On November 29, 2005 an article entitled “Offering Abortion, Rebirth” appeared in the Los Angeles Times. The article was written by Stephanie Simon and featured a prominent abortionist named Dr. William F. Harrison of Fayetteville, Arkansas. The article was very poignant and sobering.
Harrison began performing abortions shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, and he estimates that he has terminated “at least 20,000 pregnancies.”
Harrison has no problem calling himself an “abortionist” and readily admits, “I am destroying life.” He is also quoted as saying, “It’s not a baby to me until the mother tells me it’s a baby.” Harrison has convinced himself that by taking life he is also giving life. He says, “When you end what the woman considers a disastrous pregnancy, she has literally been given her life back.” He even borrows the biblical expression “born again” to describe his patients.
In the article, we are introduced to several women visiting the clinic. One woman was a 35-year-old named Kim. She was in for her “second abortion in two years.” We are also introduced to 20-year-old Amanda, who says, “It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong.” She attributes her strength to have an abortion to prayer, adding, “I really believe God has a plan for us all. I have a choice, and that’s part of my plan.” Amanda never even told the father of her child or her parents with whom she lives that she was pregnant.
Sarah, age 23, became pregnant while planning her wedding. She remarks, “I don’t think my dress would have fit with a baby in there.” Stephanie, age 32, has had “four abortions in the last 12 years.” She calls abortion “a bummer, but no big stress.”
The article details what patients experience at the clinic. The room is decorated with paintings of butterflies and flowers. The radio is tuned to an easy-listening station. The doctor and his staff do all they can to make the experience as pleasant as possible. They also try to remove all guilt. Harrison says, “We try to make sure she doesn’t ever feel guilty for what she feels she has to do.” Below is an excerpt of the article which describes one abortion.
An 18-year-old with braces on her teeth is on the operating table, her head on a plaid pillow, her feet up in stirrups, her arms strapped down at her sides. A pink blanket is draped over her stomach. She’s 13 weeks pregnant, at the very end of the first trimester. She hasn’t told her parents.
A nurse has already given her a local anesthetic, Valium and a drug to dilate her cervix; Harrison prepares to inject Versed, a sedative, in her intravenous line. The drug will wipe out her memory of everything that happens during the 20 minutes she’s in the operating room. It’s so effective that patients who return for a follow-up exam often don’t recognize Harrison.
The doctor is wearing a black turtleneck, brown slacks and tennis shoes. He snaps his gum as he checks the monitors displaying the patient’s pulse rate and oxygen count.
“This is not going to be nearly as hard as you anticipate,” he tells her.
She smiles wanly. Keeping up a constant patter — he asks about her brothers, her future birth control plans, whether she’s good at tongue twisters — Harrison pulls on sterile gloves.
“How’re you doing up there?” he asks.
“Doing OK.”
“Good girl.”
Harrison glances at an ultrasound screen frozen with an image of the fetus taken moments before. Against the fuzzy black-and-white screen, he sees the curve of a head, the bend of an elbow, the ball of a fist.
“You may feel some cramping while we suction everything out,” Harrison tells the patient.
A moment later, he says: “You’re going to hear a sucking sound.”
“The abortion takes two minutes. The patient lies still and quiet, her eyes closed, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. The friend who has accompanied her stands at her side, mutely stroking her arm.
When he’s done, Harrison performs another ultrasound. The screen this time is blank but for the contours of the uterus. “We’ve gotten everything out of there,” he says.
As the nurse drops the instruments in the sink with a clatter, the teenager looks around, woozy.
The 18-year-old girl in the above excerpt admits “there’s things wrong with abortion.” However, she adds, “But I want to have a good life.”
In the article, we are introduced to a high school volleyball player who says she doesn’t want to give up her body for nine months and a 17-year-old who assures the nurse that she does not consider the unborn child to be a baby. “Not until it’s developed,” she explains. The nurse tries to ease the girl by replying, “Yours is more like a chicken yolk.” The girl then concludes, “Then no, it’s not a baby.” The girl’s mother was crying over in the corner.
Harrison delivered 6,000 babies before giving up obstetrics in 1991. However, he tells Simon that he has no plans to give up the practice of killing them. The article ends with a promise by Harrison to continue performing abortions and the sobering words: “Three abortions before lunch and three more after: The appointment book is always full.”
Some Thoughts
Simon’s article provides us with a rare look into an abortion clinic. It is a truly chilling perspective that exposes the actions and attitudes of abortionists and their patients. Below are several thoughts about what we read.
- The Admission. Harrison says, “I am destroying life.” This is not the only time that he has made such an admission. In an article that appeared in the August 2002 edition of the Reproductive Freedom Task Force Newsletter entitled “Why I Provide Abortions,” Harrison says, “No one, neither the patient receiving an abortion, nor the person doing the abortion, is ever, at any time, unaware that they are ending a life. We just don’t believe that a developing embryo or fetus whose mother cannot or will not accept it, has the same moral claims on us, claims to autonomy and justice that an adolescent or adult woman has.”
- It is interesting to note that the Hippocratic Oath, which medical school graduates have typically affirmed, includes the promise to “reject abortion that deliberately takes a unique human life.” Not only does Harrison do the very thing prohibited in that oath, but he also does this without shame!
- The Reasons. Not one woman was there because the child was deformed or handicapped or because the child was conceived through rape. Nor were they there because their own lives were at risk. (For the record, none of those reasons justify abortion). Their reasons were based solely on personal convenience and selfishness. One woman did not want to give up her body for nine months; another wanted to fit in a dress; and another wanted “a good life.”
- The Repeats. Kim was there for her “second abortion in two years” and Stephanie was there for her fifth abortion. The article says she “keeps forgetting to take her birth control pills.” Like many women, these women view abortion as a form of birth control. It is an easy-fix to an “accident.”
- Betty Friedan, the late feminist leader and co-founder of the National Organization for Women, admitted that abortions are used for birth control. She said, “Women must have abortion as a backup to contraceptive failure.”
- The Secrecy. The 18-year-old on the abortion table concealed her pregnancy from mom and dad. Amanda, who was 15 weeks along, never told the father that she was carrying his baby or her parents, even though she lives with them.
- The Guilt. Many of the women knew they were doing wrong. The 18-year-old on the abortion table had “tears rolling down her cheeks.” She admitted feeling guilty and even confessed that “there’s things wrong with abortion.” The 17-year-old tried to convince herself that it was not murder as she talked to the nurse. “Not until it’s developed,” she said.
- The Candor. Harrison refers to himself as an “abortionist” and admits to “destroying life.” He even borrows the biblical expression “born again” to describe his patients. In the aforementioned 2002 edition of the Reproductive Freedom Task Force Newsletter, Harrison again borrows from the Bible. As he explains why he chose to be an abortionist, he says he heard “a still, small voice asking, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ to which I was at last compelled to reply, ‘here am I, send me.’” Harrison is citing Isaiah’s call to be a prophet in reference to his call to be an abortionist!
Conclusion
We need to know what really takes place behind closed doors at abortion clinics. Such clinics are killing factories where babies are sacrificed on altars of convenience. I hope this article has helped to do that.