Abortion Stories
PrintOften overlooked in the abortion debate are the countless stories of pain and heartache. However, these stories are very real as are the scores of victims who tell them. This page is dedicated to the millions of casualties of this horrible practice.
THE MURDER OF BABIES BORN & UNBORN - my testimony
by Mr. Robert W. Baral,
RN,CEN,EMT
I am by profession a hospital paramedic turned emergency room nurse. About 20 years ago, when I first began working in emergency health care, I was stunned at how many of my coworkers were alcoholics. I soon learned why. Few lay people outside of health care can understand the untold lifetimes of memories - both of nightmares and of miracles - that health care workers carry with them. I will share one of those nightmares that haunts me still with you.
I once had a paramedic backup request from a basic ambulance unit for a "woman bleeding vaginally." I recall it was a dirty, run down walk up in a dirty, run down city. The cops and EMTs were already there. My partner and I entered the run down apartment to find a young female sitting on a mobile "stair chair." The cops and EMT guys were a bit worried for the girl, who was maybe 15 tops. Our men were just about to start the carry down to the ambulance, never an easy task in these older dwellings.
The patient looked just fine. Her vitals from the EMTs were ok. The guys were concerned because they found a lot of blood around the apartment. She was fully clothed. The girl made it clear that she was not interested in having a pre-hospital ob/gyn exam done by a bunch of male ambulance techs, and we were not interested in forcing ourselves upon her.
Since this was not a life-threatening emergency, had we done so against her will, we would have been guilty of assault & battery, and worse... She said nothing to us about why she was bleeding vaginally - at least nothing about what we were soon to discover... I was just on the verge of telling the guys to ship her off to the city hospital emergency room without our help, as she didn't need medic care.
Suddenly, one of the cops motioned to me to come over to the bathroom. I went in and he pointed to a dirty bathtub. In the tub was a newborn dead baby, with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck and body, in a clear plastic bag, covered with blood. The cop and I looked at each other without speaking.
So now we knew the cause of the young girl's vaginal bleeding. She had recently given birth, but had not told any of our men when they asked her what was up. The baby was stone dead and long past working the child up as a code.
As we in health care appreciate all to well, it is easy to instantly see if someone is "stone cold" dead. The blood pools according to gravity to create dependant lividity. The skin is room temperature to the touch. The muscles tighten in the "death grip" of rigor mortis, leaving the body "stiff as a board." Such was the case here. This was a crime scene for the Medical Examiner's eyes, so we pleased to be spared the added misery of having to call the ER doctor for a pronouncement.
All I remember next - and this was maybe 17 years ago - was I walked back out to the room where the patient was. I just stared at her and our eyes met - not in judgment or harshness, but just in shocked, dumbfounded disbelief. I said nothing and neither did she. Women bleed vaginally when giving birth - as is well known - no biggie for EMS or ER purposes unless the blood loss is life-threatening. We were not needed here. I dispatched the girl off to the city hospital E.R. with a nod to our men. For our maybe 2 or 3 minutes of time, my job on this case was happily done - except for the paper work, of course... We were thankful for not having to hang around on this one! From what I remember we found out, it was a normal birth long before any of us got to the scene. The young teenage mother-never-to-be just didn't want the baby, so she murdered the child by suffocation with the plastic bag.
One by one, our men went in and then quickly out of the bathroom to see the newborn dead baby, with the umbilical cord wrapped around its poor little body, covered in blood, in a clear plastic bag, sitting on the bottom of a filthy tub.
I often relive this particular nightmare memory as if it was just now happening, and I am standing in that filthy bathroom reaching down to that poor dead baby. It sometimes plays in my mind over and over in nearly frozen slow motion - a living hell nightmare that I can't shake out of.
Strange, but throughout nursing school, we never really learned much about abortion. My first full-time job as an emergency room nurse was at a large urban teaching Catholic hospital. It was there I first really learned about the gruesome medical and nursing details and facts of how different abortion procedures "terminate" unborn babies; how there is no such thing as a "safe and painless" abortion; what horrid risks and after effects women suffer because of abortion. This was vital knowledge for us, as many post-abortion women in distress sought our help in this poor community under the Cross of Christ on top of our hospital.
I am happily no expert, but here is a very brief medical/nursing background on abortion. This is not the place to get into the unpleasant details on the subject: Abortion techniques include the RU-486 pill; Suction Aspiration; Dilation & Curettage (D&C); Dilation & Evacuation (D&E); Prostaglandin Amniotic Injection; Saline Amniotic Injection; Urea Amniotic Injection; Intracardiac Fetal Poison Injection; Dilation & Extraction (D&X) - aka "Partial Birth Abortion"; Induced Labour Abortion - aka "Live Birth Abortion." Different techniques are often combined in mid and late term abortions. (1,2,3,4)
Immediate medical/nursing complications include retained "Products of Conception" (POC's); life threatening bleeding; pain; infections; uterus, bowel and bladder puncture; cervix lacerations; occasional death; the aborted baby being born alive. Future medical/nursing complications include higher rates of breast cancer; ectopic pregnancies; placenta presentation births; miscarriages; sterility; infant cerebral palsy. Future psychological/social complications include increased depression; suicide; drug abuse; alcohol abuse (Post Abortion Syndrome). (4,5,6,7)
National stats on abortion complications in America are thought to be highly under-reported due to limited regulation of the abortion industry and lack of uniform medical/nursing standards of data collection and reporting to government authorities. (7)
Many post-abortion women came to us in terrible suffering, pain and fear. I remember uncontrolled vaginal bleeds, "retained" fetal tissues, septic infections, uterine surgical emergencies, tears, sorrow and regret of many such young women, most just single teenagers. And of course, there were the social, mental and spiritual injuries post abortion - not to mention the known long term complications of body, mind and soul - that these young women were to suffer long after my brief care of them in the ER.
I have recently read of the horrors of "born alive" abortion babies, where women have abortions, but the "complication" of the baby being delivered alive arises, and how such babies are left to die. When I read of testimony of one nurse of those monstrous scandals of one particular American hospital that bears the name "Christ Hospital" (taken over by a secular, big chain health care system), I remembered that case of the dead newborn baby in the bathtub so many years ago. "Born alive" abortion babies aren't suffocated with plastic bags, but rather are just left without nourishment, warmth or care to expire of "natural causes" to complete such botched abortions. (3)
I fondly remember being present with my wife when my daughter was born some years ago. I often relive the great joy and happiness I felt when I saw our baby being born. I remember when my wife was first pregnant, we were a scared young couple on our own. We considered an abortion. We even made an appointment and walked around the block past the clinic. I never stop thanking Heaven above that we never went in to that abortion clinic for that appointment.
My teenage daughter is now the age of that young girl of the murdered newborn so many years ago. I have little fear that my daughter would ever do such a thing, as we have taught her that all human life is a precious miracle gift of Creation, that abstinence until marriage, and then marriage between one man and one woman - based on love and Faith - is the best course. But there are many young people in America today that do not know GOD’s Ways about such matters and suffer so as a result.
Sometimes, I remember that dead little baby in the bathtub many years ago and cry in my soul for the child. I sometimes light a candle for that murdered newborn baby. Once in a while, if I have a few beers, and I remember that dead little newborn baby, I shed a tear.
When I think of the 40 million plus abortions done in America, I also cry in my soul. (8) For comparison, Hitler murdered 13 million civilians; Mao 20 million; Stalin 20 million. (9) Sometimes I light a candle for all those murdered unborn babies, victims of the American holocaust genocide of abortion. Once in a while, if I have a few beers, and I think of all the terrible documented suffering of aborted babies - and of their mothers and fathers never-to-be, I shed a tear.
I have studied pictures of aborted babies on the internet. (10) I am haunted by what I not infrequently have collected from ob/gyn patients in distress - both post abortion and also from miscarriages - as an E.R. nurse, "Products of Conception." I recall various "POC’s" that testified to my own eyes the obvious truth, "This was a little human being." After having studied about the various different abortion procedures, I was left stunned as to the barbarity of it all. I have even read of the selling of aborted baby body parts, tissues, organs and cadavers and am left in shocked disbelief that our nation has stooped to such coldness beyond description. (11)
The murder of babies - born and unborn - is the surest sign of a nation's depravity, wickedness and loss of humanity. Those of us in urban emergency health care know best of this directly. Isaiah 5:20 warns, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness." Mathew 18:10 warns, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven." (12) For the blood of all such innocents so murdered, does not Heaven shed a tear?
Thomas Jefferson said, "GOD who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a convictions in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of GOD? That they can not be violated but with HIS Wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that GOD is just; that HIS justice cannot sleep forever." (13)
Understanding the connections between abortion and the devaluation of human life, and their negative medical, nursing, psychological and social impacts on women, babies and society is vital to help stop the murder of babies in America, both born and unborn.
The spiritual costs of abortion upon our land and people can not be calculated in human words. I pray, "May GOD have mercy upon us for such evils, in JESUS’ Name, Amen."
Respectfully Yours,Mr. Robert W. Baral,
RN,CEN,EMT
References:
1. "Abortion Methods Lovematters.com
2. "How Are Abortions Done?" Heritage House '76, Inc. 1998. Snowflake, AZ. www.heritagehouse76.com.
3. "Hearing on HR 4292, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2000." US House Committee of the Judiciary. July 20, 2000. www.house.gov/judiciary/stan0720.htm.
4. "Facts About Abortion." CareNet. 2001. Sterling, VA.
5. "You're Getting an Abortion - What Can Happen to You?" Heritage House '76, Inc. Snowflake, AZ.
6. "Abortion Risks Higher Than Expected - Breast Cancer, Infertility, Suicide Rates Higher, Yet Under-Reported." De Veber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research. April 22, 2002 Press Release. ww.deveber.org/press-release-eng2.html.
7. "Abortion's Physical and Emotional Risks." Concerned Women of America. www.cwfa.org/library/2000-02_pp_a-risks.shtml.
8. "Abortion Statistics by US State, Race, Age and Worldwide Statistics." Abortion TV.www.abortiontv.com/AbortionStatistics.htm.
9. "Lethal Laws! Government Genocide Campaigns..." Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. Hartford, WI.
10. "Abortion Pictures." Abortion TV.
11. Partial Birth Abortion - A Way to Obtain Intact Body Parts To Sell." Concerned Women for America. 10/20/1999. www.cwfa.org/library/life/1999-10-20_pr_pba.shtml.
12. "The Holy Bible - Authorized King James Version, The Scofield Study Bible." Oxford University Press, NY. 1945.
13. "America's GOD and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations." William J. Federer. Fame Publishing,
Margaret: A trip to Kansas and the worst mistake
By Steve Painter
The Wichita Eagle
My professional background:
*Cert EMT-Paramedic, 1981, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH
*Assoc. RN, 1991, Pemberton Community College, Pemberton, NJ
*Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN), Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Centre, Camden, NJ
*Est. 10 years hospital paramedic, including Greater Paterson General Hospital and Jersey City Medical Centre, NJ.
*Est. 1 year telemetry floor RN, Memorial Hospital of Burlington County, NJ
*Est. 9 years emergency room nurse, including Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Centre, Camden, NJ
*Recently founded non-profit business, "Be informed! Lessen Suffering! Save lives!, inc," in order to "promote the public health, safety, education and virtue" by teaching about public health and medical/nursing issues.
*Presently candidate for the Vermont State House of Representatives
Margaret: A trip to Kansas and the worst mistake
By Steve Painter
The darkest days of Margaret's life began in June 1998.
Margaret, a 30-year-old New York City woman who asked that her real name not be used, was beginning the sixth month of her first pregnancy.
Margaret's doctor told her and her husband that their unborn daughter would have cystic fibrosis. The doctor said the fetus' bowels most likely were clogged. Although the doctor never said it in so many words, they believed she was telling them their daughter would die shortly after birth.
"She kind of talked around things," Margaret said. "Basically we were given the worst-case scenario."
Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that causes the body to produce a thick, sticky mucus within its organs. The mucus can obstruct the pancreas, preventing the intestines from breaking down food.
The doctor sent them to a geneticist, who confirmed the diagnosis. The geneticist told them about the Wichita clinic operated by George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions. "I didn't even know that place existed out there. I didn't know you could have an abortion that far along in this country," she said.
Margaret, a practicing Catholic, wanted to have the baby. Her husband, a nonpracticing Protestant, did not. "He said, 'No way, we're not having a sick kid,' " Margaret said. "He was kind of acting like our baby wasn't a baby anymore."
Within days they were on their way to Wichita. Margaret felt like everyone, including the man she loved, was telling her she was wrong. She described the next week as her own personal hell.
Margaret and her husband came to Wichita at a time of political and legal uncertainty over late-term abortions in Kansas. The Legislature had just passed a law banning late-term abortions in cases of severe fetal abnormalities, but the law had not yet taken effect. The new law did allow late-term abortions to preserve the mother's mental or physical health.
On a Monday, during their first visit to the clinic, Margaret said her unborn daughter was given a "fetal euthanasia" shot to end its life. She said rods, made from a type of seaweed, were inserted to dilate her cervix. The rods slowly absorb moisture and expand, dilating the cervix over several days.
Margaret and her husband made daily visits to the clinic. Otherwise, they mostly stayed in their motel room, watching television. Margaret was in a lot of pain, physically and mentally.
On Thursday, they picked out a headstone. The fetus they regarded as their daughter would be buried in Kansas, though Margaret wanted to take her back to New York.
On Friday, they went to the clinic to complete the procedure. As they pulled into the parking lot, one of the ever-present abortion protesters ran up to the car with a rose in her hand. "She said, 'There's nothing wrong with your baby,' " Margaret recalled.
Margaret reached for the door handle. She wanted to get out of the car and go toward the anti-abortion sidewalk counselors. Her husband grabbed her hand and drove on past the line.
What followed, she said, was a long and painful procedure that she believed was a partial-birth abortion, although she can't say for sure. She felt she was verbally and physically abused by the clinic staff. But mostly, she said, she felt as if she were murdering her child.
Dena Vogler, the clinic administrator, said she couldn't comment on any individual clients' experiences.
Margaret said Tiller brought their daughter's body to them after the procedure. Her arms and legs were intact. She had a gash on her hand and a mark on her forehead. The umbilical cord was torn. When they got back to New York, Margaret and her husband almost divorced. They went through counseling. They attended a retreat, which she described as a "day of prayer and healing," through a program run by her church.
And on Jan. 21, Margaret gave birth to a daughter. During this pregnancy, she refused to allow genetic testing. Recent tests confirmed that the baby also has cystic fibrosis.
Margaret suspected that was the case even before the tests. Her daughter's skin had an excessively salty taste, one of the signs of cystic fibrosis. She said she didn't care what the test results showed.
"I think raising a baby with CF is easy compared to that hellish week we spent out there," she said.
Abortion is not a cure for anything, Margaret said. "It adds to your problems. You don't get the baby out of the way. The baby haunts you for the rest of your life."
The Death of Trust
California: Legal Abortion Death Continues to Make Headlines
Source: Sacramento Bee
Sacramento -- She was a young mother, single and carrying a second child, struggling to survive on minimum wages and welfare. He was a prominent person who had built a career out of performing abortions on women.
During an abortion at a Riverside clinic, their fates collided. Within hours Sharon Hamptlon was dead. Now Bruce Steir is fighting to stay out of prison. At the center of the case is Steir, who performed about 1,000 abortions each year, mostly at clinics in Sacramento, Chico, Santa Rosa, Redding and Oakland.
The Barstow woman, a Medi-Cal patient who worked at Burger King and was raising a young son by herself, bled to death of a perforated uterus in the back of her mother's car on the drive home from the abortion where Steir ended her pregnancy. She was 27.
A couple of hours after Hamptlon's abortion, as the abortion facility was closing, workers wheeled her to her mother's car. Doris Hamptlon said her daughter appeared groggy. When her son Curtis, then 3, asked her if she was OK, she responded in barely a whisper. "She just told him she loved him, and then she got very quiet," Doris Hamptlon recalled in an interview in her Barstow home."It was dark by then. I thought she was sleeping. But when I got her home, I couldn't wake her up." Paramedics arrived within minutes, but they were unable to revive her. Now Doris and Benny Hamptlon, who have two other children, are raising their rambunctious grandson.
First Do No Harm?
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Interactive Edition, July 31, 1996
A week before Christmas 1995, Carolina Gutierrez had an abortion at the Maber Medical Center, a storefront women's clinic in Miami's Little Havana. She returned home staggering, in severe pain. A few hours later, when she telephoned the clinic seeking help, staff members hung up on her. Later more frantic phone calls reached only an answering machine. No one called her back, and the clinic has since closed its doors. Two days later, Gutierrez was rushed by ambulance to Jackson Memorial Hospital. According to the Miami Herald, she was suffering septic shock. Her uterus was perforated in two places; a blood infection was spreading rapidly throughout her body. Gutierrez died on Feb. 5. She was just 21 years old.
An Abortion Nightmare
Source: San Francisco Examiner; February 24, 2001
San Francisco, CA -- A woman who remained pregnant following a botched abortion three years ago has been awarded $672,610 from Planned Parenthood. As the court clerk read the jury's award Wednesday, the woman, whose unborn child lost two limbs in the abortion attempt before being aborted months later, lowered her head and wept, convinced her three-year court battle was finally over.
And it is, but only for now. An attorney for Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, which oversees nine abortion facilities in the Bay Area, vowed to appeal the award. "It's definitely going to be appealed," Lynn Stocker said Thursday.
But for the time being, the case is finished. "I feel that there is justice after all," the 28-year-old woman said following the decision Wednesday. (The woman, is referred to only as "J.B." in court records.)
The three-week trial dealt only with how much J.B. was owed for her pain, not whether Planned Parenthood was liable. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Douglas Munson ordered the pro-abortion organization be held responsible for its failure to turn over critical medical documents to J.B. and her lawyer.
Stocker said she would not comment on why Planned Parenthood refused to turn over the documents, saying only that the organization felt they were "irrelevant" to the woman's case. But J.B. said the documents – which include internal Planned Parenthood procedures and her medical records -- must have contained something the pro-abortion organization didn't want her to see.
"If someone is covering up the evidence, it's obvious they have something to hide," J.B. said. "Why would you wash your hands if they weren't bloody?"
The woman, a Yugoslav immigrant, described her experience in her testimony and in the original lawsuit. In October 1997, she discovered she was pregnant and went to Planned Parenthood. But the "care" she received at the abortion facility was less than ideal, said her lawyer, Chris Dolan. The first-trimester abortion J.B. sought went awry.
Medical experts testified that J.B. was probably pregnant with twins. But the abortion she underwent in December 1997 only fully aborted one child. Though she was told the abortion was complete, J.B. said, she still felt pregnant two weeks later in a follow-up exam, and called several times for advice. Each time, she was told that her symptoms were normal.
But on Feb. 18, 1998, J.B. demanded a urine test. The same nurse who had long assured her nothing was wrong came back horrified. J.B. was still pregnant, her lawyer said.
She had been carrying the unborn child for nearly six months. The Planned Parenthood facility does not do abortions late in the second trimester, so she was given an apology, a list of places who would do abortions in the second trimester, and shooed out the door, Dolan said.
Though Planned Parenthood did relent and pay for the second abortion, J.B. was emotionally traumatized, something that would only get worse.
An ultrasound at a Buena Vista, California abortion facility revealed the remaining unborn child had only one arm and one leg. "She sees the ultrasound, and has an emotional collapse," Dolan said. "She has to go through a three-day procedure to terminate the fetus' life, something that absolutely wrecks her."
Since that abortion, Dolan said, his client has been haunted by visions of babies being killed, has contemplated suicide, and cries uncontrollably at the sight of young children -- particularly twins.
The trial began Feb. 2, and the jury returned its verdict after two days of deliberations. They awarded her $650,000 for mental anguish, $1,870 in past medical costs, $14,500 for future psychiatric expenses and $6,240 in lost earnings.
"I think deciding the economic damages were fairly easy," said Paula Brown, who served as the jury's forewoman. "But the non-economic part was more difficult. It's not really easy to put a dollar amount on someone's life." In the end, however, Brown said the jury went with Dolan's recommendation, finding it was fair.
Fair or not, the award will be reduced, due to a 1975 California law that limits non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases to $250,000. Though upheld by the courts on several occasions, the cap has never been increased. Brown, surprised by this, said the law bordered on the ridiculous. "If it's our judgment it's our judgment," she said. "The 12 people in that room fought for that verdict."
Another juror, Isobel Jones, who appeared on the edge of tears as she discussed the case, said the trial was emotionally wrenching. Jones, a corporate lawyer who is herself 28 weeks pregnant, wonders why she was picked for the case at all.
"I don't know how I did it, but I was told by the judge to be fair, and by God I did it," she said.