Posted on 01/08/2014 2:39:51 PM PST by Morgana
National Right to Life News Today has posted a number of stories about the documentary After Tiller, hailed by the usual culprits as a successful effort to humanize the four remaining abortionists in the United States who perform third trimester abortions. (See, for example A brief for third-trimester abortions: the documentary After Tiller)
One of the more remarkable statements to which I have not paid sufficient attention was that at least one of these abortionists went out of her way to accommodate those women who wished to name the nearly-full term babies they had aborted and/or hold them.
You dont have to be a pro-lifer to wonder about that dichotomy/schizophrenia. Which is why I want to say thanks to Sarah Terzo who told her readers about an interview one of those four abortionistsSusan Robinsongave to The Hairpin. Its amazing what you can learn from them when they are talking to a sympathetic outlet.
Worth noting is the headline to the story/interview written by Jia Tolentino, Interview with Dr. Susan Robinson, One of the Last Four Doctors in America to Openly Provide Third-Trimester Abortions. There are no doubt other abortionists who abort children in the third trimester. The introduction cites Gallup as demonstrating only 10% of the public approves.
Terzo does a very nice job of categorizing the real questions. Let me offer two slightly different ways of looking at these controversial abortions.
First, there is the allusion that practically all these abortions are performed on babies who would not survive birth or would die within hours/days. Second, what is going on when, for example, a woman aborts a baby with Down syndrome well past when the baby is viable.
(Terzo shrewdly points out that [N]owhere in the article does Dr. Robinson mention women who need to have abortions in the third trimester because of health reasons. This may be because simply removing the living, viable baby by C-section is no more dangerous than going through a procedure to abort him or her.)
Robinson notes early on, I think that the public perceives first of all that late abortion could be completely eliminated if people would only get their act together and have their abortions earlier, which is completely untrue. Robinson offers a bevy of extenuating circumstancesexcusesto get around the simple truth that some unspecified percentage of women abort huge, mature babies for reasons most people would not believe are commensurate will the gravity of taking the life of a viable unborn baby.
Tolentino tees up a softball question for Robinson to hit out of the park: Can you tell me more about the these people need to get their act together argument? Robinson responds
Well, a large percentage of our patients had no idea that they were pregnant. People go, How could this possibly be? Well, look at that reality show. It happens.
I could tell you a million reasons why women who are perfectly smartand they are, these are not stupid womendont come to know they are pregnant. They have no weight changes, they dont feel sick, they dont feel movement, or if they do they think its gas. Suddenly someone says, Hmm, your stomachs looking big, have you taken a pregnancy test? And the person may have taken a test, and it may have come out negativeIve had women that only got a positive on their third test. And either way they think they just got pregnant. They have no idea theyre in their 24th week. So they make an appointment for an abortion, and it takes a few weeks, and they have their ultrasound and find out that theyre at 27 weeks, which is too far for an abortion anywhere. So then what happens? They either give up or have a baby, or they go on the Internet and they find us.
Tolentino finally asks straight out if Robinson would ever say no in cases when the baby has a fetal anomaly. After some of this, and some of that, No: she would never say no.
She feigns concern over the disabled-rights side to this, but When parents are saying, We do not feel we can adequately cope with that issue, I believe them, and I dont think theyd have an easy time putting a child with severe disabilities up for adoption successfully.
Which (a) is completely untrue: there are waiting lists to adopt babies just like this; and (b) is (to borrow a word from Robinson) a specious argument. Robinson doesnt say so but the babies with fetal anomalies most often aborted in the third trimester are likely Down syndrome. This is hardly a justification to abort a child and, as noted, there are tons of parents waiting to adopt babies with Down syndrome.
What about healthy kids? Occasionally she wont abort for questions of safety; for example if she cant finish the abortion in the office. As if to show what a hardliner she is, Robinson remarks, I had a patient from France and she just desperately did not want to be pregnantbut she was 35 weeks, and gestational age is plus or minus three weeks, so she couldve been at 38 weeks, and thats just too far along. It wouldnt be safe. Not because it would be monstrously wrong to abort a baby at 35 or 38 weeks but because it wouldnt be safe for the mother.
There are many more specifics we could touch on, but here is just one more. Its a long exchange, but hugely revealing:
Tolentino: I was really moved and amazed by the scene where youre writing down a babys name, noting the familys request for a memory box and a viewing, showing the little ink footprints. Do families often want to engage with their baby like this after an abortion? How many people are ready toas you saysay hello to their baby at the same time that theyre telling it goodbye?
Robinson: With fetal anomaly patients, we ask them right up front if they plan to hold their baby after its born. These patients, their emotional needs are so different from the ones who are looking at their pregnancy as an absolute disaster, who are just thinking, Get it out of me, please, please, please. Those patientsthe maternal indications patientsthey are not relating to their fetus as a baby, theyre relating to it as a problem.
But with a fetal indications patientif she refers to it as her baby, Ill refer to it as her baby. If shes named the baby, Ill use the babys name too. I would say that most of these patients do decide to see and hold their baby, although many of them have a hard time dealing with the idea at first. Well take remembrance photographs, well give them a teddy bear, the footprints. I mean, imagine being six months pregnant and finding out your babys missing half its brain, and youve got this nursery youve painted at home, youre so readyI dont want them to go home from the procedure with absolutely nothing to remember and honor the baby, and its birth.
Tolentino: Wow. Youll say birth?
Robinson: Yes. I try to mirror what will be the most consoling to the patient. In general, these patientsfetal indicationsdo talk about giving birth, so Ill say that as well.
Tolentino: What is it like watching these patients say goodbye?
Robinson: It is very difficult. Its the saddest thing on earth, I think sometimes. They cry, and I cry, and sometimes theyll ask for a baptism or a prayer. Ive got some little non-denominational prayers that Ill say with the families.
Tolentino: To simultaneously sustain these ideasthat you desperately loved and wanted this baby thats here in your arms, and also that you just committed yourself to ending its lifeits one of the most complicated emotional situations I can imagine. In these casesI am sorry for this macabre questionthe baby is dead, right? They never meet their baby alive?
Robinson: Thats not macabre! Thats a good question. Yes, thats the first part of the procedure. We sedate the patient and euthanize their fetus, their baby, with an injection. The fetus passes away, doesnt feel anything.
Robinson cant be sure the baby feels nothing when euthanized (most likely the baby is poisoned). That she sees Tolentinos inquiry as a good question, tells you how far she has distanced herself from what she is doing and to whom.
Robinsons interview is must reading, certainly in the context of the praise heaped on the documentary After Tiller. Her last ten wordsAnd the need for late-term abortions will never go awayremind us that the no-apologies ever crowd will always have champions like Robinson.
27 weeks is almost 7 months
Abortionist: I Would Never Say No to Aborting a Disabled Baby After 27 Weeks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is that 27 weeks pre-natal or post-natal?
Or does it even make a difference?
What, Dr. Gosnell’s not featured?
My son was born at 27 weeks.
He starts his 6th year of Little League in two weeks. He’s really good.
“We sedate the patient and euthanize their fetus, their baby, with an injection”
So she murders a baby the same way that a convicted murderer is executed - but only after 20 years of appeals.
Wonder what she would say if someone proposed to do that to her.
I’m speechless at the callousness. The thing that really strikes me hard is that God send his son Jesus to die for us and forgive us our sins and he rose again. He loves each and every one of us, and wants us to know him. Yet here we have such evil people in our eyes, yet they need the Lord too. I’m blown away by the mentality, but I have to learn to be a better Christian and as such I need to learn to pray for these people too.
It’d be too easy to say he’s going to a special place in hell and our sense of justice would be ok with that, but that’s God’s call not ours.
May be, but I have no problem with sending Dr. Robinson to face her destiny as the result of an ordinary murder trial.
She seems to believe she has the right to execute people at will, so she shouldn't have any complaints about such a fate.
I don’t disagree with that either, murder is murder and she should be tried and hung if found guilty in my opinion.
I was just making the point and it’s something I’m struggling with lately is we’re still called to love these people, but it doesn’t mean there’s no consequences for actions and laws.
Most people don't feel they can "adequately cope" with a child who won't live long after birth, or who is blind or deaf or retarded or imperfectly formed. Then the child is born and they find strength and love and endurance they never knew they had. And joy in the child they were certain they didn't want.
Wonder what she would say if someone proposed to do that to her.
Oh, I'm sure she, and the people who would support what she does, would be totally opposed to Capital Punishment. It's too 'inhumane',you understand. They just cannot see the irony.
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