Performance Issues: The Problem Of Mid & Late Term Abortions For Those Who Do Them

Contrary to what the talking heads of the abortion lobby try to sell, late term abortions are a hidden dilemma for the abortion industry.

This is by design. The abortion industry works hard to sell the utopia of choice, while hiding the grim reality like a skeleton in a closet. Because of this, virtually nothing has been written about what abortions do to the abortionists. Vast amounts of text can be found about the politics of abortion, the procedure itself, and how it impacts women – but never the one who performs it. That’s why we dive into this topic in chapter five of the book, Lime 5. The reality is that in every legal abortion, there are three main participants: the unborn, the woman, and the abortionist.

As the fetus begins to physically resemble a newborn, it becomes harder to watch the abortion procedure.

Employees have stronger emotional reactions to second trimester abortions because “it’s just that it’s very easy not to need to face some of these issues…in the first trimester.” One counselor admitted, “I am having difficulty with my feelings about late abortions also. More and more, I don’t even know anymore if I believe in it. There is just so much pain.” A director of nursing points out that some of the later term fetuses are “getting pretty big…It is very traumatic for the staff to pick this up and put it in a container and say, ‘Okay that’s going to the incinerator.'”

The Truth About D&E’s

The procedure most commonly used in the second trimester is Dilation and Evacuation (D&E), in which the abortionist uses forceps to dismember the fetus and pull it out of the woman’s uterus one piece at a time.

From an emotional standpoint, this method is particularly difficult because the abortionist and all those nearby have to view the torn pieces of the fetus. Then they “reassemble” the fetus to verify that none of it was left in the uterus. By contrast, in the first trimester, the fetus is pulled down a suction tube, so that only the person who cleans the machine has to view it.

In an article written for Reproductive Health Matters Supplement, abortionist Lisa Harris described performing a second trimester abortion while she was 18 weeks pregnant with her own child. She described the abortion by stating how she was “more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts…since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus.”

Harris then continued on by stating, “With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at the moment, I felt a kick- a fluttery ‘thump, thump’ in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement… Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes…A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling-a brutally visceral response- heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics… Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.”

It was an overwhelming feeling-a brutally visceral response- heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics…

The D&E procedure meets a lot of resistance by abortionists, with the head of obstetrics at a Philadelphia teaching hospital admitting that they are “far more ‘psychologically traumatizing’ for doctors…I can’t do them anymore.” In a paper presented to a Planned Parenthood conference, Dr. Warren Hern reported a intense emotional reaction from his staff after D&E operations. These included “physiological symptoms, sleep disturbances, effects on personal relationships, and moral anguish.” He observed that the staff’s reactions to the fetus ranged from refusal to look, dismay, and amazement, to disgust, fear, and sadness. The abortionist admitted that the procedure also caused him problems, saying, “The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.”

“The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.”

While late-term abortions might be more grim for some abortionists, they have no problem defending them while under public scrutiny.

What the pro-life movement and the public need to remember, is that from the moment of fertilization, the baby is a human being no matter what developmental stage he or she is in. So while it may be more difficult for some abortionists and staff to perform later term abortions, they are still willing to kill if the money is right.

You can read more about the bizarre environment in which abortions live and the toll it takes in Lime 5.

Lime 5 is available here on our website in paperback, or in ebook format for Google Books, Amazon Kindle, & Nook.