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'Dilatation and Extraction'
By Fr. Frank Pavone
HERALD Columnist
I will never forget the day when I came across Dr. Martin Haskell’s medical paper "Dilatation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion," presented at the National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar, Sept. 13, 1992. It describes what has come to be known as "partial-birth abortion."
"The surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into his hole and evacuates the skull contents."
Prior to the days when partial-birth abortion
was in the news or debated in the halls of Congress, I began taking this
paper to parishes across the country and speaking and preaching about it.
Others had likewise discovered the paper and
were doing the same thing. There are still too many people who don’t know
about it, but certainly a great awareness has been generated, and the procedure,
I am confident, will eventually be banned. I spoke to Dr. Haskell more
than once about the procedure. "There does not seem to be any medical reason
for the procedure," he told me. A woman obtains it, he explained, because
she wants an abortion.
I have on my desk the words of another doctor,
Warren M. Hern, in his book Abortion Practice. It is a medical textbook
on how to do abortions, and in it he describes another procedure which
must also be made better known to the public. The procedure is call
Dilatation and Evacuation (D&E), and differs
from "partial birth abortion" in that the child is not partially delivered,
but rather dismembered within the womb. He describes the procedure at various
stages of pregnancy, starting at 13 weeks. I quote here from the section
"21 to 24 Weeks Fetal Age:"
"The procedure changes significantly at 21
weeks because the fetal tissues become much more cohesive and difficult
to dismember. This problem is accentuated by the fact the that fetal pelvis
may be as much as 5 cm in width. The calvaria [head] is no longer the principal
problem; it can be collapsed. Other structures, such as the pelvis, present
more difficulty ... A long curved Mayo
scissors may be necessary to decapitate and
dismember the fetus ..." (p. 154).
He speaks of the crushing of the head in these terms: "As the calvaria is grasped, a sensation that it is collapsing is almost always accompanied by the extrusion of white cerebral material from the external os" (p. 142).
Dr. Hern also admits that a "disadvantage of the D&E procedure is that it is objectionable to physicians and their assistants." But, he goes on, "It is of utmost importance to keep in mind the advantages that the procedure offers for patients ..." (p. 134).
Some people are tired of the abortion controversy in our nation. Frankly, I often wonder whether it has even begun. Maybe when it becomes more widely known that things like what I quoted above are legally occurring every day — maybe then the debate can begin.
Father Pavone is the International Director of Priests for Life
and an official at the Vatican’s Council for the Family.
Contact Priests for Life at P.O. Box 141172, Staten Island, N.Y. 10314, Tel. 888 1PFL-3448, fax 718-980-6515, email pfl@priestsforlife.org, web site http://www.priestsforlife.org/.
Copyright ©1998 Arlington Catholic Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
This article was published in the Arlington
Catholic Herald,
200 N. Glebe Rd., Suite 607, Arlington, VA 22203; Vol 23, No 44,
dated Nov 5, 1998, on page 5.
.
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letters@catholicherald.com
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A note from the Web Master:
It is noteworthy and honorable that some folks are willing to stand up for a ban on Partial-Birth Abortion. Let us not forget that Abortion is also murder. We must understand that murder is still murder no matter the method. Because one method of abortion seems to be horrifying does not justify the other less repugnant methods. We should be sickened by any Abortion regardless of the method. The Fifth Commandment spells it out clearly: "Thou shalt not kill." A fetus is a person, a human being with a God given soul. Imagine the pain the Lord must feel when any Abortion occurs. Please, please, please contact your Senators and Congressman, via letter or phone, to let him/her know how upset you are that Abortions are legal and to pass and support legislation to stop Partial-Birth Abortions and all other Abortions as soon as possible.
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