Times. February 26, 1997; A-12.

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."
From the Dallas Observer 3/18/95

"I am walking out the back door, and I see a plastic jar of tissue and blood waiting to be sent to the path lab, and in the plastic jar a tiny perfect white hand. . . That flat palm reaching up through a wine-red wash of blood. Why does that stay with me?"
From the book "Past Due" by Anne Finger, published by The Seal Press in 1990

"Even if you are pro-choice, no one likes to see a dead fetus."
-Vilma Valdez, Education Director Planned Parenthood of Greater Miami, The Miami Herald, Oct 24 1992

"We should not be surprised to find a human fetus looks like us; rather we would be amazed if it resembled an elephant..."
“back to the central issue of personhood and rights; other non-persons (pigs, cows) have toenails, heartbeats, and the capacity to feel pain (some say a fetus can only feel pressure, not pain, but we're not sure), yet these factors alone do not prevent the destruction of such entities."
"It is a fact that the fetus is human life, but when do we accept that developing human life as a fellow human being? That question can only be answered according to our individual beliefs."
-- National Abortion Rights Action League Loose-leaf booklet entitled "Organizing for Action." Prepared by Vicki Z. Kaplan for the National Abortion Rights Action League, 250 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019. 51 pages, no date.

The following is from a passage about the saline abortion method, an abortion technique used in the second trimester and beyond.

"Emotional stress is an important factor for many women, since they are awake at the time of the expulsion of the fetus, and the fetus is well formed. This emotional stress is also a factor for hospital personnel- a problem impossible to avoid."
-Current Obstetric and Gynecologic Diagnosis and Treatment, 9th ed: Alan H. DeCherney and Lauren Nathan. McGraw Hill, Lange Medical Books. New York, 2003.

"D&Es ["dilation and evacuations," i..e., live intrauterine fetal dismemberments], the procedure typically used for later abortions, have always been somewhat problematic because of the toughness and development of the fetal tissues. . . . I kept doing D&Es because that was what I was comfortable with, up until 24 weeks. But they were very tough. Sometimes it was a 45-minute operation. I noticed that some of the later D&Es were very, very easy. So I asked myself why can't they all happen this way. You see the easy ones would have a foot length presentation, you'd reach up and grab the foot of the fetus, pull the fetus down and the head would hang up and then you would collapse the head and take it out. It was easy. At first, I would reach around trying to identify a lower extremity [i.e., a foot] blindly with the tip of my instrument. I'd get it right about 30-50 percent of the time. Then I said, 'Well gee, if I just put the ultrasound up there I could see it all and I wouldn't have to feel around for it.' I did that and sure enough, I found it 99 percent of the time. Kind of serendipity."
["2nd Trimester Abortion: An interview with W. Martin Haskell, MD," Cincinnati Medicine, Fall 1993]

We...have dealt heavily ...in euphemism...We have been unwilling to talk to women about what it means to abort a baby. We don't ever talk about babies...The word 'choice' is the biggest euphemism. Some use phrases 'products of conception' and 'contents of the uterus' or exchange the word pregnancy for the word fetus. I think it's wrong."
---Judith Arcana, Pro-choice activist





Informed Choice

When people talk about abortion, one is likely to hear a great deal about the social, moral, and even religious reasons for having or not having an abortion, but little about the basic medical details. In fact, many women make the decision to have an abortion without ever discussing either the medical procedures or the health considerations with anyone. Perhaps no other procedure is performed with this degree of patient ignorance.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

American citizens have a right to be informed about things that might affect their health. There is no reason why any woman should go through surgery of any kind, especially induced abortion, or take powerful drugs that induce abortion, and not even be informed about potentially serious side effects.





Is Abortion Safe?

The argument used by many advocates of abortion -- that abortion is safer than childbirth -- is difficult to defend in light of medical evidence to the contrary. The Abortion Surveillance Branch of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) maintains that induced abortion is safer than childbirth and that the serious complication rate is less than one percent.Yet there is no agreement among investigators as to what constitutes a major complication and no real national system for the reporting these kind of statistics, making the accuracy of such assertions questionable. Furthermore, the experiences of private physicians and gynecologists do not seem to support the validity of the CDC’s claim.

Daniel J. Martin, M.D., Ltd., clinical instructor at St.. Louis University Medical School, St. Louis, Missouri, has said, "The impact of abortion on the body of a woman who chooses abortion is great and always negative. I can think of no beneficial effect of a social abortion on a body."

Why is this so? Because induced abortion is the premature, willful, and violent penetration of a closed and safeguarded system -- a system in which nearly every cell, tissue and organ of a woman’s reproductive system has been specially transformed and activated to carry out the function of sustaining and nourishing the developing child. Not surprisingly, any violation of the integrity of that system can lead to serious complications. Physical problems range from hemorrhage and infection to sterility and even death. Psychological effects range from depression and mental trauma to divorce and even suicide.

NancyJo Mann is one of many who has experienced both kinds of complications. Infection and bleeding followed her abortion which eventually led to a hysterectomy. Recalling her experience, she said, "Beforehand, I liked myself. I had never entertained the idea of abortion. But the minute that needle went through my abdomen, I hated it, because I knew it could not be reversed. I wanted to scream, ‘Don’t do this to me!’"



Physical Complications*

Despite the use of local anesthesia, a full 97% of women having abortions reported experiencing pain during the procedure, which more than a third described as "intense,""severe" or "very severe."Compared to other pains, researchers have rated the pain from abortion as more painful than a bone fracture, about the same as cancer pain, though not as painful as an amputation.

Studies also reveal that younger women tend to find abortion more painful than do older adults, and that patients typically found abortion more painful than their doctors or counselors expected.The use of more powerful general anesthetics can reduce the pain, but significantly increases the risk of cervical injury or uterine perforation.

Complications such as these are common, as are bleeding, hemorrhage, laceration of the cervix, menstrual disturbance, inflammation of the reproductive organs, bladder or bowel perforation, and serious infection..

Even more harmful long term physical complications from abortion may surface later. For example, overzealous curettage can damage the lining of the uterus and lead to permanent infertility.Overall, women who have abortions face an increased risk of ectopic (tubal) pregnancy and a more than doubled risk of future sterility.Perhaps most important of all, the risk of these sorts of complications, along with risks of future miscarriage, increase with each subsequent abortion.

The particular type and severity of complications depend a great deal on the experience of the abortionist and the particular abortion method used. Given that most abortions are performed at abortion clinics rather than by a woman’s regular ob-gyn, the doctor performing the abortion is likely to be a stranger of whose skill and experience a woman knows very little.Such things as an inadequate gynecologic examination prior to the operation, the carelessness of the abortionist, or the retention of fetal and placental tissue can all bring on complications. These kinds of complications can usually be treated and generally subside (though not always), but few women ever return to the clinics for crucial post-operative examinations.

There is strong evidence that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. A study of more than 1,800 women appearing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 1994 found that overall, women having abortions increased their risk of getting breast cancer before age 45 by 50%.. For women under 18 with no previous pregnancies, having an abortion after the 8th week increased the risk of breast cancer 800%. Women with a family history of breast cancer fared even worse. All 12 women participating in the study who had abortions before 18 and had a family history of breast cancer themselves got cancer before age 45.

Of course, death of the mother is the most serious of all complications. Over 200 women have died from legal abortions since 1973.The risk of death increases according to the duration of pregnancy and the complexity of the abortion technique employed.



Psychological Consequences

Clinical research provides a growing body of scientific evidence that having an abortion can cause psychological harm to some women. "Women who report negative after-effects from abortion know exactly what their problem is," observed psychologist Wanda Franz, Ph.D., in a March 1989 congressional hearing on the impact of abortion. "They report horrible nightmares of children calling them from trash cans, of body parts, and blood," Franz told the Congressional panel. "When they are reminded of the abortion," Franz testified, "the women re-experienced it with terrible psychological pain ... They feel worthless and victimized because they failed at the most natural of human activities -- the role of being a mother."

The emergence of chemical abortion methods poses a new possibly more devastating psychological threat. Unlike surgical abortions, in which women rarely see the cut up body parts, women having chemical abortions often do see the complete tiny bodies of their unborn children and are even able to distinguish the child’s developing hands, eyes, etc.So traumatic is this for some women that both patients and researchers involved in these studies have recommended that women unprepared for the experience of seeing their aborted children not take the drugs.Long-term psychological implications of this experience have not been studied.

Researchers on the after-effects of abortion have identified a pattern of psychological problems known as Post-Abortion Syndrome (PAS). Women suffering PAS may experience drug and alcohol abuse, personal relationship disorders, sexual dysfunction, repeated abortions, communications difficulties, damaged self-esteem, and even attempt suicide. Post-Abortion Syndrome appears to be a type of pattern of denial which may last for five to ten years before emotional difficulties surface.

Now that some clinicians have established that there is an identifiable pattern to PAS, they face a new challenge. What is still unknown is how widespread psychological problems are among women who have had abortions. A Los Angeles Times survey in 1989 found that 56% of women who had abortions felt guilty about it, and 26% "mostly regretted the abortion."Clinicians’ current goal should be to conduct extensive national research studies to obtain data on the psychological after-effects of abortion.

With the growing awareness of Post Abortion Syndrome in scholarly and clinical circles, women with PAS can expect to receive a more sensitive appreciation of the suffering that they endure. Fortunately, a growing network of peer support groups of women who have had abortions offers assistance to women who are experiencing emotional difficulties.

Many post-abortive women have also been speaking out publicly about their own abortion experiences and the healing process they went through.. Women or family members seeking information about this particular outreach can contact American Victims of Abortion, 419 7th Street, NW, Suite 500, Washington, D.C., 20004.





Alternatives to Abortion

Despite all their talk about "choice," those at abortion clinics who counsel women on their options often act as if abortion is a woman’s only realistic alternative. This simply isn’t so.

Throughout the United States, there are nearly 3,000 Crisis Pregnancy Centers staffed by volunteers ready to provide real help to women facing unplanned or untimely pregnancies.In addition to providing pregnancy tests and counseling, these centers often offer a full range of services, helping women obtain housing, maternity and baby clothes, baby equipment, pre- and post-natal medical care, legal assistance and financial support, information about adoption, and even advice on how a woman in school can continue her education.Offering real and tangible assistance, these centers have helped thousands of women to realize that they didn’t have to choose between their own lives and the lives of their unborn babies.

Unlike their counterparts at the local abortion clinic, the volunteer counselors at your Crisis Pregnancy Center do not have a vested financial interest in the ultimate decision you make. Their concern and commitment are genuine, so you can count on them to stick by you through the tense and sometimes difficult months ahead.

If you've ever picked up a pamphlet at your local Crisis Pregnancy Center, you already have some idea of the quality of people who work there. But if not, you can look in the Yellow Pages under the heading "Abortion Alternatives," or call, toll-free, 1 (800) 848-LOVE, any time, day or night, to find the nearest Crisis Pregnancy Center in your area. You’ll find someone who genuinely cares about what happens to you and your unborn baby.





Looking Beyond the Mantra of Choice

Norma McCorvey's story of her time as Roe (in Roe v Wade), and in working at an abortion clinic gives a valuable insight into the the true meaning and real facts of legalized abortion. Unfortunately, as I know, many women have already experienced abortion first hand and the grim realities of abortion, and don't need McCorvey's testimony to know the truth. But for those with doubts or interested, I've included an excerpt from her website, Roe No More Ministries and of her book, Won by Love.

"Poor, pregnant, and desperate, Norma McCorvey fell into the hands of two young and ambitious lawyers. They were looking for a plaintiff with whom they could challenge the Texas state law prohibiting abortion, and Norma signed on. Little did she know that her signature would one day make her an international figure.

Though she was touted as a symbol of everything women could gain by being free to choose an abortion, the real Jane Roe was an embarrassment to the image that the Ivy League feminists tried so hard to project. Norma was uneducated, unskilled, a drug user, and an alcoholic. She became a helpless pawn in a powerful game.

"I had a reputation to protect, after all. As the plaintiff in the infamous Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, my life was inextricably tied up with abortion. Though I had never had one, abortion was the sun around which my life orbited. I once told a reporter, "This issue is the only thing I live for. I live, eat, breathe, think everything about abortion."- quote from Norma McCorvey

Working inside the abortion industry, Norma saw how abortion degraded women; she was surprised at the exorbitant dollars that kept rolling into the doctors' pockets; she saw the blatant exploitation as abortion advocates put political rhetoric above safe medicine; and she eventually began to question the movement for which she once said she "lived and breathed."

Eventually, Norma's worst nightmare came true. The controversial pro-life group, Operation Rescue, moved in next door to Norma's abortion clinic. A little girl's affection, a mother's trust, and a gregarious man's friendship surprised Norma, and eventually led her to consider the love, forgiveness, and hope offered by Jesus Christ." Roe No More Ministries roenomore.org/normas_story/index.htm

From Norma's Book, Won By Love WARNING: Contains graphic abortion scenes and post-abortion fetuses.

Chapter 11: A Day in the Life
Getting it Done After "counseling" we would lead the patient into the back room, where she would typically wait for an hour or two, then we would take her to an addressing room, where she would put on a surgical gown, but leave her socks on. Then we'd help her up on the table, get her in position and put her feet in the stirrups. Once the patient was settled, we hit her with about 40 percent nitrous oxide. Though I have received no medical training, I routinely performed this function (as well as other medical acts, such as drawing blood). Most abortionists do not want to spend the money to pay a specialist.

It takes about 10 minutes for the laughing gas to get into the bloodstream. After that, a nurse comes in and numbs the woman's cervix with a small needle. Then she would nod my way. My job was to talk to the women and get them to relax. I would usually resort to small talk. "Do you ski" I'd ask in winter. "A little bit," a timid voice would reply. "I hear that Angel Fire had so much snow dumped this morning that the skiing is great. Won't it be fun to get out there and take a couple of runs real soon?" "Yeah. Great."

I would do anything to get them to stay relaxed. When I saw them tense up, I'd say, "Think about the nicest thing you've ever seen. Got it? Now tell me about it." or "Tell me about the prettiest dress you've ever owned." During this time the doctor is dilating the patient's cervix with his instruments. He then begins scraping the uterus with an instrument that looks like a tongue depressor-- those little wooden things doctors stick in your throat when they ask you to say "aaahhh." Soon, a little bit of blood begins to trickle out of the woman's body and the doctor inserts a cannula--a medical tube--into the vaginal canal.

Often this was the first time Arnie (the abortionist) would address the patient directly. "Okay, machine may scare you. I have not talked to you because Norma is here to talk to you for me. She is my representative. If you have questions, talk to Norma."

Invariably, the woman would grab my hand—I learned to remove all my rings because many of those young women were very strong. I tried not to wince, even when their fingernails bit into my skin, drawing blood. The doctor turned the machine on, the woman's body shook in rhythm with it, her legs began to quiver and sometimes I had to hold her hips. If the woman was a squirmer, I would have to restrain her. At least 80 percent of the women would try to look down at the end of the table, wondering if they could 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 easy trying to confuse a conscience that will not stay dead.

Women typically began crying as soon as the machine was shut off. Our standard line was, "Honey, you've just had fifteen milligrams of liquid Valium, and it's only natural that you should feel so emotional. Don't worry, it'll pass." We could never admit to the fact that she might be crying because she realized what she had just done to her baby.

We then wheeled the girl into recovery, put a pad on her, pulled the curtain to give her some privacy, then checked vital signs: blood pressure and pulse. Again, I was usually the one to do this.

A Hundred Dollar Lie

More than once I had a conversation with Arnie that went something like this: "She's ten weeks, Arnie." "Norma, tell her she's twelve." I tried looking him in the eye, but he avoided my stare. The difference between an abortion at ten weeks and twelve weeks was a hundred dollars. Abortionists routinely jack up the estimate of a baby’s age because most women simply won't argue about it--and even fewer would dare to solicit a second, more informed opinion.

In this arena, the abortionist is freer than any other physician. He controls both the sonogram and the sonogram machine, and rarely has to confer with another doctor or share his records. Since he is talking to women who are almost universally uninformed about the mechanics of what he does, it is child's play to cash in by inflating an unborn baby's age.

"You tell her." I said. "I'm not gonna lie." I was not always cooperative. For example, both Connie and I refused to reassemble the body parts after a late-term abortion. It was bad enough having to seal the bags that held them, but there was no way I was going to treat those bodies like grotesque jigsaw puzzles.

"Norma, Norma," Arnie once told me, "I will show you where to put the tissue." "Tissue" was the code word for bodies in our clinic. We stored them in plastic bags, which were kept in a freezer until they were picked up weekly. I was not a newcomer to abortion clinics at that time but I was not about to handle the bodies. "Sorry, Arnie, " I said, "I don't do that. I'll scrub the floors. I'll make appointments. But Don't ask me to handle the tissue." "It's okay," he argued. "I'll show you how to put them in the freezer. "I walked in the back, more to shut up Arnie than to commit to handling the bodies in the future. Besides I was feeling a little ashamed of myself.

"You're hard-core", I told myself. "You're Jane Roe. You can handle a couple of plastic bags full of tissue. "
The Parts Room, as we called it, was narrow, with washbasins on one side and medical supplies on the other. Against one wall was a white freezer with the lock broken off. Arnie lifted up a large plastic bag. The contents looked similar to a cut-up chicken, with all the parts swimming in blood, and I felt myself grow nauseous. Then I saw the back of a head float by and I immediately vomited all over Arnie, the sink, and the counter.

"Oh Norma," Arnie complained, "I will have to go and clean myself again." He looked and sighed. "You cannot do this?" he asked. I was white. I thought I might throw up again. And he was asking me if I was sure I couldn't do this. I shook my head. "No" "This is okay," he answered. "I will have Connie do it." Connie also refused, so Arnie ended up piecing the bodies together himself. At the beginning of each week, a service truck would come by and pickup the body parts, which were taken to a lab.

All through the week, the Parts Room became creepier and creepier. I never wanted to go back there, especially at night. Sometimes I had to go back there to fix the phone lines or get some supplies, and every time I would be afraid that the freezer was going to open, reach out and grab me, and pull me into its cold world, slamming shut. No, I was not losing my mind; but when you work at an abortion clinic, you're guilty and you know it.

For all the millions spent on public relations, the abortion movement has yet to invent rhetoric powerful enough to blind abortion clinic workers from the truth. You see the body parts, you hear the women's cries, and you can't keep lying to yourself--at least not without artificial stimulation. That's why drugs, alcohol and coarse jokes are so popular inside clinics. If we had stayed sober and not laughed at ourselves, we would have begun to think of ourselves as hideous monsters preying on little babies."





I'm Pro-Choice
Gregory Koukl

The "coat hanger" argument is one of the most emotionally compelling appeals of pro-abortionists, yet the whole line of reasoning collapses because of the single element deified by pro-choicers: choice.

"We're Afraid For Our Daughters," the headline read. The ad was hard to miss, filling an entire page of my local paper. "Could it really happen?" it continued. "Could our daughters be forced into back alleys and illegal abortions? We need your help. For our daughters, our wives, and our friends, please help keep abortion safe."

Listed in a line down the center of the page were the flowing, hand-written signatures of Cher, Ted Danson, John Denver, Betty Ford, and Cybill Shepherd..

It was a touching appeal. One could almost see Ted Danson's little girl being dragged by her ponytail kicking and screaming into a dark alley, or Cybill Shepherd's daughter gagged and strapped to a table while an unshaven dirt bag in coveralls readies a piece of bent wire.

Surely these children didn't choose this evil fate. It was forced upon them by short-sighted and callused moralists who took away the only option available to them, abortion on demand.

This "coat hanger" argument is one of the most emotionally compelling appeals of the abortionists. It's also among the most specious. It has little real substance and is dangerously misleading.

If we're merely talking about personal, elective surgery this objection is compelling. Why burden a woman with the additional risk of a dangerous, septic environment to have her operation?

When the life of a human child is involved, though, the picture changes dramatically. Should the law be faulted for making it riskier for anyone to kill another innocent human being? The fact that bank robbery is dangerous to the felon isn't a good reason to make grand larceny legal.

Ironically, the whole line of reasoning completely collapses when you consider the one element deified by pro-choicers: choice.

A woman has the right to choose to do whatever she wants with her own body, the argument goes. It's her business and nobody else's; it's her choice. If that's true, then she must take responsibility for those choices, even when they are self-destructive.

Yes, in the past some women chose dangerous, illegal abortions. People choose to do many foolish things when there are other reasonable alternatives available. That's just the point: People choose.

Sometimes they make bad choices, but the choice is still their own. There's no coercion. A woman is no more forced into the back alley when abortion is outlawed than a young man is forced to rob banks because the state won't put him on welfare. Both have other options.

I'd like to believe Betty Ford has raised her children with respect for the laws of the country her husband served. I'd like to think John Denver taught his kids enough down-home, common sense that they won't take the foolish route of a back-alley abortion. I hope Cher instills in her daughter the idea that when liberated adult women make their own decisions, they also must accept the consequences of their actions.

I believe in privacy, but privacy has its limits. I believe in choice, but choice has limits, too. Our right to privacy and our right to choose ends where harm to another individual begins. That's true with every law. Every piece of legislation violates privacy and restricts choice to some degree.

In a sense, I'm pro-choice for the woman. She can choose not to conceive. If she gets pregnant against her choice, she can choose to carry the child to term and then keep her baby. Or she can choose to give the child up for adoption so he will be loved and cared for. But she can't choose the quick way out of a difficult problem by taking the life of that little baby.

I'm pro-choice for the child, too. Cher, Ted, John, Betty, and Cybill, I'm not concerned for your daughters. They have a choice to make and if you trained your children well they'll make a sensible one. I'm concerned for your granddaughters. And your grandsons. They have no choice. And they're dying.





Evaluating the "Every Child a Wanted Child" Argument.

"Some of you may be familiar with the series of TV ads the Arthur B. DeMoss foundation has been running promoting adoption. These are beautifully photographed, positive clips showing children at play, enjoying life and the love they receive from others in their family. The message is clear: "If you're pregnant, keep your child. Give your child a chance." The ads end with this statement: "Life: A Beautiful Choice."

[M]any unwanted children lead miserable lives. But whose fault is that? It is not the baby's fault. It's the fault of parents who would rather kill their children than be obliged to love and care for them.

The campaign never mentions abortion. It just champions a particular choice, the decision a woman makes to bear the child of an unplanned pregnancy, and it does that very tastefully and powerfully. The ads are nicely done. Some people don't like these commercials, though. A few years ago I did a piece entitled "Calling a Spade a Spade" discussing Planned Parenthood's objection to the DeMoss Foundation's approach as "subtly anti-abortion."

Well, I guess if a commercial encourages a mother to let her baby live, and if she can't kill her baby through abortion and let it live at the same time, I guess one might say the advice is subtly anti-abortion. But why should Planned Parenthood object? If it is pro-choice, this means that it promotes adoption as one of the legitimate choices. And if promotion of adoption is "subtly anti-abortion," then Planned Parenthood would be guilty of being anti-abortion by the same reasoning. One can't adopt and abort the same child. It's one or the other.

This was evidence to me that Planned Parenthood is not really pro-choice. If it was pro-choice, it wouldn't object to the Arthur B. DeMoss Foundation's commercials promoting the choice of adoption by letting a child live. Because they take offense, this tells me they aren't pro-choice, they're pro-abortion, prompting the title, "Calling a Spade a Spade." Let's be honest and label a pro-abort "pro- abortion ," and not "pro- choice ."

Though not all who are pro-abortion bristle at the adoption suggestion, this objection from Planned Parenthood shows me they aren't really concerned about choice. If they were, they would be applauding the Arthur B. DeMoss Foundation for championing this alternative.

I heard another spin on the same issue not too long ago in an L.A. Times article. As I recall, a female pastor responded to the DeMoss slogan by saying, "'Life: A beautiful choice'? It's not so beautiful for an unwanted child."

This got me thinking, as you can imagine, because her comment has appeal, taking some of the force out of the DeMoss slogan. There's something terribly wrong with her approach, though, and when the error comes into focus, this rejoinder has no appeal whatsoever. In fact, it identifies a shameful condition.

Do you see what kind of people we're becoming, ladies and gentlemen? Do you see how these end-of-life decisions, after we keep making the wrong decisions over and over and over, start changing us inside such that we can respond with a statement like this and think it's a sound complaint?

Here's the key question to her response: Yes, life might not be beautiful for an unwanted child--I'll grant that--but why isn't it ? Why is the life of an unwanted child ugly? What makes an unwanted child's life miserable? That's the question. The initial answer is, "The unwanted child's life is not beautiful because she's not wanted." But it goes deeper than that, doesn't it? No child's life is miserable simply by the bare fact that she is unwanted. Being unwanted doesn't make her life miserable. In this case, it isn't a what which makes the child's life miserable (being unwanted), but rather a who that makes the child's life miserable (the people, the adults, the parents who don't want the child). You see, people are miserable not because of the conditions of their conception, but rather because of the way others treat them afterwards.

Consider this statement: "Well, life may be a beautiful choice, but it's not beautiful for my grandmother. Nobody wants her. We don't want her. We wish she were dead, so her life is miserable."

The question is: Why is Grandma's life miserable? It's not because she's unwanted, but because she's being treated unkindly. That's why it's miserable. This is like saying, "I'll tell you why Grandmother is miserable. Nobody wants her and we treat her like we don't want her ."

If, however, they treated her with kindness, if they valued her as a human being, if they showed respect for her as a family member who deserved love and care, Grandma wouldn't be miserable even though she was still unwanted . The misery doesn't come from the lack of want, but from the lack of kindness and love.

The same is true with this pastor's statement about abortion. This is not an indictment against the condition of unwantedness; this is an indictment against adult human beings who treat children poorly. Her comment is an admission of guilt, tantamount to saying, "If I let this child live, I'm going to treat her so badly and make her life so miserable that she'll wish she were dead. So it's better to kill her now. Let's get her out of the way so she doesn't have to endure the bad treatment I'll give her."

Now do you see why I say this is a shameful way of responding? It's an admission that we would rather kill a child than do what's necessary to give that child a meaningful life. Is this the kind of ethic we really want to promote? Is this the kind of moral reasoning we really think is compelling?

Do you see what kind of people we're becoming, ladies and gentlemen? Do you see how these end-of-life decisions, after we keep making the wrong decisions over and over and over, start changing us inside such that we can respond with a statement like this and think it's a sound complaint ?

"'Life: A beautiful choice?' It's not so beautiful for an unwanted child." This rejoinder has an appeal, but at its core it's despicable. We're arguing that it's better to kill the child, because we have no plans to be virtuous in our behavior towards her. I'm talking about standard virtue, here--ordinary, pedestrian, within-the-call-of-duty care--nothing heroic, the basic love parents are expected to give to their children, whether they want them or not.

Yes, many unwanted children lead miserable lives. But whose fault is that? It is not the baby's fault. It's the fault of parents who would rather kill their children than be obliged to love and care for them."





A Pain Too Awful to Imagine
By Paul Ranalli, M.D.

Proponents of unrestrained abortion who have launched a nationwide legal strategy challenging the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act may get far more than they bargained for, following a judge's crucial pre-trial decision to admit evidence on fetal pain.

Judge Richard Casey of the Southern District of New York ruled on March 19 that an attempt by the ACLU, the National Abortion Federation, and several abortion doctors to preclude testimony about fetal pain, on the grounds that it was "irrelevant and insufficiently reliable," should be denied. He thus opened the trial to hear expert testimony from Dr. K.S. Anand, the world's foremost authority on research into pain perception in the fetus and newborn child. This prospect is one that abortion supporters can only dread, for it lends an eloquent and expert voice to their vulnerable targets - - the unborn children destroyed by partial-birth abortion - - whose silent agony will now be laid out in a public court of law in stark, clinical terms by a witness whose expertise is unassailable.

Judge Casey had obviously done his homework, for his Memorandum and Order denying the pro-abortion motion itemized several categories of research evidence supporting the conclusion that the fetus feels pain by 20 weeks gestation, a fact well known to readers of NRL News over the past few years.

Since partial-birth abortion is usually done after 20 weeks (4-1/2 months), fetal pain testimony is not only highly relevant but likely to be quite damaging to the pro-abortion cause. Indeed, the testimony on fetal pain awareness is likely not only to harden the disgust felt by most Americans for PBA, but threatens to rip the cover off their denial that there is solid research pointing to fetal pain awareness even before 20 weeks.

The evidence on fetal pain perception has been building for the past 20 years. Pain receptors first appear in the skin of an unborn baby's face at just eight weeks gestation and have gradually covered the body several weeks later. Pain signals are sent from the receptors back along nerves to the spinal cord and then up to the brain's pain relay station, the thalamus, a connection that is fully wired by 14 weeks.

The final connection from the deeply-located thalamus up to the cerebral cortex on the brain's surface (where the baby is made aware of pain) is fully wired by 20 weeks. This is the time in pregnancy - - the exact half-way point - - when scientists have solid evidence of a fully-connected pain system.

While critics have contended that a fetus at this stage does not possess the consciousness necessary to be aware of pain, at 20 weeks the fetus has the full complement of neurons present in adulthood. Brain waves can be recorded at 20 weeks by a standard electroencephalogram (EEG). These findings were reviewed in Dr. Anand's landmark 1987 article, "Pain and its effects on the human neonate and fetus," in the New England Journal of Medicine.

And the unborn might feel pain even earlier. It has been known since the late 1980s that blood circulation in the fetal brain changes in response to pain (just as it does in an adult) as early as 16 weeks gestation.

Then a 1994 British study startled the world with its finding that a painful procedure performed on an unborn baby as young as 18 weeks triggers a massive release of stress-related hormones - - just as it does in an adult. Dr. Vivette Glover, an English fetal pain researcher, told the BBC in 2000 that "between 17 and 26 weeks it is increasingly possible that it [the unborn] starts to feel something . . . I think the evidence is that the system is starting to form by 20 weeks, maybe by 17 weeks." The latest research has focused on internal pain chemicals called Enkephlin and Substance P, which have been detected in the fetal brain at 13 and 11 weeks, respectively.

Many of these details are touched upon in Judge Casey's Order to dismiss the ACLU/NAF motion. He also mentions research pointing out that the second-trimester fetus not only feels pain but feels more pain than a full-term newborn, or an adult. He states, "At twenty to thirty weeks of gestation, a fetus has the highest density of pain receptors per square inch in human development."

A particularly weak aspect of the motion to forbid Dr. Anand's testimony was the attempt to categorize his evidence as insufficiently reliable. Judge Casey reviewed Dr. Anand's career as a Harvard and Oxford-trained Rhodes scholar whose "opinion on fetal pain is the product of his more than twenty years of work in the field and has not been prepared solely for this case." Judge Casey pointed out that Dr. Anand's work has been published in reputable scientific journals and publications, including numerous peer-reviewed journals.

The American abortion establishment is fighting a losing rearguard action on this subject. Their abortion-performing colleagues in Britain and France have already thrown in the towel on fetal pain, acknowledging its likelihood in many second-trimester abortions. England's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists first broached the subject with a Working Paper in 1997 that was conservative in its estimate of likely fetal pain at 24 weeks gestation. The Working Paper suggested that if abortions were to be done at this stage or beyond the least that could be done was to consider giving anaesthesia specifically for the doomed fetus.

By 1999 this had been updated in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology with the following statement: "Given the anatomical evidence, it is possible that the fetus can feel pain from 20 weeks and is caused distress by interventions from as early as 15 or 16 weeks."

If the average decent American citizen is revulsed by the thought of the excruciating pain an unborn baby must feel as the back of its skull is stabbed and pried open in a partial-birth abortion, what about the other methods performed on pain-sensitive unborn babies at, or just before, the same stage of gestation?

It does not take a medical expert to imagine the horror of suffocation (hysterotomy and extraction), scalding (saline induction), or being carved apart (dilation and curettage or dilitation and extraction) with the full capacity to feel every final moment.

Dr. Ranalli is a neurologist at the University of Toronto and an advisory board member of the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research.





An Abortion Survivor's Story

In September of 1975, a woman discovered that she was pregnant. Things were very difficult for her, as she was raising two sons, 6 and 15 years old. Their father had walked out on them and refused to help care for the boys financially, or in any other way. The only alternative for this woman, it seemed, was to abort this unexpected baby. After all, she could barely afford to feed the children she already had.

Between the months of September 1975 and January 1976, this woman had three therapeutic abortions in an attempt to rid herself of the unborn baby. These abortions, also known as a "salting out procedure" are performed by injecting a very large syringe into the woman's abdomen, removing a certain amount of amniotic fluid out of the womb, and then injecting three times the amount of saline back in, thus "burning" the baby out. For reasons only God knows, these abortions did not take and on April 21, 1976, two months premature, her baby was born. The child was perfect and healthy, weighing four pounds, five ounces.

Unfortunately on March 16, 1977, the mother passed away, less than a year after her baby girl was born. After the woman's death, the infant's father and paternal grandmother took custody of the baby and her two brothers. As this baby girl grew up, her father told her about the three abortions she had undergone in her mother's womb but this little girl never believed him, as she assumed that if a baby is aborted, he or she could not possibly survive.

The truth only came to this girl when she was eighteen years old, married, and approximately five months pregnant with her first child. This girl needed and soon obtained her mother's medical records from the hospital that had treated her. Imagine her utter shock as she read about how her mother tried to terminate her unborn child three times. As the young girl read the medical documents, the new life inside of her was stirring and kicking as if to say "Mommy please don't get any ideas."

Today this young woman is 25 years old and is raising a family of her own. She is healthy and normal in every way, with no physical deformities of any kind.

I am the child that I have been writing about. My mother had no right to try and abort me, no matter what the circumstances were, no matter how inconvenient her pregnancy was. And if she was here with us today, I'm sure she would agree. Life is too precious to simply throw away. Now I can speak out against abortion from the baby's perspective. Any baby would choose life.

Amy





Gianna Jessen

Testimony of abortion survivor Gianna Jessen before the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on April 22, 1996.

My name is Gianna Jessen. I am 19 years of age. I am originally from California, but now reside in Franklin, Tennessee. I am adopted. I have cerebral palsy. My biological mother was 17 years old and seven and one-half months pregnant when she made the decision to have a saline abortion. I am the person she aborted. I lived instead of died.Fortunately for me the abortionist was not in the clinic when I arrived alive, instead of dead, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 6, 1977. I was early, my death was not expected to be seen until about 9 a.m., when he would probably be arriving for his office hours. I am sure I would not be here today if the abortionist would have been in the clinic as his job is to take life, not sustain it. Some have said I am a "botched abortion", a result of a job not well done.

There were many witnesses to my entry into this world. My biological mother and other young girls in the clinic, who also awaited the death of their babies, were the first to greet me. I am told this was a hysterical moment. Next was a staff nurse who apparently called emergency medical services and had me transferred to a hospital.I remained in the hospital for almost three months. There was not much hope for me in the beginning. I weighed only two pounds. Today, babies smaller than I was have survived.A doctor once said I had a great will to live and that I fought for my life. I eventually was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care. I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a result of the abortion.

My foster mother was told that it was doubtful that I would ever crawl or walk. I could not sit up independently. Through the prayers and dedication of my foster mother, and later many other people, I eventually learned to sit up, crawl, then stand. I walked with leg braces and a walker shortly before I turned age four. I was legally adopted by my foster mother's daughter, Diana De Paul, a few months after I began to walk. The Department of Social Services would not release me any earlier for adoption.

I have continued in physical therapy for my disability, and after a total of four surgeries, I can now walk without assistance. It is not always easy. Sometimes I fall, but I have learned how to fall gracefully after falling 19 years.I am happy to be alive. I almost died. Every day I thank God for life.. I do not consider myself a by-product of conception, a clump of tissue, or any other of the titles given to a child in the womb. I do not consider any person conceived to be any of those things.

I have met other survivors of abortion. They are all thankful for life. Only a few months ago I met another saline abortion survivor. Her name is Sarah. She is two years old. Sarah also has cerebral palsy, but her diagnosis is not good. She is blind and has severe seizures. The abortionist, besides injecting the mother with saline, also injects the baby victims. Sarah was injected in the head. I saw the place on her head where this was done. When I speak, I speak not only for myself, but for the other survivors, like Sarah, and also for those who cannot yet speak ....

Today, a baby is a baby when convenient. It is tissue or otherwise when the time is not right. A baby is a baby when miscarriage takes place at two, three, four months. A baby is called a tissue or clumps of cells when an abortion takes place at two, three, four months. Why is that? I see no difference. What are you seeing? Many close there eyes...

The best thing I can show you to defend life is my life. It has been a great gift. Killing is not the answer to any question or situation. Show me how it is the answer. There is a quote which is etched into the high ceilings of one of our state's capitol buildings. The quote says, "Whatever is morally wrong, is not politically correct." Abortion is morally wrong. Our country is shedding the blood of the innocent. America is killing its future.All life is valuable. All life is a gift from our Creator. We must receive and cherish the gifts we are given. We must honor the right to life.





Planned Parenthood

This is the largest, most powerful, most effective pro-abortion, anti-life, anti-family, anti-Christian force in the U.S. and internationally.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is one of over 90 national affiliates of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (London). It gets about two-thirds of its U.S. financing through tax money, local, state, and national. It has five regional offices, about 160 statewide affiliates, over 900 local clinics in the U.S. Over 70 of its clinics do abortions. Its total annual cash flow is almost one-half billion dollars ($472 million in 1995). It concentrates its efforts on abortion, contraception, and sex education.

How many abortions does Planned Parenthood do?

The number increases each year as it converts more of its clinics to killing centers. In 1985 it had 51 chambers which killed 110,000. By 1994 it had 70 which killed 134,000. Every year, it refers to other facilities almost as many abortions as it does itself.

Was Planned Parenthood always pro-abortion?

In its early years of existence, Planned Parenthood limited itself to contraception and specifically opposed abortion. The following is a quote from an official Planned Parenthood pamphlet:
"Is birth control an abortion?" "Definitely not. An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health. It may make you sterile so that when you want a child you cannot have it. Birth control merely post-pones the beginning of life." [Planned Parenthood, Aug. 1963 1 Available from Cincinnati Right to Life, P.O. Box 24073, Cinn., OH 45224, $3. pp.]

Doesn’t Planned Parenthood concentrate mostly on contraception?

In its earlier years, to a much larger extent, Planned Parenthood clinics offered contraceptive advice and aid to married women so that they could more responsibly plan their families.. Because of this, it generated widespread support from many areas of our society. Those days are gone. Today its clientele consists largely of unmarried teenagers. It dispenses medically hazardous drugs (the pill) and devices (the I.U.D.), and Norplant without parental knowledge or consent. It is the largest provider of abortions in America, again, to teenagers without parental knowledge or consent. It aggressively promotes sex education that, rather than reducing promiscuity, premarital sex, illegitimate pregnancies, abortion, and venereal disease, has almost certainly had just the opposite effect. J. Ford &M. Schwartz," Birth Control for Teenagers: Diagram for Disaster," Linacre Quarterly, Feb. 1979, pp. 71-811 A. Jurs, "Planned Parenthood Advocates Permissive Sex," Christianity Today, Sept. 2, 1982

In its five-year plan, it openly stated: Our mission is to serve as the nation’s foremost agent of social change in the area of reproductive health and well being [emphasis theirs]. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, A Five Year Plan, 1976-1980, p. 5

That is hard to believe. I’ve heard that Planned Parenthood is pro-family, pro-life, and pro-child.

Their paid TV commercials say that, but their own official documents, their leaders, and their actions say quite the opposite. In 1976, the Planned Parenthood’s Five Year Plan (see reference above) laid out in detail what their goals were. We quote:

- Objective #2: "Reaffirming and protecting the legitimacy of induced abortion as a necessary back-up to contraceptive failure, and extending safe, dignified services to women who seek them."

- Purpose: "To provide leadership in making . . . abortion and sterilization available and fully accessible to all."

"The various activities that we undertake are not ‘separate’ and certainly not competing. Rather, they are all complementary parts of a single national strategy" (page 5).

"Services to be made available at all clinics include . . . abortion services (or local referral)" (emphasis in original, page 6).

- Program Emphasis #2: "Keeping abortions legal and accessible to all persons" (page 9).

Is their emphasis still on abortion?

Since the Five Year Plan above, the Planned Parenthood agenda is even more openly and militantly pro-abortion as outlined in their newest action agenda. For example, in Goal #3, they state that Planned Parent-hood will " increase the number of Planned Parenthood affiliates providing early ambulatory abortion services." Planned Parenthood of America, Til Victory is Won, 1982, 1984, p. 16

"To increase the availability and accessibility of high quality and affordable reproductive health care services [abortion]" PPFA Five Year Plan 1986-1990, preamble

"Until we reach the millennium . . . Planned Parent-hood will continue to provide not only sex education and contraception, but also abortion." A. Moran, Exec. V.P., Planned Parenthood of New York City, New York Times, Dec. 27, 1982

[Planned Parenthood] is not just a social or medical service agency. It is part of a cause, a movement. One of the principles of Planned Parenthood is that reproductive freedom is indivisible. You either have it or not. Everybody has it or none has it." Don Weintraub, V.P. for Int’l Affairs, PPFA, Madison, Mar. 12, 1985

Family Planning Associations should not use the absence of law or the existence of an unfavorable law as an excuse for inaction. Action outside the law, and even in violation of it, is part of the process of stimulating change . . . of fertility regulation services or specific methods." Art. 106, p. 28, Int. P.P. Fed., Nov. 1983 Planned Parenthood has promoted a pro-abortion "comic book," geared for teenagers, entitled Abortion Eve. On the back cover is a caricature of the "Assumption of the Blessed Virgin" depicting a pregnant Mary with the idiot face of Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Neumann. The caption says, "What, me worry?"

It is the policy of Planned Parenthood to insure that women have the right to seek and obtain safe legal abortions. Planned Parenthood has the responsibility to provide access to high-quality abortion services. .. . . Federation Policies, PPFA, Jan. 1986

Faye Wattleton, Pres. of P.P., said, "I make it very clear. If you’re not clear where you stand on the abortion issue, if you’re worried that birth control for teenagers encourages promiscuity . . . this [P.P] is not the kind of outfit you’re comfortable with." "The Faye Wattleton Comeback," P. Span, Wash. Post, Oct. 14, 1987

Planned Parenthood has aggressively defended abortion rights in the courts in recent years, thus dropping any earlier pretense of neutrality. The most famous case was Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, a 1990 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

What does Planned Parenthood think of Right to Life?

They have an opinion.

"In every generation there exists a group of people so filled with bigotry and self-righteousness that they will resort to any means — even violence — to impose their views on society. Today, such fanatics dominate a movement ironically called ‘the Right-to-Life,’ a movement which threatens the most basic of all human rights." Planned Parenthood Pamphlet, the Justice Fund, 810 7th Ave., New York, NY, 10019

But Margaret Sanger, its founder, opposed abortion.

Not so! Not only did she favor abortion, but she proposed forced sterilization for those whom she considered unfit to reproduce. She worked hard for a "race of thoroughbreds" until Hitler’s similar "Master Race" made that goal unpopular. She was a true eugenicist. For example, her April 1933 Birth Control Review, devoted an entire edition to eugenic sterilization.

Who did she consider unfit?

Black people, Jews, Southern European immigrants (especially Italians), but also others of "low I.Q." These "feebleminded" people were a "menace to the race." E. Drogin, Margaret Sanger: Father of Modern Society, CUL Publishers, 1980, Section 1, p. 18-24

This is hard to believe!

Margaret Sanger, the famous founder of Planned Parenthood, was supportive. She wanted "more children from the fit, less from the unfit." Birth Control Review, vol. 3, no. 5, May 1919, p. 2

This wasn’t only related to contraceptive planning. A seditor, she printed grossly eugenic material, approving of Hitler’s sterilization program (see Into the Darkness, Nazi Germany Today, by L. Stoddard, p. 196). She believed that "Negroes and Southern Europeans were mentally inferior to native born Americans." She found these people, Hebrews, and others "feebleminded," "human weeds," and called them a "menace to the race." In 1933, her Birth Control Review devoted an entire edition to eugenic sterilization. Sanger’s famous "Plan for Peace" was almost the same as Hitler’s, even going beyond it to suggest, in essence, concentration camps.

"When the world realized the logical consequences of Hitler’s hereditarian-eugenic, totalitarian type of government, Margaret Sanger’s birth-control movement had to take a quick step away from its overt eugenic language." E. Drogin, Margaret Sanger, Father of Modern Society, CUL Publications, 1979, p. 28

Tell me more.

Let us quote from her "Plan for Peace." This was little more than peaceful genocide. She wanted the United States:

- "To keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as the feebleminded as determined by Stanford-Binet I.Q. tests.

- "To apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.

- "To insure the country against future burdens of maintenance for numerous offspring as may be born of feeble-minded parents by pensioning all persons with transmissible diseases who voluntarily consent to sterilization.

- "To give dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.

- "To apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for a period of their entire lives. [Practically speaking, a concentration camp.]

- "[To] take an inventory of the secondary group such as illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, dope fiends; classify them in special departments under government medical protection, and segregate them on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strengthening and development of moral conduct." (Again, concentration camps.) M. Sanger, "Plan for Peace," Birth Control Review, vol. 16, no. 4, April 1932

But I’ve read that she was a social crusader for good.

Hardly. She said, "The most merciful thing a large family can do for one of its infant members is to kill it." 6 Sanger, Woman and the New Race

She herself was highly promiscuous and had many lovers. She favored "free love" for women without any sexual limits but without the burden of children. She saw "the marriage bed [as] the most degenerating influence in the social order." 7 Kennedy, David M. Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, London: Yale University Press, 1970.

But Planned Parenthood wants to reduce teen pregnancies, doesn’t it?

Let’s be specific. Planned Parenthood wants to reduce teen births. It is not trying to reduce teen sex activity; in fact its sex education programs do exactly the opposite.

They want you to think they are a respectable organization whose purpose is to reduce teen pregnancies through education.That is the illusion. The reality is a different story. If YOU want to know what Planned Parenthood is really teaching your children, read on. While the material inside might be given to your children by Planned Parenthood, you may find it extremely offensive.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD ENCOURAGES ALL FORMS OF SEXUAL ACTIVITY TO TEENS.

"Intercourse isn't the only way. Kissing, hugging, touching, masturbating, oral sex, are often very exciting and satisfying."

"Sex, The First Time or Any Time" - A pamphlet currently distributed by Planned Parenthood

"We should teach teens about oral sex and mutual masturbation in order to help them delay the onset of sexual intercourse and its resulting consequences." Debra W. Haffner, Planned Parenthood educator, in training session for educators and teacher trainers. Sieges Report, Sept/Oct. 1988

AIDS is transmissible through oral sex. Yet, nowhere in the literature are condoms mentioned for protection during oral sex.

"Safer Sex" for lesbians includes: Use of a dental dam for oral-vaginal and oral-anal stimulation ... Use of surgical gloves when sticking your fingers into your partner's vagina or ass ... And all the other wonderful things that lesbians do together.

"I Think I Might be a Lesbian ... Now What Do I Do" - A brochure for young women. A brochure distributed to teenage girls at the Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in Arvada, CO.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD IS USING THE AIDS CRISIS TO PROMOTE SEXUAL ACTIVITY AMONG OUR YOUTH.

An example of their AIDS education is their "Safer Sex" continuum activity led by a Planned Parenthood educator. Teems tape placards containing a "sexual activity" on a wall ranking them from least risky to most risky for HIV infection. There are 39 activities listed, most of which are sexual. Some of the activities are as follows: Massage, French Kissing, Making out/petting, Phone sex, Sex toys, Dressing/undressing one another, Skinny-dipping/moonlight swimming, Erotic films and magazines, Body paints, Showering together, Bubble bath, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Oral sex on a woman/man, Intercourse with a condom, Oral/anal contact, Anal intercourse without/with condom.

Planned Parenthood's "Safety Dance" program is presented in schools as "AIDS Education". Remember, this "activity" is for high schoolers age 13 - 18.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S PROMOTION OF "SAFE" OR "PROTECTED" SEX IS A LIE THAT COULD KILL OUR CHILDREN.

Faye Walton, past president of Planned Parenthood writes, "Using a condom gives effective protection against STD's (sexually transmissible diseases) to both partners." Wattleton, How to Talk to Your Child About Sexuality, p. 89.

"TIPS FOR TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF AND OTHERS...#3. CONDOMS - new partner? More than 1 partner? USE THEM! Condoms prevent infection." Planned Parenthood pamphlet, Sex...the first time or anytime!

· Consider: The failure rate for condoms in pregnancy is 10% to 30%. The Surgeon General Task Force 2/12/86. And, a female can only get pregnant 3-5 days out of the month. But, she can get AIDS 365 DAYS a YEAR! Add to that the fact that the HIV virus that causes AIDS is 450 times smaller than a sperm and 600 times smaller than the average flaw in the condom. Planned Parenthood's "effective" protection from this deadly disease translates into dead boys and girls - OUR CHILDREN!

· Nearly 1 to 3 people will contract deadly AIDS from an infected sexual partner when a condom is used EVERY TIME! This startling result of a scientific study was reported by the Journal of the American Medical Association in February, 1987. Telling kids that using condoms is "safe" is like giving them a gun with bullets in two of the six chambers and urging them to play "safe" Russian Roulette.

· "On June 19, 1987, I gave a lecture on AIDS to 800 sexologists at the World Congress on Sexology in Heidelberg [Germany]. Most of them recommended condoms to their clients and students. I asked them if they had available the partner of their dreams, and know that person carried the virus, would they have sex, depending on a condom for protection. No one raised their hand...I told them it was irresponsible to give advice to others that they would not follow themselves. The point is, putting a balloon between a healthy body and a deadly disease is not safe." Dr. Theresa Crenshaw, past president of the American Association of Sex Education, Counselors and Therapists, at the National Conference on HIV in 1987. Imagine - sex educators promoting a deadly activity to our children that they themselves would not risk!

PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAS NOT DECREASED THE NUMBER OF BIRTHS TO UNWED TEENAGERS.

The number of births to unmarried mothers hit a record high of 1,165,384 in 1990. That was up 7% in one year and 75% over the decade. Nat'l Center for Health Statistics, June '92. This is after two decades of Planned Parenthood's sex education.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAS NOT DECREASED THE DEMAND FOR ABORTION.

After years of Planned Parenthood programs, legal abortions have increases 101.6% since abortion became legal. According to their own reports, Planned Parenthood itself performs almost 10% of all abortions in the U.S. Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 23, No. 2, Mar/Apr 1991.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD IS IN THE ABORTION BUSINESS.

Planned Parenthood performed 129,000 abortions in 1991. Compare this to fewer than 5,000 referrals for adoptions, and only 7,000 cases of prenatal care. 1991 Annual Planned Parenthood Federation.. This means that less than 10 percent of the services performed for pregnant women at Planned Parenthood have to do with non-abortion services.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD USES YOUR TAX MONEY..

Planned Parenthood promotes itself as "privately funded". Yet, in 1991 alone they received $124,000,000 of your money in government funds. 1991 Annual Report of Planned Parenthood Federation.





This drawing appears in the booklet, "The Problem With Puberty" distributed by Planned Parenthood to teenage boys. The original is so offensive that we blocked out the clearly illustrated genitals. This drawing is in the section about sexual fantasies. It states, "It is normal to have all kinds of fantasies while you're masturbating - and at other times". Not only do they promote masturbation but also suggest that it is "normal" for a young boy to have sex with men, elderly women and even dogs (not dog in foreground). Color added for emphasis.

Parents, your children cannot get aspirin from the school nurse or their ears pierced without your permission. And yet, Planned Parenthood can give your children birth control, perform abortions and teach behavior that could kill them - ALL WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE! After the damage is done, we as parents are left with the heartache, the shattered lives and the physical and emotional consequences. If Planned Parenthood is in your neighborhood or school, FIND OUT WHAT THEY ARE TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN.

If you want to do something to help stop Planned Parenthood, write to:
STOPP
P.O. Box 8
LaGrangeville, NY 12540.





International Planned Parenthood, Pathfinder Fund, and United Nations Fund for Population Activity

All three have actively promoted and subsidized abortion in Third World countries.

NARAL

Originally, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, this group was a prime mover in getting the first abortion-on-demand law in New York passed. After legalization, it became the National AbortionRight Action League, and then the National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League. It has been a major force opposing the Right to Life movement.

N.O.W.

The National Organization for Women is a national group of radical anti-life feminists heavily influenced by the militant lesbian faction of its membership. While claiming to seek economic and employment equality for women, its two major goals are Reproductive Rights (i.e., abortion rights) and Lesbian Rights. Its claim to represent the "women" of the U.S. brings a smile when it is compared to the Concerned Women for America which has four times the members. It is often now called the National Organization of Some Women.

ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union has been consistently selective as to whose civil liberties it protects. Totally blind to the existence of the pre-born baby, it has served as the legal defense arm of the pro-abortion, anti-family movement.

National Education Association

The National Education Assn. is the largest and most powerful labor union in the U.S. Tragically, it has embraced a wide range of radical feminist policies, including being aggressively pro-abortion. By the mid-’90s, because of abortion, U.S. student enrollment had stalled around 46 million. Without abortion, it would have been over 60 million, and over one million additional teachers would be employed. L. Roberge, The Cost of Abortion Four Winds Publishing, ‘95, pg. 45-49

YWCA

The Young women’s Christian Association was captured two decades ago by a group of radical anti-life feminists. Its policies today are aggressively pro-abortion. For example, in 1973, its 26th National Convention voted "to support efforts to provide safe abortions to all women who desire them." In 1989, it restated its policy of support for "Repeal of all laws, restricting or prohibiting abortions . . ." There has been no essential change since that time. YWCA Position on Abortion Rights

Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights

This is a collection of clergy and ‘religious’ groups who are pro-abortion.

Catholics for a Free Choice

A tiny militant, anti-Catholic group of former Catholics financed entirely by non-Catholic and anti-Catholic sources.

People for the American Way

This heavily funded group has carried on an effective pro-abortion campaign in the national media under the leadership of Norman Lear.

National Abortion Federation

This is the trade association for operators of abortion chambers.

American Association of University Women

In June 1977, AAUW’s Biennial Convention voted as a priority issue the "Right to Choose."

National Women’s Political Caucus

"From its beginning, it has been pro-abortion. On the issue of reproductive freedom, including abortion, the Caucus remains single-minded and strong." D. Broder, Wash. Post, A-23, Aug. 26, 1987

Republicans for Choice

This is a wholly owned subsidiary of Planned Parenthood.

League of Women Voters

At its 1982 National Convention, on a 753 to 472 vote, it stated that "the LWV of the U.S. believes that public policy in a pluralistic society must affirm the constitutional right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive choices." (Ninety-two percent of their chapters agreed). It hasn’t changed.

Network

A group of Roman Catholic nuns who have defied their church’s teachings and adopted a permissive attitude toward abortion.

SIECUS

The Sex Education & Information Council of the U. S. has worked closely with Planned Parenthood since 1970. SIECUS produces national sex education guidelines and materials. Planned Parenthood uses these through its affiliates to target every school district in the nation with their immoral and destructive programs.





BUSINESSES SUPPORTING PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND ABORTION





Abortion Statistics

The following is a list of useful abortion statistics. All abortion numbers are derived from pro-abortion sources courtesy of The Alan Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood's Family Planning Perspectives.

WORLDWIDE

Number of abortions per year: Approximately 46 Million
Number of abortions per day: Approximately 126,000

Where abortions occur:
78% of all abortions are obtained in developing countries and 22% occur in developed countries.

Legality of abortion:
About 26 million women obtain legal abortions each year, while an additional 20 million abortions are obtained in countries where it is restricted or prohibited by law.

Abortion averages:
Worldwide, the lifetime average is about 1 abortion per woman.

© Copyright 1999-2000, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. (www.agi-usa.org)

UNITED STATES

Number of abortions per year: 1.37 Million (1996)
Number of abortions per day: Approximately 3,700

Who's having abortions (age)?
52% of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 32% of all abortions; Teenagers obtain 20% and girls under 15 account for 1.2%.

Who's having abortions (race)?
While white women obtain 60% of all abortions, their abortion rate is well below that of minority women. Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are roughly 2 times as likely.

Who's having abortions (marital status)?
64.4% of all abortions are performed on never-married women; Married women account for 18.4% of all abortions and divorced women obtain 9.4%.

Who's having abortions (religion)?
Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholic women account for 31.3%, Jewish women account for 1.3%, and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as "Born-again/Evangelical".

Who's having abortions (income)?
Women with family incomes less than $15,000 obtain 28.7% of all abortions; Women with family incomes between $15,000 and $29,999 obtain 19.5%; Women with family incomes between $30,000 and $59,999 obtain 38.0%; Women with family incomes over $60,000 obtain 13.8%.

Why women have abortions
1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; 6% of abortions occur because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child, and 93% of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).

At what gestational ages are abortions performed:
52% of all abortions occur before the 9th week of pregnancy, 25% happen between the 9th & 10th week, 12% happen between the 11th and 12th week, 6% happen between the 13th & 15th week, 4% happen between the 16th & 20th week, and 1% of all abortions (16,450/yr.) happen after the 20th week of pregnancy..

Likelihood of abortion:
An estimated 43% of all women will have at least 1 abortion by the time they are 45 years old. 47% of all abortions are performed on women who have had at least one previous abortion.

Abortion coverage:
48% of all abortion facilities provide services after the 12th week of pregnancy. 9 in 10 managed care plans routinely cover abortion or provide limited coverage. About 14% of all abortions in the United States are paid for with public funds, virtually all of which are state funds. 16 states (CA, CT, HI, ED, IL, MA , MD, MN, MT, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA and WV) pay for abortions for some poor women.

© Copyright 1998, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. (www.agi-usa.org)
© Copyright 1997, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. (www.agi-usa.org)
© Copyright 1995, Family Planning Perspectives
© Copyright 1988, Family Planning Perspectives





How can I help?

Vote Pro Life

Fast and Pray to end abortion

Support Pro Life Organizations and Ministries

Place a Pro Life sticker on your vehicle to show the world your stance

Volunteer for your local Crisis/Care Pregnancy Center

Donate pregnancy and baby clothes, items, furniture, etc. to your local CPC

Ask your pastor/minister/priest to register your church with The Gabriel Project or other Pro Life ministry

Start a Pro Life/Pregnancy outreach ministry of your own

Educate your family and friends on abortion

Seek legislative action against abortion (write a letter/email your local representative, urging him/her to vote for abortion regulations and bans)

Participate in Pro Life fundraising events (Walk for Life, Rock for Life, Life Jam, etc.)

Boycott businesses that support Pro Abortion industries (a link to these businesses is provided above)

Speak up!





Pro Life Resources

National Right to Life Committee
512 10th St. NW
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 626-8800
http://www.nrlc.org/
http://www.prolifeamerica.com/



Life Dynamics Incorporated
PO Box 2226
Denton, TX 76202
phone (940) 380-8800
fax (940) 380-8700
http://www.lifedynamics.com/Index.cfm



West Virginians for Life, Inc.
427 Spruce Street
Morgantown, WV 26505
(304) 291-LIFE
Email:WVforLife@WVforLife.org



American Life League, Inc.
P.O. Box 1350
Stafford, VA 22555
540-659-4171



STOPP International
P.O. Box 1350
Stafford, VA 22555
540-659-4171 (voice)
540-659-2586 (fax)
eszymkowiak@all.org



Pro-Life Action League
6160 N. Cicero Ave.
Chicago, IL 60646
Tel: 773-777-2900
Fax: 773-777-3061
E-mail: info@prolifeaction.org



Rock For Life
PO Box 1350
Stafford, VA 22555
Phone: 888-546-2580
Fax: 540.659.2586
E-mail:
Information - info@rockforlife.org
Chapters - chapters@rockforlife.org
Music & Bands - music@rockforlife.org
Rock For Life E-mail Newsletter - rflnews@rockforlife.org
Instant Messenger:
AOL - RockForLifeUSA
Yahoo! - RockForLifeUSA
Director - Erik Whittington- erik@rockforlife.org
Youth Affiliate Coordinator - Mickey Inthavongdy - mickey@rockforlife.org



American Family Association
P.O. Drawer 2440
Tupelo, MS 38803
Phone: 1-662 844-5036
Fax: 1-662-842-7798





Pro Life Web sites

http://www.prolifeaction.org/

http://www.abortionno.org/

http://www.hh76.com/

http://www.reclaimamerica.org/

http://www.abortiondebate.org/

http://www.all.org/

http://www.abortionfacts.com/index2.asp

http://www.lifedynamics.com/Index.cfm

http://www.aclife.org/education/links.html

http://conservababes.com/

http://www.lifegauge.org/index.htm

http://www.nrlc.org/

http://www.operationrescue.org/index.shtml

http://www.rockforlife.org/

http://www.shakethenation.org/

http://www.silentscream.org/

http://www.standtrue.com/index2.html

http://www.christiangallery.com/

http://www.wvforlife.org/

http://www.democratsforlife.org/

http://www.afa.net/





Write to the President right now!



Write to the House right now!



Write to the Senate right now!



Please take a moment to leave me some feedback.

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Compiled by "Genesis McClain"
08/2004