“There is no dismemberment in an abortion. Ever.”
[This article is a transcript of “There is no dismemberment in an abortion. Ever.” courtesy of volunteer Ben Tomlin. If you’re interested in volunteering to transcribe more of our content, please complete our volunteer survey.]
Editor’s note: Some portions of this transcript have been lightly edited for clarity and readability. This video is also available on TikTok.
Okay, this is an article from UpToDate. UpToDate is a database that physicians all through the United States use to get current clinical information. This one is called “Second Trimester Pregnancy Termination: Dilation and Evacuation.” It goes into great detail about exactly what the procedure entails from the perspective of the medical provider, not the patient. If you scroll down several pages, there’s a section called “Assessment for Retained Products of Conception.” It says:
“At the end of the procedure, the surgeon should inventory evacuated contents and account for the major fetal parts: calvaria (that’s the head), thorax (that’s the chest), pelvis, and four extremities (being the arms and legs).”
They need to inventory them because all of those parts are not in one place because the fetus’s body is no longer intact because the fetus has been dismembered.
You can see discussions of abortion providers talking about this exact thing. This is the paper “Second Trimester Abortion Provision: Breaking the Silence and Changing the Discourse” by Lisa Harris. The whole point of the paper is that she feels that there’s very little discussion or understanding of how it can be really difficult for abortion providers to do abortions after the first trimester because of the emotional effects it has on them. It used to be that second-trimester procedures were just induction and early delivery before the fetus could survive, but in the last multiple decades, the most common procedure is dilation and evacuation, what we just described.
Other research before Harris about abortion provider perspectives on this talked about how it is “‘qualitatively a different procedure, both medically and emotionally, than early abortion.’ Many staff members reported ‘serious emotional reactions that produced physiological symptoms, sleep disturbances (including disturbing dreams), effects on interpersonal relationships, and moral anguish.'” One of the providers talks about how seeing an arm being pulled through the vaginal canal was shocking. The color left their face. It was a visceral shock. They said, “The reality is this cannot be called ’tissue.’ it was not something I could be comfortable with. From that moment, I chose to limit my abortion practice to the first trimester.”
Harris herself talks about the very bizarre experience of being 18 weeks pregnant while she performed an abortion on someone who was 18 weeks pregnant. She talks about how she realized she was more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts because she knew they’d be similar to her own child. Quoting Harris:
“I picked up my forceps and began to remove the fetus in parts as I always did. I felt lucky that this one was already in the breach position – it would make grasping small parts (legs and arms) a little easier. With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the legs.”
There’s a lot more to the story than this, and you can pause to read it here, but either way, clearly dismemberment is involved.
Now, this is the part in the conversation where some pro-choice people will switch from saying “that never happens” to “well, that’s really rare.” In this case, they’ll say, “only 7% of abortions happen in the second trimester or beyond.” So first, note that this is completely changing the argument. You’re going from “it never ever happens” to “okay, it does, but it’s really rare.” Pause. Why did you say it never happens when it does? Did you really believe it never happens? Does it make you pause at all to wonder if you know what you’re talking about?
But also, what do you mean by “rare”? Because, very roughly, ballpark estimation, there are over 900,000 abortions in the United States a year, so if 7% of them happen in the second trimester or later, that’s over 60,000 times a year, so you’re going from saying “it never happens” to “it only happens like 60,000 times a year.”
If you are okay with that, okay. But to the extent that your pro-choice position is based on false comforting fictions, like the idea that nobody’s ever dismembered, please reconsider.
If you appreciate our work and would like to help, one of the most effective ways to do so is to become a monthly donor. You can also give a one-time donation here or volunteer with us here.
