August 9, 2010

By Dave Andrusko

LeRoy Carhart

Earlier today a friend was kind enough to send along a link to an interview with abortionist LeRoy Carhart that took place at the beginning of July, prior to Carhart speaking to a NOW conference in Boston. Carhart specializes in taking the lives of highly developed unborn children at a point where even hardened abortionistst blanche.

The interview with Deborah Becker is on radio station WBUR (www.wbur.org/2010/07/02/now-abortion-doctor). To her credit Becker continually returned to the question of "late-term" abortions, an imprecise term used employed by abortionists for their own purposes which both annoyed Tiller and which he defined for his purposes as 22 to 24 weeks.

Becker begins by asking why does he perform these abortions? Tiller's Horatio-at-the-gate response is, "Someone has to do it"; it's "part of mainstream medicine." More about that in a second.

Carhart reluctantly acknowledged how he could sort of understand why some people, even those who support abortion, might be unnerved by what he does in his clinic in Nebraska. But as for pro-lifers? "I feel that the anti-abortion movement is purely an anti-woman movement to keep them literally in their place."

Two items jumped out at me in the interview. The first was Carhart's insistence that he performs these "late abortions" only when there is a "significant compromise to the life or the health of the mother" or when "the fetus cannot survive birth." After some back and forth with Becker, Carhart seemed to be saying the latter refers to "profound" or "major genetic defects usually incompatible with life after birth." It's up to the reader to decide whether the man a sympathetic Newsweek profile dubbed the "Abortion Evangelist" (for his determination to find other abortionists willing to do "late term" abortions) is not finessing the truth.

It is worth recalling in the debate over partial-birth abortion, a pro-abortion mantra which we consistently disproved was that partial-birth abortions are nearly always performed to deal with serious physical disorders of mother and/or baby. Neither assertion was true.

The other intriguing response was when Becker tried to pin Carhart down about whether there was a point in pregnancy beyond which he wouldn't abort (she offers 30 weeks as one example). After a pause, Carhart answers, "No, I don't believer there is a point where I cannot do it." As the pregnancy advances--aka the child develops--the "reasons have to be more and compelling to do it," he says.

When Carhart defines "viability" as being at 22-24 weeks, Becker unexpectedly asks, "Would you say that's when life begins--at the 22 to 24 weeks?" (Didn't see that one coming.) "I think it changes or it's different for each pregnancy," he answers evasively. "Each fetus has to be evaluated on its own basis."

He adds confusedly that at 22-24 weeks, "you need to be concerned that viability is a possibility."

Becker wraps up the interview by asking why "are we still fighting about this so much after all these years?" Because "we have not fought back," Carhart says. Hardly.

Pro-abortionists have struck back in every way they can, specializing in using their enormous financial resources and their control over the levers of most of the powerful institutions in our culture. Their dilemma is that a majority of the public has consistently rejected the reasons for which no less than 90%-95% of the abortions in this country are performed. Which is why they always talk about abstractions like "choice."

The full seven-minute interview is very much worth listening www.wbur.org/2010/07/02/now-abortion-doctor. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Write to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part One
Part Two