The Abortion Nurse's Daughter Part 1:
When Abigail Seidman was 10 years old her mother had an abortion. Abigail suspects her father was not the baby's father, and her parents eventually divorced.
Abigail describes her childhood until that time as normal. But the abortion "radicalized" her mother, Abigail told me, who came to decide abortion had not only been the right decision for her but was also good in a moral sense.
"She began to celebrate her abortion," Abigail said, "explaining that now I would remain an only child." But young Abigail was secretly horrified, because she had always wanted a sibling.
I've read quite a few stories of women who, after their abortions, deal with their pain by encouraging as many other women to abort as possible, because each abortion somehow validates their own choice. Does anybody have any links?
Abigail was raised Episcopalian, but the abortion prompted her mother to change religions. The clinic owner where Abigail's mother worked was a Wiccan. Most of her new friends followed a Wicca-oriented New Age path and worshipped fertility, warrior and death goddesses. Abigail's mother dabbled in all the aforementioned but settled on Buddhism. She banned Bibles and discussion of Christianity from the house.
"I dutifully wore the crystal and goddess jewelry I was given and the ubiquitous Birkenstock sandals," Abigail said. "I told people at school I was a witch, although when pressed I could never articulate exactly what that was or what I did that made me one."
See:
When Abigail turned 13 her mother began pulling her from school on Fridays to work as what pro-lifers call a "deathscort" at her abortion mill, one who attempts to usher pregnant mothers past pro-life sidewalk counselors into the mill before they can hear or see anything that would cause them to change their minds.
Carol Everett likewise reports recruiting her daughter to work at her abortion facilities, and efforts to keep women from hearing or seeing anything that might dissuade them from abortion is well documented. I've observed it myself, and don't know of anybody who has been either a sidewalk counselor, picketer, or escort who doesn't agree that one of the purposes of escorts is to keep non-abortion-centered material out of the women's hands and ears and line of sight.
Abigail developed a mixed view of pro-lifers. Some were friendly and sympathetic, but some were noisy and militant.
Yup. That's been my experience.
And Abigail was greatly impacted by post-abortive mothers "coming in and out, often crying, sometimes downcast with a hostile-looking partner or parent dragging them along by the arm, sometimes lashing out in rage – but never, ever calm, confident and happy, which is what I had been told, over and over again, was in fact the case...."
Hardly news.
Abigail first smoked marijuana at the clinic owner's house at age 15. Drug use within the abortion culture is "quite common," Abigail told me, "particularly marijuana and LSD." Pot was kept at the clinic and "smoked communally after work each day."
Can anybody provide me with links? I've seen a lot of cases but my site's FUBAR so I can't search it until I get it fixed.
At age 18, Abigail went off to college and accidentally got pregnant. She and her boyfriend both opposed abortion but didn't think they were ready to raise a baby. They decided on adoption.
But Abigail's mother would hear none of that. A controlling and volatile woman, she threatened to cut off Abigail's school funding unless she aborted.
Mom browbeating daughter into abortion? Anybody wanna provide links? We can start with my babysitter and move forward from there.
She insisted that Abigail fly home and abort at her clinic, where she would gather friends to celebrate.
Not the first abortion celebration I've heard of.
They were so excited. They kept saying things to me like, 'You're part of the sisterhood now!'"
Dzintra found an article mentioning something like this when we were researching Lime 5 -- abortion abortion as a rite of passage.
The Abortion Nurse's Daughter Part 2:
I asked Abigail if the clinic aborted women who weren't pregnant. Yes, she said, adding the clinic owner often joked "anyone who wants an abortion can have one, whether she's pregnant or not!"
Abortion clinics selling abortions to women who only think they're pregnant is a slow-news-day sort of thing. Send a female reporter to an abortion facility with a male reporter's urine specimen and they'll still tell her she's pregnant and try to see her an abortion. It's the paper-mache volcano of investigative journalism.
I asked Abigail if due dates were ever adjusted. I recall the hospital where I worked admitted a mother for an abortion for fetal anomalies at 27 and sixth-sevenths weeks' gestation, according to her last menstrual period (LMP). But the attending physician charted that according to ultrasound she was only 23 weeks along, coincidentally the upper age limit allowed for abortions. The baby was born (alive) weighing two-and-a-half pounds, clearly as old as the LMP indicated.
Abigail witnessed similar scenarios. Since her clinic was only allowed to abort up to 16 weeks, due dates were either dialed down with the help of the mother, encouraged to "re-imagine" the date of her LMP. Or dates were manipulated by staff, who told the mother LMP dating was unreliable because women can skip periods or have spotting they don't realize is a period.
I've seen LOTS of that. Like when Abu Hayat told Rosa Rodrigues that she was 12 weeks pregnant when she was actually 32 weeks. I have scads of examples.
What did staff think of aborting mothers? "They called them 'stupid sluts' if it wasn't their first abortion, or 'brood mares' if they chose life and left before aborting," wrote Abigail.
Though I don't think this is unique to abortion. Darcy Miller Elks tells of visiting an institution for the mentally ill and hearing one group of patients referred to as SHPOSs. Which stood for Sub Human Piece Of Shit.
There was one particular scandal Abigail recalled of a clinic worker who accidentally got pregnant but decided against abortion.
"There was first the ideological issue," Abby explained. "The accepted belief was that all unplanned pregnancies were 'unwanted' by default and should be aborted. So the clinic owner insisted the philosophically correct thing to do was abort the 'unwanted' baby and then get pregnant again intentionally to have a 'planned, wanted' baby."
That reminds me of an instance described in an edition of Our Bodies and Our Selves: a woman who wanted to carry an unplanned baby to term was talked out of it by her "friends" on the grounds that doing what she wanted to do after the fact was diminishing the power of will. Only intended pregnancies, they asserted, should ever be carried to term. If an unintended pregnancy leads you to decide motherhood appeals to you after all, you must abort the unplanned on and then get pregnant on purpose.
At any rate, read the original columns for yourself. These are just my quick reflections.
2 comments:
Excellent commentary, Christina.
Excellent indeed, Christina! You've saved me an awful lot of trouble doing the web research and providing the links to assert that I'm not the only one who has ever exposed these aspects of abortion-centric feminism (not that those who are highly invested in that culture will believe us!). It hadn't actually occurred to me before now, but you're right regarding Our Bodies, Ourselves - I believe the "updated for the 90s" copy that I received as a 14th birthday present had left it out, but an earlier copy I found in a feminist-oriented used bookstore did have the 'abort the unplanned and then reimpregnate with a planned' concept clearly outlined. I merely overheard it during dinner-party conversation.
Thank you again for not only re-blogging Jill's articles about me, but for doing homework on the assertions and managing to easily back each one of them up. :)
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