In the 1950s, the author trained as a midwife in Sweden and was asked to assist with abortions in a gynecology department. She recounts who she helped perform an abortion at 22 weeks, which was done through an abdominal incision. I confess, I've never heard of an abortion done that way, unless perhaps it was intended as a hysterotomy. The "surgeon" pulled out a whimpering baby, who was left to die. (And hey, if a fetus has to suffer and die for a woman's sake, then tough luck for you, kid-- right feminists? Right...) Anyhow, the following week she was back in the delivery ward and her first delivery consisted of a disabled baby. All the resources were deployed to help this child. Wahlberg was confused by this contrast. Why such distinction between children.
Why indeed....
Click on the image to read her story.
Anecdotes such as these jar me. It's one thing to suck a fetus through a vacuum during a suction-curettage abortion. The fetus is mushed up and disposed of, never to be seen except by a pathologist. It's easy to become used to the procedure when you don't have to look at the humanity of the victim.
It's quite another to deliver a baby. And a live one at that who is destined to die. How do people who do this live with themselves?
Bibliographical notice:
Vivian Wahlberg, Memories after abortion, Radcliffe Publishing, 2007, 115 pages.
