January 21, 2014

"Miniature body parts": No Fire Escapes In Hell

Samyukta Mullangi: "I should tell my readers right off the bat that I am pro-choice, and that I believe strongly in female autonomy and control over her own body.

But I’ll be the first to agree that it’s difficult to argue with those who believe that life begins at conception, for even if those fused cells represent potential and nothing more, potential is all-important, all we often ever have. When I stood in my sterile gown, watching the resident dilate the cervix and then introduce a little plastic tube through the opening to suction to the contents of the uterus out, I was a little on edge. And when we then took the jar of liquid and tissue to the sink and rinsed it out with a sieve, to count the little dismembered fetal parts with a forceps, I have to admit that I was shaken. Here was a little arm. And here was a little thigh. And here we were, putting them together like little puzzle pieces to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind. Never in my life did I think I would bear witness to this. I put a finger to my own pulse.
Just a few nights prior, I had been part of a long argument with friends at a local bar about this very subject. “If you don’t like it, don’t perform abortions! Don’t get one yourself!” I had said, impassioned. “But quit judging something that you will never know yourself.”
"I spoke as if I was in the know, and the others weren’t. But now, standing in the clinic, I had to confront myself with the fact that I really had had no idea what I’d been talking about either. Before this day, I too had not a clue about what a termination really entailed. And I never thought I’d ever find myself looking at a sieve full of miniature body parts. - - Samyukta Mullangi, The First Pass Effect, Scientific American

Posted by gerardvanderleun at January 21, 2014 8:27 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Tough stuff, Gerard. Thanks for taking it on and dealing with it - as you deal with so many matters - so well.

Posted by: Everyman at January 21, 2014 10:20 AM

A "trimester".

Three months.

Short of risk to the mother's life (or some major defect in the fetus, both in my opinion certainly justifiable for aborting the fetus), I don't think there's much of an excuse to not have a decision made within three months.

Do I or do I not want this child?

By the second trimester, there's usually very little doubt that you have a living human being inside of you.

By the third, we're talking horrible murder, no doubt about it.

Good God, it is soul shattering.

Posted by: Uncle Jefe at January 21, 2014 1:14 PM

Wait! You mean it actually is a human being! But I thought it was just non-living non-human "tissue".

Posted by: GoneWithTheWind at January 21, 2014 3:50 PM

The reason why you never read, see or hear about those little arms and little legs is because they evoke exactly the emotional response all five of the people who read this post are having right now.

Posted by: Glenn at January 21, 2014 7:26 PM

The reason why you never read, see or hear about those little arms and little legs is because they evoke exactly the emotional response all five of the people who read this post are having right now.

Posted by: Glenn at January 21, 2014 7:26 PM

The sheer numbers of abortions signals catastrophic failure among human beings. Epic, catastrophic failure, in relations between women and men, in understanding sexuality, in being responsible for actions and their own lives. Failure. That's the only thing that comes to my mind when I hear the word abortion.

And people are really okay with it!! Breathtaking!

Posted by: Kerry at January 21, 2014 8:42 PM

Is there a creature alive more selfish and arrogant, more attuned to nothing but the desires of it's own heart, more painted with conceit and entitlement than a modern American women?

"Keep your hands off my body!" they screech, when it is NOT their body in question but those growing innocently in protective enclosure of their wombs that deserves protection. Protection against murder by their own mothers.

"If you don't like abortion, don't get one!" is the famous sneer aimed a men-men-men and our innate yearning to thwart Barbie in her quest for eternal hot youth and her quota of cyootshoos. Because, uh, war on women. Or something.

"If you don't want a baby, don't have baby-making sex" say level-headed people grounded in principles that were forged from eons of experience instead of sprouting from minutes of television. "It's not that simple" leaps from the maw of the 9 year-old in a 30-something body. The common sense "Yes it is" clangs off those ears without penetrating to the brain. Our Bodies Our Selves. Every thing and every one else can kiss her ass. That'll show 'em.

Posted by: Dan Patterson at January 22, 2014 3:27 AM

Glenn, I remember seeing those pictures when I was in sixth grade. Raised Catholic, my Mother and many other women were picketing in front of our local community hospital, and some folks had an image of an abortion on their picket signs. Little arms and legs amidst what looked like bloody ground beef and assorted internal parts. I was old enough to judge by myself that abortion was horribly wrong. It wasn't propaganda that swayed me; it was reality.
It is reality.
The left likes to hide from it (reality in many forms, in fact), tries to justify it by saying that a fetus is not viable until it's outside the womb and breathing on it's own. (But there are many Kermit Gosnells who don't even care at that point either.)
The left can lie to themselves.
That's why it's so easy for the left to lie to the rest of us, all of the time about everything.

Posted by: Uncle Jefe at January 22, 2014 9:25 AM

This is how we win the abortion debate, with honest stories by women who were mistaken about the stakes of the game. They may not admit they were mistaken, but they are speaking honestly about their experience and they are unsure. We just need the above passage to be at the end of the story instead of at the beginning.

Posted by: marcus at January 22, 2014 9:43 PM