"But It's Close…." -- Part One of Two

Editor's note. I'll think you'll find something in both parts to talk about. Drop me a line at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

Over the last several months, the Los Angeles Times's Stephanie Simon has written a collection of first-rate stories on various phases of the abortion debate. In turn I've commented on some of them [for example, www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/February07/nv021207part1.html]. I will again today.

I do not know the impetus behind the series. But I think it's fair to conclude that one of her objectives might be to focus on what each side to the debate considers its most persuasive example--or, more precisely, what might appeal best to non-combatants. Obviously, pro-abortionists would never find a "good" pro-life example, or vice-versa.

The headline on today's Times' story is "Aspiring abortion doctors drawn to embattled field." The story makes for compelling reading on many fronts.

At the top of the reasons you should read Simon's "Column One" feature is that the abortionists-in-the-making exhibit an ability to compartmentalize that is absolutely stunning. (You can read the story at www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-abortdoc22may22,1,6412423.story)

This could be read as a story about "idealistic" medical students who refuse to be "intimidated" and who are actively considering performing abortions at a time when the ranks of abortionists are shrinking. Yet right out of the box, literally in the first paragraph and the first example, the reader is giving an example of ambiguity on the part of those (mostly women) who are considering performing abortions, either "part-time" or more extensively.

The medical student, Megan Lederer, has just helped deliver a "tiny, unimaginably fragile" preemie who survived. Later she wonders, could she have aborted that same baby? "She could have, she decided."

Those thinking about careers in abortion today, we're told, can't identify with the old-timers who began when abortion was largely proscribed in most of the United States. "For them, doing abortions is an act of defiance -- a way of pushing back against mounting restrictions on a right they've taken for granted all their lives," Simon writes.

But if the objective is to try to persuade the uncommitted reader, the response of fourth-year medical student Megan Lederer is less than compelling.

"It's like when your big brother says you can't do something," Lederer said. "That just makes you want to do it even more."

Since you can read the article in its entirety and because I want you to also peruse Part Two, let me just quickly address just one of many issues raised by the story.

As you would expect, pro-abortionists attribute the great decline in the number of abortionists ("[T]he number of providers has fallen steadily for decades, dropping 37% between 1982 and 2000, the last year a census was taken") to harassment. But that clearly isn't the answer.

Simon quotes NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson, who offered a vastly different perspective on performing abortions: "It's corrosive to the soul." Interestingly, it's not just a pro-lifer who says this, directly or indirectly.

Warren Hern is, suffice it to say, an abortionist who "specializes in late second- and third-trimester abortions," according to Simon.

"Abortion is so stigmatized, Hern said, that his fellow physicians shun him. Even his patients often regard him with disgust," Simon writes.

Hern offers a psycho-babble explanation: His patients have "absorbed so much antiabortion rhetoric, they feel a sense of revulsion that they have to come into my office and seek treatment."

But this is the same Hern who once wrote that "the sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current." [The full quote is even more revealing: "There is no possibility of denial of an act of destruction by the operator. It is before one's eyes. The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current."]

This is the same Hern who, "Though he feels certain he's doing right by the women," according to Simon, "still feels conflicted when he steps into his basement surgery."

Hern tells Simon, "We are hard-wired as a species to protect small, young, helpless creatures." He adds, "The fetus is not a baby, but it's close. Some are very close. It's difficult."
Please read the article in its entirety. www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-abortdoc22may22,1,6412423.story

Please send your comments and questions to Dave Andrusko at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

Part Two