The cover story in the February 1 WORLD magazine is about America’s best and worst and subtitled, “From the Glory of Military Greatness to the Shame of Abortion.” One of our favorite writers, Lynn Vincent, does the abortion segment, pointing out that while the GOP-led Congress is poised to outlaw partial birth abortion there is yet another horrifying procedure that is actually growing in popularity.
Late Term D&E Rates Up
It is the late term abortion known as dilation and evacuation, or D and E. Pro-lifers know this grotesque form of child killing quite well. We have seen pictures of it for thirty years, and many of us saw the victims of this form of carnage firsthand when abortionists used to throw the babies out in the garbage for pick up. In fact, one winter and spring when a group of us in Chicago were rescuing boxes and sacks and even barrels of aborted babies from the garbage for decent burial ceremonies, we came across the sacks of body parts resulting from this gruesome form of homicide.
But Lynn makes it clear that the Centers for Disease Control statistics show that even while the number of abortions overall fell by about 20 percent during the 1990’s, the number of late second and third trimester abortions increased by 23 percent in the 35 states that report on number of abortions performed. States like California and Ohio don’t report abortion numbers, or report sporadically.
Lynn says that during the decade of the 1990’s U. S. abortionists did 94,680 late term abortions — that is, after 21 weeks gestation. In 1990 at least 6,574 D&E abortions were performed, but by 1999 the number shot up to over 8,000. While a third of these late term abortions are the partial birth type, the majority are still D&E.
Former Abortionist Describes D&E
Dr. Tony Levatino, of our Meet the Abortion Providers series, has this to say about the D&E: “A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The baby can be in any position inside the uterus. You reach in with a clamp and grasp anything you can and once you have grasped something you squeeze the clamp and set the jaws and pull hard, really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg about four or five inches long. Reach in again and grasp whatever you can . . . pull really hard once again and out pops an arm. Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart and lungs.”
Levatino says the toughest part is extracting the head which floats free inside the mother’s womb. “You will know you have it when you crush down on the clamp and see a pure white gelatinous material issue from the cervix. That’s the baby’s brains. You then extract the skull pieces. If you have a really bad day like I often had, a little face will come out and stare back at you.”
Lynn then goes on to explain that not only are late second and third trimester abortions grisly to read about but that they are dangerous to women who have them, with an increased risk of infection, blood loss, or need for surgical removal of the placenta.
Late Term Abortions Up Despite Health Risks
Yet late term abortions are climbing as the total of all abortions declines. In 1990, for example, late abortions accounted for only one percent of the total abortions reported. Now they are fifty percent. Lynn tried to reach the baby killing leaders at NARAL, NAF and the ACOG, but no one returned calls. These late abortions earned late term baby killers like Haskell and Tiller some 200 million dollars. The biggest later term abortion states: Kansas, California and New York.
Accompanying the article is a medical diagram showing four stages of dismemberment of a baby during a D&E abortion. It makes one wonder if a long time [pro-life] supporter wasn’t perhaps at least nudging the truth when he wrote, “All abortionists will go to Hell.” Sounds somewhat theologically sound. Where do baby killers go when they pass on? If you study the D and E abortion diagram accompanying this story, you really do wonder if that activity is good for the soul. Even Lynn, in an accompanying box states that “the Devil is in the details.” Could be. At any rate, we’d rather be accused of trying to put abortionists out of business than trying to get them business.
Food for Thought
Have you ever noticed how many religious leaders and leaders of social programs who are one hundred percent against the death penalty and are militantly pro-abortion? Nothing personal, but don’t you wonder why Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Sr. Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame, Governor George Ryan, and on and on, want the death penalty dropped at any price, but haven’t got a tear to shed for innocent babies sentenced to death by abortion?
As we have said many times, we’ll make a deal. When the pro-abortion, anti-capital punishment gang becomes anti-abortion and takes part in a Face the Truth tour, we’ll make the big compromise and come out against the death penalty. But until then, we are unimpressed.
