Abortion trainees still use various types of produce to learn how to kill

The University of Illinois Chicago's College of Nursing held an abortion training on campus in early February, utilizing various types of fresh produce to simulate abortion, according to Campus Reform.

Key Takeaways:

• This month at the University of Illinois Chicago, an abortion training utilized dragon fruit to teach individuals how to commit abortions.

• The practice of utilizing various types of fresh produce has been going on for years, and actually has a project named after it: the Papaya Workshop. It is an initiative of the Bixby Center for Reproductive Health at UCSF, which also houses the taxpayer-funded Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion.

• The University of Illinois Chicago is one of the sites listed for the Ryan Residency program.

The Details:

In late January, Campus Reform's Emma Dayton reported that the training was to be sponsored by the Reproductive Advocacy and Diversity in Advanced Nursing Training (RADIANT) Fellowship and was an "all-day training" (emphasis added):

The college’s “Abortion Care Skills Day” will be an “immersive experience” for nursing students on how to perform medicated and procedural abortions as well as a hands-on abortion training using dragon fruit to simulate a baby fetus.

Though it appears that Dayton reached out to UIC for comment on this event, the Campus Reform article has not been updated to note the receipt of a response. Dayton wrote:

The event’s webpage calls abortion “safe and effective,” citing research from the National Abortion Federation, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the World Health Organization.

Each one of these organizations — not just the National Abortion Federation — is heavily pro-abortion.

Dayton noted that the training was to be led by UIC nursing professors Kyla Liese and Pamela Pearson, specifying that Liese is "founder of the RADIANT Fellowship, [and] operates from a 'reproductive justice framework,' according to the university’s website."

What's Happening:

Below is the logo for this fellowship:

It features a dragon fruit and a papaya because these fruits are commonly used to train students on how to commit first-trimester abortions.

Why papayas?

The papaya is meant to simulate the relative size and shape of the uterus in the first trimester of pregnancy.

Live Action News has previously reported on workshops involving the use of produce to practice abortions; the website PapayaWorkshop.org describes how these fruits are selected to simulate the woman's reproductive anatomy.

The website points out, "The Papaya Workshop is a project of Innovating Education in Reproductive Health, an initiative of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, at the University of California, San Francisco," and states (emphases added):

The Papaya Workshop uses a fun and inexpensive model to innovatively teach intrauterine procedures to health students or clinicians. The papaya is an excellent uterine model that can be used to teach anatomy, bimanual examination, IUD placement, uterine aspiration for managing early pregnancy loss or early abortion, as well as relevant clinical points associated with these skills.

The workshop is easily adapted to various skill levels and settings. Alternate fruits can also be used. In low-resource settings, this inexpensive teaching tool is ideal, especially for teaching the skill of manual vacuum aspiration, an essential procedure where electricity is limited.

The University of Illinois-Chicago is listed as one of the locations offering the Ryan Residency program, which has already trained over 7,000 abortionists. Live Action Research Fellow Carole Novielli reported in a recent article that billions of taxpayer dollars are flowing to the Bixby Center, and in turn, to the Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion:

In the past 20 years, the Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion, based at the Bixby Center for Global Health at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF), reportedly trained over 7,000 OBGYNs to kill preborn children. 

The program, which often partners with abortion facilities including Planned Parenthood, trains providers in pro-life states. They currently claim to have 121 residency training programs nationwide since the program's founding in 1999; this number includes even some Catholic institutions.

UCSF's Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health offers lectures through its Innovating Education in Reproductive Health, which is described as “a digital hub that highlights innovative family planning and abortion curricula, tools, teaching techniques and research from educational leaders around the world.”

Novielli stated back in 2019 that UCSF was using papayas to teach abortions:

"... a UCSF workshop document indicates there are limitations to using the fruit to teach abortions, because (as should be obvious) “the papaya is not a perfectly realistic model of a uterus. The fruit model, while sharing many characteristics of a uterus, does not mimic some anatomical features such as the tone of the cervical os or the attachments to the uterus. This may limit teaching of anatomy and cervical dilation, for example.”...

A separate UCSF document reminds instructors to emphasize that, “[p]apaya is a fruit, not a muscle/organ,” and “is not connected to anything,” such as:a) blood supply
b) nerves
c) ligaments
d) peritoneum/broad ligament
e) fallopian tubes
f) vagina

This is significant, because, as Novielli pointed out, "papayas don't hemorrhage." And yet, Novielli's 2019 report quotes an abortionist who claimed, “It’s even more satisfying when it’s a real abortion” instead of produce.

The abortionist also said her goal was to “minimize the way we think of this as a ‘dangerous’ procedure..." and to "undo some of the seriousness and reverence we’ve placed around the procedure" by using fruit to simulate the act of killing a defenseless human being in the womb.

Why dragon fruit?

As Novielli noted, "Since papayas don’t hemorrhage, the program recommends using pitaya (dragonfruit), which is supposed to train for 'management of hemorrhage' because... it is inexpensive, mimics the size, shape, and grittiness of a uterus, and is often red on the inside (mimicking blood).”

For later abortions, get bigger fruit

Even more disturbing is the fact that, for training in later abortions, the choice of produce gets larger too, and additional foods are used to simulate — of all things — the lies and skull of a preborn child (emphases added):

UCSF’s Innovating Education program also suggests various melons to simulate later D&E abortion techniques.

The simulation document demonstrates how training abortionists involves dehumanizing preborn children, stating how “learners extract a fetal model from a hollowed melon. The fetal calvarium [skull] is simulated with a clay-covered egg and limbs are simulated with dried pasta and pepperoni sticks (to reflect various stages of bone calcification). Mushroom is used to simulate placenta. Evaluation consists of complete fetal extraction.”

Reality Check:

No fruit, pasta, or pepperoni sticks are going to truly be able to minimize the impact of ending the life of a human being.

Even veteran abortionists have at times admitted they have nightmares because of their chosen profession — like Dr. William Rashbaum, who committed more than 20,000 abortions.

However, many abortionists and abortion workers do their best to make light of what they do, because dismembering children and piecing them back together again takes a toll on the human psyche.

Planned Parenthood abortionists have, with smiles, discussed "pulling off a leg or two" to make sure their near-D&X abortions aren't illegal. A certain late-term abortionist, before his retirement, stated that he "loves" killing babies who are even in their third trimester. Another abortionist proudly claimed that patients returned to the business for repeat abortions because they "loved" their previous abortions there.

All of these individuals reveal how some sort of a detachment from reality is necessary in order to commit abortions for a living, and using fresh produce to distract from the seriousness of legalized human killing is just one more way to do it.