Abortion activists are outraged after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump exposed the horrific nature of late-term abortions during the Wednesday night debate.
Most Americans agree with Trump that aborting a late-term unborn child should be illegal. But abortion advocates are trotting out some very heartbreaking, difficult cases to try to convince the public otherwise.
One of those tragic stories is about Karen Agatone (pictured) and her unborn daughter, Evelyn. In a column for Bustle, Agatone described how she and her husband were “thrilled” to find out that they were pregnant. But their joy turned to heartbreak during their 20-week ultrasound when they learned that Evelyn had a fatal condition.
Agatone wrote:
… Our baby had a very slim chance of making it to term, and if she did, she would live for a few hours at best, suffering the entire time.
Just over a week later, my husband and I made the heartbreaking choice to spare Evelyn a short life of pain by terminating my pregnancy. The choice wasn’t easy, but we knew that it was in the best interest of our child, and to us, that was the definition of being parents. Because I was past 20 weeks of gestation, I was counseled extensively on the way to end my pregnancy which was safest and most compassionate for both myself and my daughter. My termination took place over a three-day period in a well-known and respected hospital, with a kind and compassionate medical staff which treated me, my husband, and Evelyn with dignity.
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Later, she added:
So when I heard Donald Trump say, “In the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby right out of the womb, just prior to the birth of the baby,” tears of anger and indignation ran down my cheeks. No, this is not how late-term abortion works. My baby was not ripped from my body or my womb, and the decision was certainly not made in the callous, brutal way he suggests.
… Late-term abortions are made under the most dire of medical circumstances, in a crisis situation, when a woman’s health or the health of her baby are in jeopardy.
That’s what this heartbroken mother may have been told (and heard from Hillary Clinton during the Wednesday night debate), but the facts do not back up these claims.
Back in 1993, abortion practitioner Dr. Martin Haskell, who is credited with inventing the partial-birth abortion method, admitted that most of his patients had late-term abortions for “purely elective” reasons.
He told American Medical News: “I’ll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range…. In my particular case, probably 20% are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective….”
Other abortion practitioners have made similar statements.
The non-partisan Fact Check.org also rated the claim as false. The fact checker cited a study from the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research group, as evidence that women do have late-term abortions for non-medical reasons. The study found that “[i]n many ways, women who had later abortions were similar to those who obtained first-trimester procedures.”
Agatone also was led to believe that an abortion was a compassionate, “dignified” way to protect her unborn daughter from pain; but the reality is that her daughter probably experienced a painful, brutal death when she was aborted. In an earlier account, Agatone said it was “too risky” for doctors to induce labor, a clue that she may have had a dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion.
Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, explained how a D&E abortion works:
After the amniotic fluid is removed, the abortionist uses a sopher clamp — a grasping instrument with rows of sharp “teeth” — to grasp and pull the baby’s arms and legs, tearing the limbs from the child’s body. The abortionist continues to grasp intestines, spine, heart, lungs, and any other limbs or body parts. The most difficult part of the procedure is usually finding, grasping and crushing the baby’s head. After removing pieces of the child’s skull, the abortionist uses a curette to scrape the uterus and remove the placenta and any remaining parts of the baby.
What have we become as a society when we tell grieving, heartbroken parents that the best thing they can do for their ill child is to kill him/her. When a born child is diagnosed with a fatal illness, society works hard to provide that child with the best medical care and pain relief possible until they die naturally. Why should it be any different for a baby in the womb?
