Abortion workers admit infants who survive abortions are killed outside the womb

In the Stanford Law & Policy Review, two abortionists made a startling statement. Apparently, when these abortionists committed late-term abortions in the 1990s, they ensured that the child died in the womb prior to delivery in order to avoid delivering born-alive infants. Seeing an abortion survivor, they admitted, was “unsettling.”

We use urea to be certain that we effect fetal death. It is unsettling to all personnel to deliver these fetuses when they are not stillborn.(1)

To these abortionists, having a living, kicking, fully born infant alive in an abortion facility is “unsettling.” I would think so. Imagine how “unsettling” it must be for the mother. To view an unintended live birth as merely “unsettling,” however, would seem to be quite an understatement.

One wonders how many times this scenario has actually happened. We know from various statements made by abortionists during Live Action’s undercover InHuman investigation that the goal of a late-term abortion is to ensure that the child does not survive to be born alive. However, there are no guarantees:

What is Human?

Previously, I’ve written about cases where live births during abortions have occurred. Sadly, in these cases, the abortionists did not allow the babies to survive. Either they killed them directly or refused to allow them to be given lifesaving medical care.

Here are just a few examples:

• A clinic nurse named Tina David told pro-lifers she saw late-term abortionist Shelley Sella stab and kill a very late-term baby who was born alive during an abortion.  According to David:

Well, my job, like I said, my job was to hold the leg and count the parts, if it was in pieces. And this was…maybe 35 weeks. That’s pretty big….It was a big baby….[the] baby came out, and it was moving. I don’t know if it was alive or if it was nerves, I have no clue. But Dr. Sella looked up right away at me and took a utensil and stabbed it, right here, and twisted. And then it didn’t move anymore.

• Baby Rowan, whose mother witnessed him born alive and moving at an abortion facility, died after paramedics responded to a 911 call, and abortion workers made them leave. Rowan’s mother regretted choosing abortion after she saw him.  Forbidden by abortion facility workers to call for help, the mother managed to get out a phone call to her friend anyway, who summoned paramedics. But abortion workers turned the paramedics away at the door. Rowan’s mother later said: “I want to do everything in my power to see that this does not happen to other babies or mothers.”

• This article covers a number of eyewitness accounts of babies born alive after abortions, including this one, from formerly pro-choice pastor Zolton Phillips III, who helped women get abortions.  After seeing the remains of abortions and a baby born alive, he became pro-life. Philips said:

After the saline abortion, the baby was born alive. Shocked, I appealed to the nurse saying, “Hey, he’s trying to live, help him!” She replied, “I can’t because they’ve signed the papers that he’s dead.”

• Former abortionists give testimonies of babies born alive, including this one from former abortionist Dr. Paul Jarrett:

Prostaglandin has now become the drug of choice, but one of the early experiments was with hypertonic urea. The major disadvantage in using it, was the problem of live births. I remember using it on a patient that the psychiatric residents brought to us from their clinic …I’ll never forget delivering her nearly two pound baby, and hearing her screams, “My baby’s alive, my baby’s alive.” It lived several days.

• Abortionist William Baxter Waddill strangled a baby girl born alive during a failed abortion and never served a day in jail. There were witnesses, and an autopsy proved that the baby had been born alive and had bruises on her throat, consistent with strangulation. The case went to court, but resulted in two mistrials, after which a judge dismissed all charges.

These are just a few of many such accounts. The procedure used in such late-term abortions is the induction abortion, explained in the video below by former abortionist, Dr. Anthony Levatino:

3rd Trimester Induction Abortion: Injection and Stillbirth

In a video from The Center for Medical Progress, a former StemExpress “procurement technician” describes witnessing a child born alive in a Planned Parenthood abortion facility:

Human Capital - Episode 3: Planned Parenthood's Custom Abortions for Superior Product

In another video from a congressional hearing, a Planned Parenthood representative is unable to answer the simple question “What do your doctors do when a baby is born alive in a clinic?”

Dr. Savita Ginde, a Planned Parenthood abortionist in Colorado (and Vice President of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains), admitted on tape that a good number of second trimester babies at her clinic in Denver are born fully intact prior to the abortion being committed. How many of these babies are alive?

Sadly, we just don’t know how many babies are born alive in abortion facilities in the United States. There is no real incentive for abortionists and staff to report such cases, especially when the babies don’t (or are not allowed to) survive. This article gives the statistic of 900 as the number of babies who survive attempted abortion every year. However, this is a very conservative estimate.  The real number could be much higher. References like the one in the Stanford Law & Policy Review show that abortion live births are a problem abortionists acknowledge as a hazard of the abortion business.

1, R Wachbroit and D Wasserman “Patient Autonomy and Value Neutrality Nondirective Genetic Counseling” Stanford Law & Policy Review 1995; 6 (2): 103 – 11

Quoted in Angela Lanfranchi, Ian Gentles, Elizabeth Ring – Cassidy Complications: Abortions Impact on Women (Ontario, Canada: The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, 2013)