Abortion Practitioner Writes of Doing Abortions While Pregnant With Unborn Baby

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Abortion Practitioner Writes of Doing Abortions While Pregnant With Unborn Baby

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 16, 2009

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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In a post that is quickly causing jaws to drop from readers across the world, a Michigan-based abortion practitioner has written of how she does abortions at the same time she is pregnant. Lisa Harris is an abortion practitioner and a assistant professor at the University of Michigan.

In a blog post titled "Second Trimester Abortion Provision: Breaking the Silence and Changing the Discourse," Harris reveals a terrible hypocrisy that pro-life advocates are calling a "cognitive dissonance."

Harris' article originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of the journal "Reproductive Health Matters" but has gained its greatest attention as a blog post at the blog "Abortioneers."

"There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a ‘thump, thump’ in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes," Harris notes of doing an abortion while pregnant.

She calls the experience of doing an abortion on an unborn child at 18 week gestation a "brutally visceral" experience given she is 18 weeks pregnant herself.

"Abortion is different from other surgical procedures," Harris admits, calling it "violent."

"Even when the fetus has no legal status, its moral status is reasonably the subject of much disagreement. It is disingenuous to argue that removing a fetus from a uterus is no different from removing a fibroid," she says.

she explains how she was "more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts when I was done, since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus."

"I went about doing the procedure as usual," she says in the blog post. "I used electrical suction to remove the amniotic fluid, picked up my forceps and began to remove the fetus in parts, as I always did. I felt lucky that this one was already in the breech position - it would make grasping small parts (legs and arms) a little easier."

Harris sees a need to "cross borders and boundaries (including seemingly inflexible ones like ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’)" so people can "reflect seriously on the question of how providers determine their limit for abortion," but admitted that doing so "may frankly be too dangerous for pro-choice movements to acknowledge."

She says the violence of abortion must be acknowledged and also notes how she once killed an unborn child of the same age as a prematurely born baby she watched struggle to survive.

She goes further to challenge the pro-abortion movement's refusal to recognize "the violence and, frankly, the gruesomeness of abortion" and that it "contradicts an enormous part of" the experience of abortion practitioners, who see directly the destruction of human life.

"Of course, acknowledging the violence of abortion risks admitting that the stereotypes that anti-abortion forces hold of us are true - that we are butchers, etc.," she continues.

She admits seeing the destruction of human beings for what it is could have negative consequences for abortion backers.

"We might conclude at this point that a provider who feels that abortion is violent is simply ambivalent, conflicted, is not really committed to women’s abortion rights, and just shouldn't be doing this work," Harris writes. "’Pro-life’ supporters may argue that the kind of stories and sentiments I've relayed spell the end of abortion - that honest speech acts regarding the reality of abortion will weaken the pro-choice movement to the point where it cannot sustain itself any longer."

However, she says acknowledging that abortion kills children can "be the basis for a stronger movement - one that makes it easier for providers and the teams they work with to do all abortions, especially second trimester abortions."
Thomas Peters of the American papist blog noticed Harris' post and said it "goes far in revealing the sort of extreme cognitive dissonance that is necessary for someone to perform abortions."

"And yet, even in this situation, it's impossible for her to avoid her own humanity - and the humanity of the young human person she is destroying," he says.

"If anything we've ever read has convinced us we need to pray for an end to an abortion, for the conversion of those who perform them, and work with greater self-conviction in the knowledge that our cause is just and desperately-needed in this world ... this was it," he concludes.


Buzz up!