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Brenda Pratt Shafer, a registered nurse from Dayton, Ohio, assisted Dr. Haskell in a Partial Birth Abortion on a 26-1/2 week (over 6 months) pre-born baby boy. She testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee (on 11/17/95) about what she witnessed.

According to nurse Shafer, the baby was alive and moving as the abortionist “delivered the baby’s body and arms – everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby’s head just inside the uterus. The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby was completely limp.”

With forceps, the doctor turns the baby around in the womb to be positioned feet first. The baby’s legs are pulled out into the birth canal. The baby is alive at this point.

The abortionist delivers the baby’s entire body, except for the head, which remains inside the birth canal. The baby’s hands and feet move.

The abortionist stabs the scissors into the base of the baby’s skull. The scissors are spread to enlarge the opening. The suction catheter is then inserted and the brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The head slides out easily.

Are the babies alive during the abortion?

Yes! On July 11, 1995, American Medical News (AMA’s official journal) submitted the transcript of a tape-recorded interview with abortionist Dr. Martin Haskell to the House Judiciary Committee in which he admitted:

…the majority of fetuses aborted this way (partial birth abortion) are alive until the end of the procedure.

Is this type of abortion rare?

Before the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, back when this type of procedure first became public knowledge, those defending it said it was only done a few hundred times a year. Then Ron Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers admitted on ABC’s “Nightline” (11/95) that he had lied when he asserted the procedure was used rarely and only on women whose lives were in danger. The reality is, this gruesome method of killing partially born babies was done many thousands of times a year. Abortionist, Dr. McMahon, admitted in 1995 to performing over 2,000 partial birth abortions.

Are they only performed on severely deformed babies?

That is what the abortion industry would like you to believe. But Dr. Haskell said in a tape recorded interview with the AMA’s American Medical News:

…and I’ll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective (not medically necessary) in that 20-24 week range … In my particular case, probably 20% are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective.

An article in the L.A. Times (8/28/96) listed some of the medical reasons for this type of abortion. They included cleft palates, cystic hygroma, (both easily corrected problems) and cystic fibrosis. The medical conditions present in the mother that warranted this type of abortion were, “depression, chicken pox, diabetes, vomiting …” In other words, even those partial birth abortions that are done for the “health of the mother” or because of a “defective fetus” are often performed for minor, easily correctable conditions.

Dr. C. Everett Coop, former U.S. Surgeon General, stated:

… in no way can I twist my mind to see that the late-term abortion as described is a medical necessity for the mother. It certainly can’t be a necessity for the baby.

Is this type of abortion ever done on third trimester babies?

Yes. While most babies are in their 20th to 24th week when aborted in this manner, babies are aborted as late as the ninth month! This was admitted to by abortionist Dr. McMahon who, in 1995, submitted to the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee a graph and explanation that showed he aborted healthy babies even in the third trimester!

As disturbing as this sounds, these are the facts. In this country medical doctors were partially delivering babies and then killing them.

These babies are inches from being born. Many could be born and placed directly in the loving arms of childless couples for adoption. Instead, they are cruelly killed.

Some call this abortion. No matter what you call it, you cannot alter the reality – 4 more inches out of the womb and this act would be called murder.

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