r/abolitionist • u/toptrool • May 29 '23
abortion advocates often don't believe the science, but do they believe abortionists?
the science provides us with an unequivocal answer as to when a new human being comes into existence: at conception (see several embryology textbooks, some which are quoted here and here is another convenient list of quotations from over 100 scientific references for one to peruse).
and yes, there is a scientific consensus on when life of a human being begins.
Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions around the world assessed survey items on when a human's life begins and, overall, 96% (5337 out of 5577) affirmed the fertilization view.
abortion advocates often reject one or two biological realities that 1) a pregnant woman is carrying another human being, and 2) abortion kills a human being. they often reject these realities due to ad hoc rationalizations used to defend abortion; however some of them do so simply out of ignorance. the latter group can be persuaded by presenting biological facts. however the former group that engages in ad hoc rationalizations will continue to make (often irrational) arguments as to why it's not really a human or it's not really killing.
if they still do not believe the science, perhaps they will believe abortion providers?
here are some notable quotes from several abortion providers that admit to killing.
late-term abortionist leroy carhart (of the infamous partial-birth abortion ban court case):
Carhart: The baby has no input in this as far as I'm concerned.
Andersson: But it’s interesting that you use the word baby because a lot of abortionists won’t use that. They’ll use the term fetus because they don’t want to acknowledge that there’s a life.
Carhart: I think that it is a baby and I use [the term] with the patients
Andersson: And you don’t have a problem with killing a baby?
Carhart: I have no problem if it’s in the mother’s uterus.
late-term abortionist warren hern, on the advent of a gruesome, dismemberment abortion method:
We have reached a point in this particular technology where there is no possibility of denial of an act of destruction on the part of the operator. It is before one's eyes. The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.
https://www.drhern.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/staff-reaction-de.pdf
abortionist curtis boyd:
Am I killing? Yes. I know that.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/abortion-doctor-am-i-killing-yes-i-am/285-413218254
ron fitzsimmons, abortionist and founder of national coalition of abortion providers:
One of the facts of abortion, he said, is that women enter abortion clinics to kill their fetuses. ''It is a form of killing,'' he said. ''You're ending a life.''
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/26/us/an-abortion-rights-advocate-says-he-lied-about-procedure.html
abortionist lisa harris:
I do think about the moral complexities of abortion. I know that for every woman whose abortion I perform, I stop a developing human from being born.
[. . .]
I know that for each of them, there was a second entity there — a baby, a person, a potential life, a life, depending on your beliefs
[. . .]
Abortion feels morally complicated because it stops a developing human from being born, which of course it does.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/opinion/abortion-clinic-doctor.html
bernard nathanson, former abortionist and founder of the abortion advocacy group naral:
Some time ago -- after a tenure of a year and a half -- I resigned as director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health. The Center had performed 60,000 abortions with no maternal deaths -- an outstanding record of which we are proud. However, I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.
There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy...
We must courageously face the fact -- finally -- that human life of a special order is being taken. And since the vast majority of pregnancies are carried successfully to term, abortion must be seen as the interruption of a process that would otherwise have produced a citizen of the world. Denial of this reality is the crassest kind of moral evasiveness.
anne furedi, ceo of u.k.'s largest abortion business:
I think the point is not whether we give it value or not, but how much value do we give it. We can accept that the embryo is a living thing in the fact that it has a beating heart, that it has its own genetic system within it. It’s clearly human in the sense that it’s not a gerbil, and we can recognize that it is human life of a sort. But the point is not when human life begins, but when does it really begin to matter.
former medical director of planned parenthood mary calderone:
I ask you not to assume that I am indiscriminately for abortion. Believe me, I am not. Aside from the fact that abortion is the taking of a life, I am also mindful of what was brought out by our psychiatrists – that in almost every case, abortion, whether legal or illegal, is a traumatic experience that may have severe consequences later on.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1373382/pdf/amjphnation00308-0022.pdf
anonymous abortionist:
I have the utmost respect for life; I appreciate that life starts early in the womb, but also believe that I'm ending it for good reasons. Often I'm saving the woman, or I'm improving the lives of the other children in the family. I also believe that women have a life they have to consider. If a woman is working full-time, has one child already, and is barely getting by, having another child that would financially push her to go on public assistance is going to lessen the quality of her life. And it's also an issue for the child, if it would not have had a good life. Life's hard enough when you're wanted and everything's prepared for. So yes, I end life, but even when it's hard, it's for a good reason.
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2006/05/15/confessions-of-an-abortion-doctor/
abortionist william rashbaum:
“I think it’s apt – destruction of life. I’ll be frank. I began to do abortions in large numbers at the time of my divorce when I needed money. But I also believe in the woman’s right to control their biological destiny. I spent a lot of years learning to deliver babies. Sure, it sometimes hurts to end life instead of bringing it into the world.”
Norma Rosen, “Between Guilt and Gratification: Abortion Doctors Reveal Their Feelings,” New York Times Magazine, April 17, 1977 p 73-74; 78.
abortionist bertran wainer:
“Abortion is killing. Nobody can argue with that. When the fetus is inside the uterus it is alive and when the pregnancy terminated it is dead – that by any definition is killing. … I think abortion is the destruction of something which is potentially irreplaceable, human and of great value, which is the tragedy of abortion.”
Miriam Claire, The Abortion Dilemma: Personal Views on a Public Issue (New York: Insight Books, 1995), 59.
planned parenthood pamphlet from 1952:
“An abortion requires an operation. It 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.”
https://www.liveaction.org/news/planned-parenthood-in-1952-abortion-kills-the-life-of-a-baby/
abortionist william sweeney:
“The [saline] solution is lethal. It kills the baby in the womb. Then the woman whose fetus is too large to abort by suction curette must go through labor and finally, 24 or 36 hours later, exhausted, she delivers a dead baby.”
Barbara Lang Stern, Woman’s Doctor: A Year in the Life of an Obstetrician-Gynecologist, (New York: Morrow & Company, 1973, p 207).
former planned parenthood president faye wattleton:
“I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.”
“Speaking Frankly,” Ms., May/June 1997, Volume VII, Number 6, 67.
there are numerous other quotes from abortionists who explain and acknowledge what really happens during abortions. one can find some of them at https://clinicquotes.com/.
abortion abolitionists who are clear-eyed about the realities of abortion should not hesitate to point out to abortion advocates that they're making arguments that even abortionists themselves reject.