Did I Violate the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban?

(warning: contains graphic description)

The following is an except from an article in Slate by Dr. Warren Hern, M.D.

Earlier this year, I began an abortion on a young woman who was 17 weeks pregnant. Because of the two days of prior treatment, the amniotic membranes were visible and bulging. I ruptured the membranes and released the fluid to reduce the risk of amniotic fluid embolism. Then I inserted my forceps into the uterus and applied them to the head of the fetus, which was still alive, since fetal injection is not done at that stage of pregnancy. I closed the forceps, crushing the skull of the fetus, and withdrew the forceps. The fetus, now dead, slid out more or less intact. With the next pass of the forceps, I grasped the placenta, and it came out in one piece. Within a few seconds, I had completed my routine exploration of the uterus and sharp curettage. The blood loss would just fill a tablespoon. The patient, who was awake, hardly felt the operation. She was relieved, grateful, and safe. She wants to have children in the future.

Did I do a "partial-birth" abortion? Will John Ashcroft prosecute me? Stay tuned.

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reaction of an atheist Democrat:

I'm an educated professional guy, middle of the road, politically engaged - in human rights work, for example. I volunteer. I read the Economist and The New Republic. And the Wall Street Journal. If we were neighbors, I'm sure you'd like me. I don't put stinky trash out. I mow my lawn every week. I vote. I donate money to neighborhood kids.

Here's what I think about you, Warren. To me, you are indistinguisable from a Nazi. You speak of crushing skulls like my mechanic speaks of recycling old tires. You are not a human being. You have forfeited your right to call yourself that. By all moral standards and reasoning, you are an unrepentant mass murderer. And your grotesque but, I'm sure, technically accurate descriptions of crushing skulls says to me that you actually enjoy rubbing it in. 'Look at me. Look what I can get away with. I can crush the skulls of fetuses, then get paid to describe it in gory detail on Slate, and there's not a goddamn thing any of the rest of you can do about it."

I'm an atheist so I, alas, don't believe in hell and all that. Were that those stories were true - I could sleep better. No, you will live a prosperous life, playing tennis at the club and attending the opera, and I'm sure you will leave behind a handsome nestegg for your children (the ones whose skulls nobody thought to crush), and will pass away peacefully. No hellfire for you. No justice.

But know this. I know you're a Nazi. And all those people who smile and nod at you at the tennis club and restaurant and opera and call you doctor - a lot of them think you're a nazi too. They won't tell you that, but they're thinking it. That's the closest thing to justice you'll ever experience. I despise the fact that you exist.

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And from Mark Shea:

Slate: Inadvertently Winning People to the Pro-life Cause

One "atheist Democrat" reader was so revolted by this piece he commented that he wished there was a hell for this guy.

I don't wish hell for anybody, but I am glad that as the Culture of Death pulls off the gloves they remove the possibility of muffling everything in euphemism. That may yet win some hearts for the truth, albeit by accident.

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Doing the right thing? A Boston Phoenix article describes the work of New York Dr. William Rashbaum:

The procedure is gruesome, as anyone who has seen it, including Rashbaum, will attest. One of his former interns remembers watching Rashbaum do a D&E on well-developed twins one hot summer day. He intently leaned in closely and methodically pulled piece after piece of the fetuses out of the mother’s uterus, ignoring the attending staff’s whispers of horror — "It’s twins. It’s twins" — to each other. The intern reacted violently, running home, throwing up, and asking herself, "Is this right?" Rashbaum pisses people off with his cranky, despotic ways, but the other doctors are relieved he’s around to do a job they don’t want. "A person who is more concerned with what people think of him than of doing the right thing wouldn’t last," says a second-trimester-abortion provider who trained under Rashbaum. "He cares more about doing the right thing than what people think of his personality."

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Show Truth to America
(Demonstration at Seattle University, September 27, 2003)
Warning: Contains Graphic Images

**Q. What business does government have in regulating medical procedures? Isn't this a private matter? A. Here is a short list of seven areas where government regulates medical practice in Washington state.

Former Pro-Life Democrats

A Challenge to Our Pro-Choice Friends

Picture from March for Life (January 17, 2002; Olympia)

Abortion and Early Church Teaching

An impassioned Pro-Choice response.

The fate of the aborted child

The overpopulation question.

Gen 1:28 - Have we "filled the earth"?

From Abortionist to Catholic: Bernard Nathanson, M.D..

Abortion and Forgiveness.

The question of conscience.

How this issue relates to Salvation.

Relation of Abortion to Birth Control.

Homily on Birth Control and Abortion.

Does Birth Control solve or cause Poverty?

The Moral Law and the Existence of God.

Holy Week Reflection (Abortion and Immigration)

From Sarah: "Do you honestly believe that making abortion illegal will solve the problem?"

Lifeissues.net (Clear Thinking about Crucial Issues)

He Approached the Victim: "It's much more likely one of your relatives will lose his life by surgical abortion than by heart attack."

Stem Cell Research: Teaching of Bible & Catholic Church

Germaine Greer on Birth Control

Human Cloning: A Catholic Perspective (How the Unthinkable Became Inevitable)

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