Abortion Workers Talk...
On Abortion... “In medical practice, there are few surgical procedures given so little attention and so underrated in its potential hazards as abortion. It is a commonly held view that complications are inevitable.” - -Warren Hern, Abortionist
“[The abortionists] get to go inflict pain on someone for five minutes…” - Charlotte Taft, Former Clinic Administrator
“No one ever says ‘Thank you’ to an abortionist.” - - Unidentified Abortionist
“Every woman...has a trauma at destroying a pregnancy...This is a part of her own life. When she destroys a pregnancy, she is destroying herself.” - - Dr. Julius Fogel, Psychiatrist/OB performed over 20,000 abortions
“Even now I feel a little peculiar about it, because as a physician I was trained to conserve life, and here I am destroying it.”-- Unidentified Abortionist
“If the abortion is well done, we don’t have to watch the baby die. So we inject a salt solution. The result is like putting salt on a slug, but we don’t have to watch it.” - Dr. Russell Sacco, M.D.
“It was obviously the fetus being distressed by swallowing the salt solution and kicking violently through the death trauma… we are the executioners in this instance.” - Dr. John Szenens, abortionist
“I looked inside the bucket...There was a small naked person in there, floating in a bloody liquid. He was purple with bruises and his face had the agonizing tautness of one forced to die too soon.” - Susan Lindstrom, M.S.W.
“Sure, the money was important. And oh, it was an easy thing, once I had taken this step—to see these women as animals and these babies as just tissue.” - an unnamed abortionist
“…[abortion is still] the dark side of medicine.” - Morris Wortman, Abortionist, Democrat and Chronicle, July 5, 1992
“I guess I never realized I would find [performing abortions] as unpleasant as I do. I really don’t enjoy it at all. It’s not a rewarding thing to do… [patients] look at you as an evil person who is deliberately putting them through a painful procedure...it’s their whole attitude that bothers me. I feel like a simple thank you is in order, instead of, ’Why are you doing this to me?’” - New York Abortionist, The New York Times Magazine, January 18, 1998
“[Doing abortions] can make you feel bad… No matter how pro-choice you are, it makes you feel low.” - New York Abortionist, The New York Times Magazine, January 18, 1998
“The abortion clinics never accept any responsibility for complications. They just say it was not their fault. The concern is not the patient at this time. The concern is with taking care of the doctor and keeping his reputation and the clinic’s [reputation] clean.” - Carol Everett, Former Clinic Director and Owner
“You know that there is something alive in there that you’re killing.” - Unidentified Abortionist, In Necessity and Sorrow, Magna Denes,New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1976
“The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.” - Dr. Warren Hern, Abortionist, Associations of Planned Parenthood Physicians meeting,San Diego, October 26, 1978
“It’s a nasty, dirty, yucky thing and I always come home angry.” - David Zbaraz, Abortionist, Washington Post, March 3, 1980
“In some ways it is very boring, these abortions—the same thing day after day. In fact, the nurses are excited about complications because it’s something different.” - A Director of Nursing at an abortion facility, In Necessity and Sorrow, Magna Denes, New York:Basic Books, Inc., 1976
“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.”, “Plan Your Children” Planned Parenthood pamphlet, 1962
“[The abortion procedure is] inherently negative. I don’t think that anyone can say that abortion is right...It’s a form of life...This has to be killing…” - New York Abortionist, Democrat and Chronicle, July 5, 1992
“[The governing force behind the abortion industry is] money. It is a very lucrative business. It is the largest unregulated industry in our nation.” - Carol Everett, Former Clinic Director and Owner
“And that we really are running a business and it was very difficult...for me when I say, “Oh my God we didn’t do enough abortions today! Ahhh! You know we’re not gonna make our budget...but that is the bottom line with us…” - Cheryl Schrepf, National Abortion Federation 16th Annual Mtg. April 12-15, 1992
On Workers’ Reactions… “It’s difficult being in a profession where you have a hard time answering the questions that other people ask you about what you do...you come to feel not so good about what you’re doing even when you thought you were doing something wonderful.” - Terry Beresford, Planned Parenthood
“The doctors would remove the fetus...and then lay it on the table, where it would squirm until it died...They all had perfect forms and shapes. I couldn’t take it, no nurse could.” - Former Planned Parenthood Director, American Medical News, July 12, 1993
“I had gotten involved in abortion because I wanted to help. But instead, while sucking the child out of its mother I was also sucking out the mother’s soul and leaving an empty shell, an empty tomb. I began to detest what I was doing. More than that, I began to detest myself. I even entertained thoughts of suicide.” - Beverly McMillan, M.D. OB/GYN, former abortionist
“There are weary, grim moments when I think I cannot bear another basin of bloody remains, utter another kind phrase of reassurance…‘How can you stand it?’ even the clients ask. They see the machine, the strange instruments, the blood, the final strike that wipes away the promise of pregnancy. Sometimes I see that too: I watch a woman’s swollen abdomen sink to softness in a few stuttering moments and my own belly flip-flops with sorrow.” - Sallie Tisdale, Clinic Nurse, Harper’s Magazine, October 1987
“Clinic workers have very mixed emotions about abortion…Clinic workers may say they support a woman’s right to choose, but they will also say that they do not want to see tiny hands and tiny feet. They do not want to be faced with the consequences of their actions...There is a great difference between the intellectual support of the woman’s right to choose and the actual participation in the carnage of abortion. Because seeing body parts bothers the workers.”- Judith Fetrow, Former clinic worker
“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.” - Abortion Counselor, In Necessity and Sorrow, Magna Denes, New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1976
“[D&E abortions are] far more ‘psychologically traumatizing’ for the doctors...I can’t do them anymore.” - Head of Obstetrics/Philadelphia teaching hospital, Philadelphia Inquirer, July 18, 1993
“[I’ve seen women] who have just had an abortion...lie in the recovery room and cry, ‘I’ve just killed my baby. I’ve just killed my baby.’ I don’t know what to say to these women. Part of me thinks, ‘Maybe they’re right.’” - Abortion Nurse, American Medical News, July 12, 1993
“We don’t have real conversations. Sometimes the employees faint. Sometimes they throw up. Sometimes they have to leave the room…” - Joy Davis, Clinic Manager
A clinic worker describes dreams in which she sees “aborted fetuses stare at [her] with ancient eyes asking, ‘Why? Why did you do this to me?’” American Medical News, July 12, 1993
“I have fetus dreams, we all do here: dreams of abortions one after the other; of buckets of blood splashed on the walls; trees full of crawling fetuses. I dreamed that two men grabbed me and began to drag me away, ‘Let’s do an abortion,’ they said with a sickening leer, and I began to scream, plunged into a vision of sucking, scraping pain, of being spread and torn by impartial instruments that do only what they are bidden…” - Clinic Nurse, Harper’s Magazine, October 1978
“Two respondents described dreams which they had related to the procedure. Both described dreams of vomiting fetuses along with a sense of horror...In general, it appears that the more direct the physical and visual involvement the more stress experienced.” - Warren Hern, Abortionist, Associations of Planned Parenthood Physicians meeting, San Diego, October 26, 1978
“Planned Parenthood is set up so clinic workers never have to see the babies. It’s set up that way because having to look at the babies bothers the workers. Planned Parenthood workers talk about how seeing parts is emotionally painful for them...The smell of blood penetrates the clinic on the killing days...I was the person who had to dispose of [the babies]...There were days when I would go home and think, ‘You know, maybe this isn’t right.’”- Former Planned Parenthood employee
On Abortionists... “[The few doctors willing to replace those who are retiring are] mostly physicians who have had difficulty establishing regular ob-gyn practices.” Mentioning a clinic in Nebraska where a young doctor was brought in to replace an older one, “Out of his first six months of work, there are nine malpractice suits...After it was apparent the guy was a klutz, they kept using him, and trying to cover for him, because they couldn’t find another provider.” - Robert Crist, Abortionist, St. Petersburg Times, June 3, 1990
“[Abortion is] the dirty work of our field. The sad truth is that the people who moonlight at the clinics are grade-B doctors. They’re not the cream of the crop.” - Unidentified Pro-abortion OB/GYN, The New York Times Magazine, January 18, 1998
“...These guys are pitiful.” - Charlotte Taft, Former Clinic Administrator, Lime 5, Mark Crutcher
“In obstetrics and gynecology, the term abortionist is still a dirty word.” - Joe Thompson, Retired Abortionist, South Bend Tribune, December 26, 1992
“Most physicians regard abortion as a stigmatized operation done by people who are otherwise incompetent and can’t do anything else.” - Warren Hern, Abortionist, American Medical News, September 5, 1994
“...abortion is still a very fringe-type practice. There aren’t a lot of people who want to get into abortion provision...And the ones that we do have applying to us for training often have very dodgy histories and backgrounds. And if you dig deep enough, you’ll find a death or two or a malpractice suit or a deregistration somewhere along the line…” - David Grundmann, Australia Abortionist, National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar,Seattle, WA, September 1993
“There’s still the shame thing, even among people who are pro-choice...We are still seen as dirty, even among our own people.” - Diane Derzis, Abortion Clinic Administrator, Atlanta Journal Constitution, May 16, 1993
“It’s true that abortion providers are perceived as not very good doctors—that they have no alternative so they do abortions, that they cannot earn a living any other way.” - Richard Hausknecht, Abortionist, The New York Times Magazine, January 18, 1998
“If we see a doctor out there who’s really hurting women, it’s incumbent upon us to blow the whistle—no matter what the outcome. But it’s a real choice, because you could end up with someone worse—or no doctor at all…” - Ron Fitzsimmons, Director of National Coalition of Abortion Providers, Abortion Report, July 7, 1994
“[I am] angry at the woman...I have angry feelings at myself for feeling good about grasping the [head of the fetus], for feeling good about doing a technically good procedure which destroys a fetus, kills a baby.” - Unidentified Abortionist, American Medical News, July 12, 1993
On Deceit… “Sometimes we lied. A girl might ask what her baby was like at a certain point in pregnancy. Was is a baby yet? Even as early as twelve weeks a baby is totally formed, he has fingerprints, turns his head, fans his toes, feels pain. But we would say, ‘It’s not a baby yet. It’s tissue, like a clot.” - Kathy Sparks, former abortion clinic worker.
“If a woman we were counseling expressed doubts about having an abortion, we would say whatever was necessary to persuade her to have the abortion immediately...The abortion clinic that I managed was strictly a business operation...We did not consider the well-being of the women who had abortions.” - Judy W., Office Manager of a Texas abortion clinic
“[The abortion provider] need[s] to protect yourself legally by having the informed consent [form]… it doesn’t matter whether [the patient] understands it, as long as she signs it.” - Donna Stringer, National Abortion Federation, 16th Annual Meeting, April 12-15, 1992
“It is extremely difficult to watch doctors lie, clinic workers cover up, and hear terrifying stories of women dragged out of clinics to die in cars on the way to the hospital without beginning to question the party line. I began to wonder if we were really caring for these women, or if we were just working for another corporation whose only interest was the bottom line.”- Judith Fetrow, Former Planned Parenthood worker
“...we didn’t do any real counseling. We answered only the questions the woman asked and tried not to ‘rock the boat’...The counselor does try to determine the reason this woman wants the abortion. Not so much to help as to use the fear to reinforce theabortion decision.” - Carol Everett, Former Clinic Director and Owner
“We only sold one product—abortion and abortion only. We took whatever other ideas the pregnant woman had and used them to sell abortion...We effectively sold our product.” - Carol Everett, Former Clinic Director and Owner
Links with similar information: Heritage House
