Blood
Brothers
Why the leading practitioners of late
abortion wrote checks to Kerry!
by Douglas Johnson |
The Weekly Standard
10/11/2004 issue, Volume 010, Issue 05
MARTIN HASKELL, George Tiller, and Warren Hern have several things in
common. All three are abortionists who specialize in late abortions.
Haskell's name is closely linked with the partial-birth abortion method.
Tiller and Hern may be the only two abortionists in the United States who
openly advertise their willingness to perform third-trimester abortions.
Finally, all three men have opened their
checkbooks to support Senator John Kerry's bid to be president of the United
States. Their contributions to Kerry's campaign total $7,000.
That is not a vast sum compared with the
millions being spent by liberal groups to attack President Bush. (Federal
law limits a contributor to maximum total donations of $4,000 to a single
presidential candidate, split between two types of campaign accounts.)
Nevertheless, these contributions are worth scrutinizing because of what
they reveal about John Kerry.
Although Haskell, Tiller, and Hern have been
controversial figures for many years in national debates about late
abortions (as anybody can ascertain by entering their names into Google),
the Kerry campaign apparently readily accepted the contributions--money that
might very well have originated in fees charged to perform partial-birth
abortions or other late abortions.
But why would such men send their hard-earned
dollars to Kerry? After all, Kerry told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday,
on January 25, 2004, "I'm against partial-birth abortion, as are many
people." And Kerry told the Dubuque Telegraph Herald in July, 2004,
"I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does
begin at conception."
My bet is that the abortionists know that
during his 20 years in the Senate, Kerry has been an absolutely consistent
defender of abortion. So why should they be bothered by statements intended
only to mislead voters who are strongly opposed to the grisly business that
these men are in--voters who are still unfamiliar with Kerry's actual
record?
Most likely, these abortionists are quite aware
that Kerry has promised to nominate only Supreme Court justices who share
his real position on abortion policy--which would guarantee that
partial-birth abortions and other late abortions, and of course earlier
abortions, would remain almost entirely shielded from scrutiny or
restriction by elected lawmakers for the foreseeable future.
DR. MARTIN HASKELL wrote the Kerry for
President campaign a check for $2,000, recorded June 30, 2004. Haskell,
based in Ohio, owns three abortion clinics, all called Women's Med Center
(http://www.womensmedcenter.com). In 1992 Haskell published a paper
describing how to perform what he called "dilation and extraction."
Circulation of this paper led to introduction of the Partial-Birth Abortion
Ban Act by congressman Charles Canady, a Florida Republican, in 1995.
Brenda Pratt Shafer, a nurse who worked briefly
at one of Haskell's clinics, witnessed close up the partial-birth abortion
of a baby boy who she said was at 26 and a half weeks.
"I stood at the doctor's side and watched him
perform a partial-birth abortion on a woman who was six months pregnant,"
Shafer related. "The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound
screen. The doctor delivered the baby's body and arms, everything but his
little head. The baby's body was moving. His little fingers were clasping
together. He was kicking his feet.
"The doctor took a pair of scissors and
inserted them into the back of the baby's head, and the baby's arms jerked
out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he
might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the
high-powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby's brains out.
Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But I am
still haunted by the face of that little boy. It was the most perfect,
angelic face I have ever seen."
Haskell wrote that he used this method on
all of his clients from 20 through 24 weeks, unless they had
certain health problems, and on "selected" clients through 26 weeks. He told
American Medical News that 80 percent of his late abortions were
"purely elective." The head of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers
admitted to the New York Times in 1997 that the method is used
thousands of times annually, and that "in the vast majority of cases, the
procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20
weeks or more along."
It seems that none of that really bothers John
Kerry, who has voted for unsuccessful amendments to allow partial-birth
abortions without any restriction whatever during the entire period of
pregnancy that Haskell acknowledges performing them, and to allow
abortions for "health" reasons (the term includes emotional "health") even
later than that. After those killer amendments were rejected, Kerry voted
every time (six times) against passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
Act.
Haskell and Kerry both have a knack for
compartmentalization. In 1993, Cincinnati Medicine asked Haskell,
"Does it bother you that a second trimester fetus so closely resembles a
baby?" Haskell replied, "I really don't think about it. . . . Many of our
patients have ethical dilemmas about abortion. I don't feel it's my role as
a physician to tell her she should not have an abortion because of her
ethical feelings. . . . I'm not to tell them what's right or wrong."
Kerry explained in 1972: "On abortion, I
myself, by belief and upbringing, am opposed to abortion, but as a
legislator, as one who is called on to pass a law, I would find it very
difficult to legislate on something God himself has not seen fit to make
clear to all the people on this earth."
DR. GEORGE TILLER runs an abortion facility in
Wichita, Kansas. He sent the Kerry campaign a contribution of $1,000,
recorded March 17, 2004.
A full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks (counted from
the end of the last menstrual period). Tiller performs abortions on request
through 26 weeks, or near the end of the sixth month. He uses various
methods, but often favors killing the fetus by injecting digoxin into his or
her chest to stop the heart, followed by induction of labor and/or manual
removal of the dead baby.
Tiller's clinic website (www.drtiller.com/mainpg.html)
explains, "We are able to perform elective abortions to the time in the
pregnancy when the fetus is viable. Viability is not a set point in time."
When most doctors use the term "viability,"
they mean the point at which a premature infant can survive outside the
mother with modern neonatal medical support, which is generally about 23 or
24 weeks, or about 5 and a half months.
But Tiller operates on a different definition,
which he calls "survivalhood."
A spokeswoman for Tiller explained, "Our
philosophy basically is that, prior to 26 weeks, without massive neonatal
intensive care, you do not have survivalhood." Tiller himself has said,
"Through the end of the second trimester, when natural survival-hood
does not exist, women have the right to continue a pregnancy or end that
pregnancy" (italics added).
So, although with proper neonatal care over
two-thirds of babies born prematurely at 26 weeks now survive long-term,
they are still eligible for purely elective abortion under Tiller's
"survivalhood" doctrine.
What about abortions after 26 weeks? In
a 1995 speech, Tiller spoke of performing abortions as late as 36weeks.
It is not entirely clear what Tiller's criteria
are for abortions after the 26th week. In 1992, the New York Times
ran an article about Tiller, Hern, and the late James McMahon. (McMahon, who
died in 1995, developed the partial-birth abortion method.) The paper
reported: "All three say they are uncomfortable doing late abortions unless
the fetus is abnormal or the woman's physical or mental health is
endangered. But they make their decisions case by case and come down firmly
on the side of the woman's right to decide whether she wants to continue her
pregnancy. They say they do not have specific guidelines on what
circumstances justify an abortion or when it is too late to perform one. The
woman, not the fetus, is their patient, they say."
Tiller's website is less explicit. It says,
"Kansas law allows for post-viability abortion procedures when continuing
the pregnancy is detrimental to the pregnant woman's health. Each person's
circumstances are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Please call so that we
can discuss admission criteria with you."
A lot of callers apparently meet the criteria,
as the website asserts that Tiller's clinic has "more experience in late
abortion services over 24 weeks than anyone else currently practicing in the
Western Hemisphere, Europe and Australia." Tiller himself wrote in 2003, "I
am the outpatient abortion provider of the last resort in the United States,
the Western Hemisphere and Australia."
Does Kerry wish to protect what Tiller does?
Not if you believe what he told Peter Jennings of ABC in an interview
broadcast July 22: "What the Supreme Court has established is a test of
viability as to whether or not you're permitted to terminate a pregnancy,
and I support that. That is my test."
In reality, however, Kerry has voted for
unsuccessful measures to require that abortion be available even in the
final three months of pregnancy for "health" reasons, which include
emotional "health." Beyond that, it seems that Kerry would leave the
definition of viability entirely in the hands of each abortionist. He
cosponsored the Freedom of Choice Act in the early 1990s. This bill would
have forbidden states to place restrictions on abortion until after
"viability," with "viability" defined by the abortionist.
In short, Kerry has consistently supported
enactment of federal statutes that would protect everything that Tiller
does. But Tiller won't need the shield of such statutes if Kerry gets to
pick Supreme Court justices.
WARREN HERN, between September 15, 2003, and
June 25, 2004, made three contributions totaling $4,000 to two Kerry
accounts, the maximum permitted by law.
Hern is the owner and director of the Boulder
Abortion Clinic. Hern has developed refinements of various abortion methods,
including the dismemberment procedures called "dilation and evacuation." In
an early paper on such D&Es, he wrote, "There is no possibility of denial of
an act of destruction by the operator. It is before one's eyes. The
sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric
current."
According to the clinic's website (www.drhern.com),
it offers "outpatient elective abortion through 26 weeks." (Again, more than
two-thirds of infants born at 26 weeks now survive long-term.)
Hern also offers abortions "up to 36
weeks"--that is, the end of the eighth month--when "medically indicated."
Such very late abortions are often performed because of "fetal anomalies,"
but in a 1992 letter, Hern listed rape, incest, and "extreme youth" of the
mother as examples of reasons for performing abortions "up to 34 menstrual
weeks' gestation."
How compatible are John Kerry's views with
those of Warren Hern? Kerry told ABC in July, "Let me tell you very clearly
that being pro-choice is not pro-abortion . . . and I think we need to
adhere to the standard that Bill Clinton, in fact, so adeptly framed, that
abortion should be rare, but legal and safe."
Well, the term "pro-abortion" can surely be
aptly applied to Hern, who wrote that pregnancy should be regarded not as a
normal state but as an illness which "may be treated by evacuation of the
uterus." Elsewhere he wrote that pregnancy is most appropriately compared to
infestation by a parasite. He is a strong proponent of population control,
who has written that population growth has made the human race itself an
"ecotumor" or "planetary malignancy."
It wouldn't make much sense to say that an
effective anti-parasite or anti-cancer treatment should be used only
"rarely," so it might seem that Kerry and Hern have divergent views on this
point.
But here too, Kerry's record says otherwise.
Despite Kerry's adoption of Clinton's "adeptly framed" verbal formula that
abortion should be "rare," Kerry has consistently voted in favor of making
abortion an integral part of U.S.-funded population control programs.
Indeed, Kerry has pledged that if elected president, he would use his very
first executive order to overturn President Bush's policy of not funding
private organizations that promote abortion in foreign nations.
"Abortions need to be moved out of the fringes
of medicine and into the mainstream of medical practice," Kerry explained in
1994.
Early this year, Kate Michelman, the longtime
president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, told the New
York Times, "Even on the most difficult issues, we've never had to worry
about John Kerry's position."
Like Kate Michelman, Doctors Haskell, Tiller,
and Hern know their man.
Douglas Johnson is legislative director for the
National Right to Life Committee. Mary Kay Culp,
executive director of Kansans for Life, contributed essential research and
documentation regarding Dr. George Tiller.
Correction appended, 10/5/04: "Blood Brothers"
quoted Sen. John Kerry as telling Peter Jennings of ABC News in July, "I
oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does
begin at conception." Kerry actually made that statement weeks earlier to
the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. Jennings asked Kerry to explain the
statement.
© Copyright 2005, News
Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
“Before I formed
thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the
womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”
—Jeremiah 1:5
Blood Brothers
“Thou shalt not kill.”
―Exodus 20:13
Please take a look at this
YouTube video. It will
remind you that every human life is precious and
that we can see this truth most clearly through the
face of a helpless, innocent baby who can do nothing
for us but allow us the opportunity to give
ourselves to him in love. It teaches that joy comes
through giving oneself to another for their own sake
and that authentic joy can be experienced in the
midst of difficulties and even amidst tremendous
sorrow. Mostly, it will reveal the heroic courage
and life affirming witness that is possible for
those yielded to and animated by the life of the
Holy Spirit. Take a look but make sure you have your
Kleenex ready.
PRO-CHOICE: The gas oven or an abortionist's garbage dumpster?
The Silent American Holocaust:
Abortion!
Aborted Fetus Material is Being Put into Vaccines!
The American Holocaust:
Abortion
Defund Planned Parenthood
The Truth Why Women Have
Abortions
If
you ask people why they do the things they do in life, they will
give you sensible sounding reasons which seem to explain their
decisions. We like to believe that we exercise sound judgment,
especially in the important decisions of our lives.
I think that this is rarely true. I think that standard operating
procedure for human decision making is to do what feels right to you
at the time, and then to give logical sounding justifications for
what you were already going to do anyway, whether you had
justifications or not.
So, if you are pregnant, and want to get an abortion, you will be
able to give any number of reasonable sounding explanations why this
is the right decision. You're not ready to be a parent, or you need
to finish your education or get to a better point in your career, or
you don't have enough money, etc.
If instead you want to keep
the baby, you will explain how even though you will have some extra
difficulties due to the lack of money or whatever, you will
certainly be up to the challenge to make your life work with the
baby, how being a parent will be good for you, what a great parent
you'll make, how it will bring you and the father closer together,
and so on. In either case, none of these will be the real reason for
your decision. The real reason for your decision will always be, "I
did it because I wanted to do it."
"And I will punish the
world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will
cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the
haughtiness of the terrible." —Isaiah 13:11
“To educate our
Hispanic community regarding the life issues, especially the hate
crime they have been subjected to by the abortion industry and
promoters of abortion.”
Mission statement—
http://www.hispanicsforlife.org
There is
hope!
Christian Adoption Services
RU-486 Abortion Pill Manufactured by Same Company as
Nazi Zyklon-B Gas
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
There is none!
Before I formed thee... I knew thee!
The
Horror
of Abortion!
If God could hear the voice of Abel's
blood crying out to Him from the ground (Genesis 4:10), do you suppose
God has missed the cries of those 54,000,000 infants who've been
butchered in America since 1973?
“...speaking
the truth in love...”
—Ephesians 4:15
“Ye
that love the LORD, hate evil...” —Psalm
97:10
Ye Must Be Born Again! |
You Need HIS Righteousness! |
Believe The Gospel
