Nurse quits after witnessing abortion of a 4-pound baby girl

The essay “Products of Conception” is a first-hand account from a nurse who worked in a hospital that did abortions. It appeared in a little-known book called, “The Abortion Debate: TCU Voices,” which was released in 2012.  

Nurse Bonnie L. McClory was an obstetric technician in the Labor and Delivery unit of what she calls a “large metropolitan hospital.” She was pursuing a nursing degree and taking a class that would prepare her to work on the floor where babies were delivered. Sometimes the babies were delivered alive. Other times, the babies were delivered dead – the victims of saline abortions done at the hospital.

A saline abortion is performed by sticking a needle into the woman’s abdomen and injecting caustic saline solution into the amniotic fluid that surrounds her baby. This late-term abortion method uses the solution to poison the baby, who dies, sometimes over the course of several hours. Then labor is induced and the woman essentially “gives birth” to a dead child.

Sometimes babies were born alive after this technique. The problem of live births, as well as the risks to the mother from the saline injection, led to this method being abandoned by most abortionists in the 1990s.

Today, an induction abortion is the most prevalent procedure committed in the very late term. Dr. Anthony Levatino explains the procedure in the video below:

3rd Trimester Induction Abortion: Injection and Stillbirth

McClory describes how she was the only pro-lifer in the class:

McClory was deeply saddened by her classmates’ callous attitudes. Later, the OB techs (which she and her classmates were called) were given the task of helping with saline abortions. McClory says:

McClory struggled with her conscience as her job required her to attend more and more abortions:

She describes one horrific “delivery”:

Most of the patients were heavily sedated; they were barely aware when their dead baby was whisked away in a basin. A few, however, were awake:

McClory was given the task of handling the babies’ bodies and preparing them to be sent to the pathology lab where they would be dissected:

McClory may have hated her job, but she coped with it especially well. She continued working at the hospital and rationalized her role in the abortions. But then there was the abortion that changed everything.

Her assignment was to care for a teenager who went into labor after a saline abortion.

Babies born at four pounds today often survive with minimal or no health problems. I personally was born premature and weighed only 4 pounds, 8 ounces at birth. Slightly larger than this baby, I was one of the older preemies in the care unit, where I spent the first few months of my life.

McClory goes on with her story: When the doctor arrived, he brusquely told her to take the “specimen” to the utility room. As she carried the baby away, the doctor injected the girl with a powerful narcotic and her screams died away into sobs. The baby was too big to fit into the containers that were generally used.

Seeing this, the head nurse told McClory to get a baby shroud, and clean and dress the fetus for the morgue. McClory describes the aborted baby girl:

She adds:

Why had the girl been aborted so late? McClory soon found out:

At the end of her shift, McClory submitted her resignation. Gone were the rationalizations. She could no longer aid in performing abortions, even if she was only “cleaning up” after them.

McClory went on to raise her children and helped women facing unplanned pregnancies. As a nurse, she always refused to work in any clinic or hospital that did abortions. Her choice not to work in some facilities cost her job advancement opportunities and earned her the scorn of some of her colleagues. But she never again was involved in an abortion.

In some states, abortion is legal all the way up to the moment of birth. Planned Parenthood, which is the nation’s largest abortion chain, commits late-term abortions, and has even lobbied in favor of infanticide.

In my home state of New Jersey, for example, a woman could get an abortion as late as she wants, as long as she can find a doctor willing to perform it. Legislation before Congress, if it passes, would ban most late-term abortions, regardless of how they are done.

Source: Bonnie L McClory “Products of Conception” Charles K Bellinger, ed. The Abortion Debate: TCU Voices (Fort Worth, Texas: Churchyard Books, 2012) 12-18