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Saturday, November 11, 2006

The three-day conversion

With the Procedure Formerly Known as Prince back in the hands of SCOTUS, Birth Story brings back the testimony of Brenda Pratt Schafer, who had been a staunch prochoicer until three days of working in an abortion clinic turned her around. The following is from the transcript:
I am a registered nurse.... In 1993, I was employed by Kimberly Quality Care, a nursing agency in Dayton, Ohio. In September, 1993, Kimberly Quality Care asked me to accept assignment at the Women's Medical Center, which is operated by Dr. Martin Haskell. I readily accepted the assignment because I was at that time very pro-choice. I had even told my teenager daughters that if one of them ever got pregnant at a young age, I would make them get an abortion. ....

So, because of the strong pro-choice views that I held at that time, I thought this assignment would be no problem for me.

But I was wrong. I stood at a doctor's side as he performed the partial-birth abortion procedure -- and what I saw is branded forever on my mind.

I worked as an assistant nurse at Dr. Haskell's clinic for three days -- September 28, 29 and 30, 1993.

On the first day, we assisted in some first-trimester abortions, which is all I'd expected to be involved in. (I remember that one of the patients was a 15-year-old girl who was having her third abortion.)

....

Also on the first two days, we inserted laminaria to dilate the cervixes of women who were being prepared for the partial-birth abortions -- those who were past the 20 weeks point, or 4 1/2 months. .... There were six or seven of these women.

On the third day, Dr. Haskell asked me to observe as he performed several of the procedures that are the subject of this hearing. ....

I was present for three of these partial-birth procedures. It is the first one that I will describe to you in detail.

The mother was six months pregnant (26 1/2weeks). A doctor told her that the baby had Down syndrome and she decided to have an abortion. She came in the first two days to have the laminaria inserted and changed, and she cried the whole time. On the third day she came in to receive the partial-birth procedure.

Dr. Haskell brought the ultrasound in and hooked it up so that he could see the baby. On the ultrasound screen, I could see the heart beating. ....

Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the 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, and 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 that 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.

I was really completely unprepared for what I was seeing. I almost threw up as I watched the doctor do these things.

....

I have been a nurse for a long time and I have seen a lot of death-- people maimed in auto accidents, gunshot wounds, you name it. I have seen surgical procedures of every sort. But in all my professional years, I had never witnessed anything like this.

The woman wanted to see her baby, so they cleaned up the baby and put it in a blanket and handed the baby to her. She cried the whole time, and she kept saying, 'I'm so sorry, please forgive me!' I was crying too. I couldn't take it. That baby boy had the most perfect angelic face I have ever seen.

I was present in the room during two more such procedures that day, but I was really in shock. I tried to pretend that I was somewhere else, to not think about what was happening. I just couldn't wait to get out of there. After I left that day, I never went back. These last two procedures, by the way, involved healthy mothers with healthy babies.

I was very much affected by what I had seen. For a long time, sometimes still, I had nightmares about what I saw in that clinic that day.

That was the experience. Now we get into the politics:
Mr. Chairman, since I wrote that letter to Congressman Tony Hall, I have been subjected to some strange attacks on my credibility, and I would like to address these briefly.

Last July 12, I sat in the audience as the full Judiciary Committee debated this legislation, and I heard Congresswoman Schroeder read a letter from Dr. Haskell to the Judiciary Committee (also dated July 12) in which he said, "I have examined our records and found no evidence of a Brenda Shafer working for us during 1993."

Fortunately, I had previously provided the Constitution Subcommittee with the pertinent payroll records from Kimberly Quality Care, including their invoice to Dr. Haskell's clinic. After these documents were circulated, Congresswoman Schroeder withdrew that particular allegation, explaining it away as resulting from confusion over my married name. But it seemed peculiar to me at the time that neither she nor her staff had contacted me, or the subcommittee staff, to request documentation, before she basically called me a liar in front of everybody. But there was much more of that sort of thing to come.

In his July 12 letter, Dr. Haskell said also said that my account was "inaccurate," because "she describes procedures at 26 1/2 weeks and 25 weeks... This is contrary to my own self-imposed and established limit of 24 weeks." But .... in Dr. Haskell's 1992 paper describing the partial-birth procedure, "Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion," which you have all seen, he wrote, "This author routinely performs this procedure on all patients 20 through 24 weeks LMP [i.e., from last menstrual period] with certain exceptions. The author performs the procedure on selected patients 25 through 26 weeks LMP." Keep in mind that this 26 1/2 week little boy had Down syndrome, so this was a "selected patients" case.

....

Most recently, I got a copy of a letter sent to a constituent by Congresswoman Lynn Rivers of Michigan, written in longhand, in which this distinguished member of Congress claimed that I "was unwilling to testify under oath or submit herself to crossexamination in front of Congress- even though she was sitting in the hearing room while testimony was being taken."

Of course, Mr. Chairman, that is all pure fiction. By the time I heard of your bill and wrote my letter to Congressman Hall, on July 9, you had already concluded the hearing on your legislation. I was present for the July 12 markup, and spoke with various members of the committee and the press informally, but of course there was no opportunity for me to formally testify on that occasion, although I certainly would have welcomed the opportunity.

In November, when Senator Hatch invited me to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I accepted immediately and without qualification. During the question period, Senator Kyl asked me if I would be willing to testify to these things under oath and I replied, "Yes, sir, I would. Or under a lie detector or anything else I need to do." [Senate hearing record, p. 63] And I tell you the same thing.

....

It is still amazing to me that certain individuals who hold high elective offices ... have been so willing to publicly spread this kind of blatant misinformation about me, without making the slightest effort to investigate or look at any of the documentation.

Mr. Chairman, these people who say I didn't see what I saw-- I wish they were right. I wish I hadn't seen it. But I did see it, and I will never be able to forget it. That baby boy was only inches, seconds away from being entirely born, when he was killed. What I saw done to that little boy, and to those other babies, should not be allowed in this country.

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