Registered nurse Brenda Pratt-Shafer worked in a late-term abortion facility for three days. Horrified by what she saw there, she quit. Now Pratt-Shafer has written a book about her experience working in the abortion industry. “What the Nurse Saw,” released in 2016, contains graphic descriptions of abortion procedures. One abortion method Pratt-Shafer describes in detail is a D&E dismemberment abortion.
Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino speaks about this type of abortion in the video below. Using illustrations, he shows how the abortionist dilates the woman’s cervix overnight with laminaria sticks, then dismembers the baby the next day:
Brenda Pratt-Shafer was pro-choice until she witnessed actual abortions. She endured the added trauma of seeing D&E abortions on ultrasound screens. She describes the first D&E she witnessed:
In this abortion, the ultrasound machine was used to scan the mother’s abdomen. This enabled the abortionist to visualize the abortion instruments and the fetus in the uterus while performing the abortion. I could see the fetus moving around and the fetal heartbeat on the screen.
The next step was to suction out the amniotic fluid with a plastic cannula. This is the same instrument used for earlier abortions. In first-trimester abortions, the suction generated by the suction machine pulls the baby through the cannula into a glass jar. The baby is often torn to pieces in the process.
After the amniotic fluid was removed, the abortionist started to dismember the baby:
Grasping forceps with rows of sharp teeth were inserted into the uterus to clamp down on the fetal parts…
Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabbed one of the fetal legs with his forceps. He clamped down hard and with a twisting and tearing motion, ripped the leg from the little body. He brought it out and threw it in the pan beside me. I stood in horror, as I looked at that little leg in the pan with perfectly formed toes! I had never seen such a small human body part.
At the time D&E abortions are performed (generally in the second trimester), the baby is fully formed. She has all her body parts and all her internal organs.
The next time he went in, he tore off an arm with hands and little fingers! I could see the fetus on the ultrasound screen trying to get away from the forceps! Then I no longer saw the heartbeat on the ultrasound screen. (The sound was purposely turned off so the mothers could not hear the heartbeat.) I remember at that time thinking of the bumper stickers that the pro-life movement had that said, “Abortion stops a beating heart.”
Pratt-Shafer witnessed the moment the baby died. Since the baby had already suffered a torn off arm and leg by the time his heart stopped beating, the child must have felt excruciating pain. The baby was still aware enough to try to get away from the abortion instruments, even when partially dismembered. It’s also notable that the life-or-death struggle on ultrasound was hidden from the mother. Had the mother known that her baby was going to be violently dismembered, she may have never consented to the abortion. The abortionist was careful to hide the truth from the woman. In fact, she may not even have known that her baby had a heartbeat.
Pratt-Shafer watched the other parts of the baby being extracted:
He continued to do this until he had all the extremities out and placed in the pan. He then snapped the fetal spine with the forceps. Reaching in again and again, he brought out the other pieces of the fetus/baby. Sometimes I could see the intestines or other internal organs as he brought them out and threw them in the pan.
The final step in the abortion was finding and crushing the baby’s head:
I watched the head floating around in the uterus. It was too big to come out for the amount of dilation that the abortionist had at that point. …I could see the jaws of the forceps open and close on the ultrasound screen as the abortionist tried to catch the bobbing head. The skull had to be compressed for the amount of dilation at this point. …. After crushing the head with the forceps, he then pulled it out and threw it in the pan with the rest of the baby parts.
After seeing several of these abortions, Pratt-Shafer observed that the fetal head could be crushed or could come out in pieces.
What Pratt-Shafer witnessed over the course of those three days in the abortion facility was brutal beyond description. Through writing her book, she hopes to teach others what goes on beyond the closed doors of abortion facilities. Because the killing of babies like this is done in secret, few people realize that these horrible murders are taking place legally in the United States every day.
Source: Brenda Pratt-Shafer, David Shafer What the Nurse Saw: Eyewitness to Abortion (Mustang, Oklahoma: Tate Publishing & Enterprise, LLC, 2016) 34-35
