Abortion! The Deadly Invasion

No one will ever hear the patter of these little feet​—aborted at 10 weeks

Suction Aspiration. A suction curette (hollow tube with sharp-edged tip) is inserted into the womb, and suction 28 times stronger than that of a vacuum cleaner shreds the baby and draws the pieces into a container. This method is used in most abortions up to the 12th week. By then the child is completely formed and sensitive to pain.

Dilation and Curettage (D & C). Similar to the suction method, except for the insertion of a loop-shaped knife that dismembers the baby and scrapes the pieces out through the womb opening.

Saline Solution. Fluid is drawn out of the amniotic sac where the baby is and a concentrated salt solution injected in its place. The baby breathes and swallows the solution, struggles, hemorrhages, goes into convulsions, and in a few hours dies. Thereafter the mother goes into hard labor and delivers a dead or dying baby. This method is used in advanced pregnancies, four to six months.

Prostaglandin Abortion. Birth hormones are injected into the amniotic sac to induce premature birth. Salt is often injected first to prevent live births.

Hysterotomy. Similar to a cesarean section. The abdomen and womb are opened surgically and the baby is removed. Nearly all these babies are lifted out alive, struggle for a while, cry and die. Used in very late abortions, when premature births could survive.

For the past few years more than two thirds of the world’s women have had access to legal abortions in their countries, a United Nations study reported. The reasons for allowing abortion are similar: the physical, mental, social and economic well-being of the woman concerned.

In the United States, by a 7-to-2 ruling in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court said that “legal personhood does not exist prenatally” and the baby is not entitled to legal protection of his or her life. Until 1973, the unborn child’s life, even its ability to sue, inherit, and qualify for social security benefits, were protected by law regardless of its age.

Mother’s life endangered, fetus defective, pregnancy due to rape or incest. These reasons applicable in only a very small percentage of cases. Ninety-five percent or more of abortions, called “therapeutic abortions,” are for other reasons.

For “Health.” The mother might feel mental stress if pregnancy interfered with special schooling, or career, or social activities, or vacation​—almost any inconvenience that would “distress” her. She might plead it would cause financial hardship, and be legally qualified for an abortion. Or the family circle would be “disturbed.”

For Birth Control. Abortion is often used as a means of birth control or planned parenthood. Some couples do not wish to bother with contraceptives. Contrary to expectations, the pill has not turned back the rising tide of abortions. Many have repeat abortions.

For Sex Control. By obtaining fetal cells from the amniotic fluid doctors can test for genetic defects in the baby. They also can tell the sex of the baby. This is resorted to by some, and on the basis of this information they decide whether to have an abortion or not. If it’s a girl and they want a boy, or if it’s a boy and they want a girl, an abortion eliminates the unwanted child.

For Money. The doctor who specializes in abortions can get rich quick. The usual uncomplicated abortion takes 15 minutes, and one press report in 1974 tells of a doctor who did 40 to 50 a day at 55 dollars (U.S.) each. Under oath he is said to have testified that for the first half of 1971 his gross income was over $250,000.

Also, some doctors cash in on freshly aborted fetuses, selling them to drug companies, research hospitals and various government agencies. The more advanced the pregnancy, the more valuable the fetus. A scandal about this broke in Washington, D.C. Some doctors were suspected of encouraging both unnecessary abortions and abortions well beyond the three-month period.

It is practiced world wide, whether legal or not. As far back as 1975 and earlier, millions of abortions were performed yearly in the Soviet Union, according to estimates by the Population Council funded by the United Nations. Also yearly: over 2,000,000 in Japan, 2,000,000 in Brazil, more than 1,000,000 each in Italy and in the United States. Fifteen years ago a government study in India reported 3.8 million abortions performed annually.

In 1974 the Population Tribune forum, held in conjunction with the United Nations World Population Conference, said that in some countries half the pregnancies were ended by abortion, and cited studies showing that 55,000,000 women in the world had abortions in 1971 alone!

Who knows what the worldwide figure is now​—except Jehovah God, who notes even the fall of a sparrow.

[Diagram on pages 10, 11]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

HOW IT’S DONE

SUCTION TUBE

SALINE

IT’S LEGALLY DONE

WHY IT’S DONE

IT’S WIDELY DONE

1971

55 MILLION

1980

?

Abortion: What the Professionals Say

Clashing views on the medical front

Changing views on the legal front

BERNARD NATHANSON, M.D., once head of New York’s now defunct first and busiest abortion clinic, did a dramatic turnabout as he said: “I became convinced that as director of the clinic I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.” He added: “To vehemently deny that life begins when conception begins is absurd!”

Dr. Howard Diamond, of Beth Israel Medical Center, disagrees: “If I feel anything, I feel gratified. Abortion is much more important than the life of a child that doesn’t exist. . . . A fetus is nothing!”

Doctors’ reactions to performing abortions vary widely. At one extreme there is guilt and despair. The doctors admitted to heavy drinking and nightmares from performing great numbers of assembly-line abortions. At the other extreme there are doctors who claim to derive satisfaction from the operations because they feel they are saving women’s lives, both emotionally and physically.

Some doctors have mixed feelings. Dr. William Rashbaum, of Beth Israel Medical Center, once had nightmares about a tiny fetus resisting abortion by hanging on to the walls of the uterus. He learned to live with that, no longer has that fantasy, but said: “I’m a person. I’m entitled to my feelings. And my feelings are who gave me or anybody the right to terminate a pregnancy? I’m entitled to that feeling, but I also have no right to communicate it to the patient who desperately needs that abortion. I don’t get paid for my feelings, I get paid for my skills. . . . I began to do abortions in larger numbers at the time of my divorce when I needed money. But I also believe in the woman’s right to control her biological destiny.”

John Szenes, M.D., believes in the woman’s right to abortion and that is his primary consideration. However, he does admit the saline abortion takes some getting used to: “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.” And he then adds: “So I can imagine, if I had started doing 24-weekers right off the bat, I would have had much greater conflict in my own mind whether this is tantamount to murder.”

At the Beth Israel Hospital, in Denver, Colorado, a doctor did an abortion by injecting birth hormones to induce premature birth. Hours later the baby was delivered live, cried, and some time later died. The doctor ordered no life-sustaining measures. Nurses were upset, one resigned. Concerning a similar situation, one Denver obstetrician said: “Trying to save the fetus when you’re performing an abortion is like sending an ambulance to a firing squad. The whole intent of an abortion​—on the part of both the woman and the doctor—​is to see that the fetus doesn’t survive.”

Many nurses have had traumatic experiences, especially with saline abortions. One investigator reported on the testimony of a head nurse in a gynecological ward where large numbers of such abortions were performed. “She recounted many horrifying situations,” he said, “which included babies born alive, for whom they had no facilities whatsoever in the hospital. She personally witnessed one physician who happened to be present at the birth of a live born baby, who subsequently drowned the baby in a bucket of formalin.” Another report tells of babies aborted at eight months, and says aborted babies able to live at six months “are killed by doctors through injections or suffocating them in vinyl bags.” The babies are viable, but they are killed.

The claim is often made that the pregnant woman should have control of her own body, but the fetus is not her body. It is not an appendage or part such as the appendix or gallbladder the removal of which has been likened to the removal of the fetus from the mother’s body. Dr. A. W. Liley, world-renowned research professor of fetal physiology, said: “Biologically, at no stage can we subscribe to the view that the foetus is a mere appendage of the mother. Genetically, mother and baby are separate individuals from conception.” He continues with a description of the activities of the fetus, as follows:

“We know that he moves with a delightful easy grace in his buoyant world, that foetal comfort determines foetal position. He is responsive to pain and touch and cold and sound and light. He drinks his amniotic fluid, more if it is artificially sweetened, less if it is given an unpleasant taste. He gets hiccups and sucks his thumb. He wakes and sleeps. He gets bored with repetitive signals but can be taught to be alerted by a first signal for a second different one. And finally he determines his birthday, for unquestionably the onset of labour is a unilateral decision of the foetus. . . . This is also the foetus whose existence and identity must be so callously ignored or energetically denied by advocates of abortion.”

After reviewing such amazing abilities of the fetus in the womb, Dr. Liley says: “You would think this knowledge would bring a new respect for the unborn. Instead some now are hellbent on his destruction​—just when he had achieved some physical and emotional identity.” Why has the abortion movement made such headway in spite of the obvious humanness of the baby? Dr. Liley’s answer: “The unborn is small, naked, nameless and voiceless. It is his defenselessness that makes him such a convenient victim. He has not yet reached the age of social significance and he cannot strike back for himself.”

Many doctors refuse to do abortions. One doctor said: “If there are a few doctors who seem to do more, it’s because some of us are still struggling with our Hippocratic (oath).” Concerning abortion the oath states: “I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked nor suggest any such counsel, and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.”

Dramatic changes have taken place on the legal front over abortions. English common law considered abortion a crime​—a lesser crime in the first half of pregnancy because the baby had not yet stirred, hence was not considered alive. But with the mother’s “feeling life” during the second half, the baby was alive and abortion thereafter was a felony, murder. These laws were applied throughout the early United States until after the Civil War.

Conception, the union of sperm and ovum, was first accurately described by a German scientist in 1827. Thereafter it was appreciated that life began at conception rather than at “quickening,” as previously believed. After the Civil War the new American Medical Association sent its scientists to testify before committees and state legislatures, informing them that life began at the time of the egg’s fertilization. In response to this new information, every state in the union during the 1870’s and early 1880’s passed new laws making abortion a felony from the time of conception. AMA testimony: “We were dealing with nothing less than human life.”

Times have changed. These so-called “archaic anti-abortion laws of the 19th century” have been wiped from the legal slate in the United States. In 1967 Colorado passed a permissive abortion law. In the next four years 15 other states followed suit. During the next three years 33 states rejected the permissive laws. But the struggle of the pro-life forces was defeated with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 1973 to allow abortion-on-demand during the first three months of pregnancy, during the next three months with certain restrictions for the care of the mother, and anytime before birth for the mother’s health.

Health? The Court’s decision in Doe v. Bolton defined it: “all factors, physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age, relevant to the well being of the patient.” Another of the Court’s cases, Roe v. Wade, enlarged upon the definition: “Maternity or additional offspring may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be eminent, mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. When there is distress for all concerned associated with the unwanted child, and when there is a problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically or otherwise, to care for it.”

A concurring opinion added to these “health” reasons the discomforts of pregnancy, the pain, loss of income, abandoning educational plans, forgoing a career. In short, any reason the mother might advance could end the pregnancy at any time before birth.

This changed thinking is illustrated by International Planned Parenthood. Founded by Margaret Sanger, who strongly opposed abortion, it was meant to promote the use of contraceptives and thereby prevent the need for abortions. In 1964 Planned Parenthood stated: “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 postpones the beginning of life.”

In a dramatic about-face, today Planned Parenthood promotes abortion as a means of population control. It also sponsored the case that resulted in the Supreme Court’s decision permitting a minor to abort without her parents’ consent. Its former statement, “An abortion kills the life of a baby,” no longer appears in its literature. However, that truth does appear in an editorial in the September 1970 California Medical Journal:

“The reverence of each and every human life has been the keystone of western medicine, and is the ethic which has caused physicians to try to preserve, protect, repair, prolong, and enhance every human life. Since the old ethic has not been fully displaced, it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been the curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone knows, that human life begins at conception, and is continuous, whether intra- or extra-uterine, until death.”

Another problem that abortion was supposed to alleviate is that of battered children. The theory was that unwanted children were abused, and preventing their birth would end the abuse. Facts disprove the theory. Child battering has greatly increased, as the following press report discloses: “Looser abortion laws do not result in fewer battered children​—a five-year study by Dr. Edward Lenoski, professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California found that following the passage of ‘abortion on demand’, cruel infanticide and child battering increased three-fold​—a logical result of the concept that ‘life is cheap.’” Instead of remedying the battering of children, abortion has added to this the battering of millions of babies in the womb.

The verbal gymnastics of the courts in their abortion decisions make them fall on their faces in certain criminal trials. Two gunmen fired shots at a car carrying a pregnant woman. One bullet killed the fetus. The woman was not fatally hurt, but the men received sentences up to life for the death of the fetus. In another case, Winfield Anderson shot a woman pregnant with twin sons. By cesarean the twins were removed. One, struck by a bullet, died after three-and-a-half hours; the other died in 15 hours. The mother survived. The defense attorney said the fetuses were “nonpersons,” but Judge Wingate, Jr., ruled that fetuses wounded by a blow on the mother were, if they later died, murder victims. The jury convicted Anderson on two counts of murder.

A paradox develops. If a mother orders the killing of her viable fetus, it’s humanitarian. If the fetus is killed during a crime, it’s murder. If a mother ends the life of her baby a few days before its birth because she’s distressed that it will be a burden, it’s legal. If she does it a day after its birth because it’s a burden, it’s murder.

How does Jehovah God view all of this? Exodus 21:22, 23 states: “In case men should struggle with each other and they really hurt a pregnant woman and her children do come out but no fatal accident occurs, he is to have damages imposed upon him . . . But if a fatal accident should occur, then you must give soul for soul [life].” The original Hebrew does not limit the injury to the mother, but includes the baby also, as careful scholarship reveals.a

Other ancient codes take the same view. Laws that protect the unborn existed centuries before Christ. The Hammurabic code did, and also ancient codes of the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the Hittites and the Persians prohibited the striking of a woman that caused the death of her unborn child. These laws were punitive and also involved compensation.

In a fear-inspiring way children are made in the womb, and they are “an inheritance from Jehovah.” As for our use of this inheritance, “each of us will render an account for himself to God.”​—Ps. 127:3; Rom. 14:12.

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 13]

If a mother ends the life of her baby a few days before its birth, it’s legal. If she does it a day after its birth, it’s murder

[Blurb on page 14]

It is his defenselessness that makes him such a convenient victim

[Blurb on page 15]

“I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion”​—Hippocratic Oath

Diary of an Unborn Child

OCTOBER 5:

Today my life began. My parents do not know it yet, but it is I already. And I am to be a girl. I shall have blond hair and blue eyes. Just about everything is settled though, even the fact that I shall love flowers.

OCTOBER 19:

Some say that I am not a real person yet, that only my mother exists. But I am a real person, just as a small crumb of bread is yet truly bread. My mother is. And I am.

OCTOBER 23:

My mouth is just beginning to open now. Just think, in a year or so I shall be laughing and later talking. I know what my first word will be: MAMA.

OCTOBER 25:

My heart began to beat today all by itself. From now on it shall gently beat for the rest of my life without ever stopping to rest! And after many years it will tire. It will stop, and then I shall die.

NOVEMBER 2:

I am growing a bit every day. My arms and legs are beginning to take shape. But I have to wait a long time yet before those little legs will raise me to my mother’s arms, before these little arms will be able to gather flowers and embrace my father.

NOVEMBER 12:

Tiny fingers are beginning to form on my hands. Funny how small they are! I’ll be able to stroke my mother’s hair with them.

NOVEMBER 20:

It wasn’t until today that the doctor told mom that I am living here under her heart. Oh, how happy she must be! Are you happy, mom?

NOVEMBER 25:

My mom and dad are probably thinking about a name for me. But they don’t even know that I am a little girl. I want to be called Kathy. I am getting so big already.

DECEMBER 10:

My hair is growing. It is smooth and bright and shiny. I wonder what kind of hair mom has?

DECEMBER 13:

I am just about able to see. It is dark around me. When mom brings me into the world it will be full of sunshine and flowers. But what I want more than anything is to see my mom. How do you look, mom?

DECEMBER 24:

I wonder if mom hears the whispering of my heart? Some children come into the world a little sick. But my heart is strong and healthy. It beats so evenly: tup-tup, tup-tup. You’ll have a healthy little daughter, mom!

DECEMBER 28:

Today my mother killed me.

​—Anonymous