A Long Night's Journey into
Dehumanization and
the Moral Incoherence
of Abortion
By Dave Andrusko
Part Two
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"Doing second
trimester abortion is clinical care at
the boundary between life and death and
in the context of political and social
controversy, and, likewise, commitment."
-- Abortionist Lisa Harris
Over the last few days I have been
transfixed by several accounts, each one
more eye-opening than the one before,
that attempted to do justice (so to
speak) to abortionist Lisa Harris' "Second Trimester Abortion Provision:
Breaking the Silence and Changing the
Discourse." Harris' argument is not
merely another tiresome iteration of the
pro-abortion dictum that by "claim[ing]
abortion"--including its violence--they
will "strengthen our movement." As a
woman who dismembered huge unborn babies
at the very same time she was pregnant,
Harris' account offers tragic insights
into the human mind, heart, and soul.
The "ideas" for this essay, which
appeared in "Reproductive Health
Matters," were first presented the "Future of Abortion Conference" held in
London in June 2008. Pro-lifers got wind
of Harris' argument just recently when
Harris posted (I am not kidding) on
http://abortioneers.blogspot.com.
Since the entry has since been
conveniently excised from the blog, I
don't know how much of the original
article from "Reproductive Health
Matters" was included. Judging by quotes
from other sources, it appears Harris,
an assistant professor at the University
of Michigan, offered more than enough.
No dummy, Harris understands that sawing
off hands and arms–especially later in
pregnancy–is tough sledding for anyone
whose conscience has not been amputated.
So Harris' gambit is to first frankly
deal with such issues as "personal and
psychological considerations" as well as
the undeniable violence of abortion (and
its seeming incompatibility with what
she sees as an essentially non-violent
feminist movement). Then she offers "answers" that are not only morally
incoherent and circular but also evade
the very gut-wrenching red-flags Harris
told the reader she would confront.
She accomplishes the latter by trying to
create group solidarity by offering to
transport them to a kind of Land of Oz
for death peddlers, otherwise known as
the "middle ground." Needless to say
that middle ground is not to distinguish
"acceptable" from "unacceptable"
abortions, but to explain how "owning"
the violence, and the discomfort, and
the nightmares makes killing kids at any
stage of development not only acceptable
but "rewarding."
Let me offer two long quotes. Harris
begins with a category she calls "Visual
and visceral differences" between first
and second trimester abortions.
"When I was a little over 18 weeks
pregnant with my now pre-school child, I
did a second trimester abortion for a
patient who was also a little over 18
weeks pregnant. As I reviewed her
chart I realized that I was more
interested than usual in seeing the
fetal parts when I was done, since they
would so closely resemble those of my
own fetus. I went about doing the
procedure as usual.... I used electrical
suction to remove the amniotic fluid,
picked up my forceps and began to remove
the fetus in parts, as I always did. I
felt lucky that this one was already in
the breech position – it would make
grasping small parts (legs and arms) a
little easier. With my first pass of the
forceps, I grasped an extremity and
began to pull it down. I could see a
small foot hanging from the teeth of my
forceps. With a quick tug, I separated
the leg. Precisely at that moment, I
felt a kick – a fluttery "thump, thump"
in my own uterus. It was one of the
first times I felt fetal movement. There
was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a
"thump, thump" in my abdomen. Instantly,
tears were streaming from my eyes –
without me – meaning my conscious brain
- even being aware of what was going on.
I felt as if my response had come
entirely from my body, bypassing my
usual cognitive processing completely. A
message seemed to travel from my hand
and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was
an overwhelming feeling – a brutally
visceral response – heartfelt and
unmediated by my training or my feminist
pro-choice politics. It was one of the
more raw moments in my life."
Raw, indeed, and as eloquent a passage
as you could imagine. I felt like I was
there in the room with her. Then there
is this, which fell under the category
"Violence."
The last patient I saw one day was 23
weeks pregnant. I performed an
uncomplicated D&E procedure. Dutifully,
I went through the task of reassembling
the fetal parts in the metal tray. It is
an odd ritual that abortion providers
perform - required as a clinical safety
measure to ensure that nothing is left
behind in the uterus to cause a
complication - but it also permits us in
an odd way to pay respect to the fetus
(feelings of awe are not uncommon when
looking at miniature fingers and
fingernails, heart, intestines, kidneys,
adrenal glands), even as we
simultaneously have complete disregard
for it. Then I rushed upstairs to take
overnight call on labour and delivery.
The first patient that came in was
prematurely delivering at 23-24 weeks.
As her exact gestational age was in
question, the neonatal intensive care
unit (NICU) team resuscitated the
premature newborn and brought it to the
NICU. Later, along with the distraught
parents, I watched the neonate on the
ventilator. I thought to myself how
bizarre it was that I could have legally
dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it
were inside its mother's uterus - but
that the same kind of violence against
it now would be illegal, and
unspeakable.
After two such powerful passages, how
can Harris possibly reconcile the
instinctive revulsion, the bizarre
inconsistencies, and the violence? If we
mean by that a ladder of logic that
leads to a resolution of these tough
issues, all I can say is there are a lot
of rungs missing. As best I can
understand Harris explains away
everything with two arguments.
One, location. The unborn kid is inside
the mother, the premature baby outside.
(So much for complexity.) Two, owning
the violence. By that Harris means a
couple of things.
First, to decline a woman's request for
abortion is also "an act of unspeakable
violence," so in her moral economy there
is violence either way. This is moral
equivalency with a vengeance.
Second, if you focus on the
"difficult
aspects of second trimester abortion"
you "may further entrench abortion as
morally tainted." In other words, you
can't because you can't. Honestly
confronting the grotesque hideousness of
abortion opens the door to the
"stigmatisation and marginalisation of
those who do abortions."
As I got to this point, I asked myself,
is that all there is? I re-read the
conclusion of Harris' essay.
No, there is the all-purpose excuse that
covers not only all sins but all
inconsistencies. It's what Harris calls
the "gradualist" position. This simply
means the older the baby is, the more "respect" she is owed. Harris insists
this will "close the gap between
pro-choice rhetoric and the reality of
doing a second trimester abortion."
Really? At this point the reader is
still left with the uncomfortable truth
that we are disarticulating babies whose
"resemblance" (my word) to born babies
is impossible to deny.
Harris gets out of the corner she has
painted herself into by arguing in
circles. There must be good reasons why
a woman waits until late, late in her
pregnancy to abort. And only the
pregnant woman can understand the
"texture and complexity" of her life.
"Therefore, rather than see the
gradualist demand for 'good reasons' as
a threat to choice," Harris cheerfully
concludes, "we can see it as helping to
focus the terms of the abortion debate
on women themselves, in the contexts of
their lives."
It is as if she is saying that the more
that most morally sentient people would
revolt at the abortion, the greater the
pass that must be extended.
Harris's final conclusions are that the
abortion set needs more opportunities to
bond and that, for all her talk of the
"burdens" of second trimester abortions
for abortionists, a "robust evaluation
of these [broader] perspectives should
focus on the unique rewards it brings as
well."
I would very much appreciate your
comments and insights. I would
especially ask you to help me understand
how someone--anyone--could go from writing
that "tears were streaming from my eyes"
when her own unborn baby kicked at the
same time she was snuffing out the life
of another unborn baby to bragging about
lobbying her own abortion clinic to move
the outer edge of their "practice" from
14 weeks to "inching up to 22 weeks"?
Please send your comments to
daveandrusko@gmail.com.
Part Two
