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Abortionist William
Harrison Explaining Why He "Provides Abortions"
Part Three of Three By Dave Andrusko
A 17-year-old in for a consultation "assures the nurse that she doesn't consider the embryo inside her to be a baby. 'Not until it's developed,' she says. 'That would be about three months?' "'It's completely formed about nine weeks,' the nurse tells her. 'Yours is more like a chicken yolk.'" In the story, Harrison told Stephanie Simon of the Times that he had performed "at least" 20,000 abortions. Subscribing to the same philosophy as his nurse, "We try to make sure she doesn't ever feel guilty," he says of choosing an abortion, "for what she feels she has to do." Simon wrote that "Harrison draws his own moral line at the end of the second trimester or 26 weeks since the first day of the woman's last menstrual period. Until that point, he will abort for any reason. 'It's not a baby to me until the mother tells me it's a baby,' he says. "But Harrison refuses to end third-trimester pregnancies, even if the fetus is severely disabled," Simon wrote. "Some premature infants born at that stage (or even a few weeks earlier) can survive. Harrison thinks that they might be developed enough to feel pain in utero." Flash-forward to the obituaries. Harrison "readily admitted that he destroyed life, but denied that he killed babies," according to the New York Times. "His view was that an embryo was far from being a human being with a brain." My guess is that reporter Douglas Martin might be referring to a piece Harrison wrote for the Daily Kos in 2007 entitled, "Why I provide abortions." In that long entry Harrison offered an elaborate and detailed rationale for his actions. In the final paragraphs, Harrison tells the reader that "my mother always said to me, 'the Lord has a special purpose for your life.'" He writes that he loved delivering babies (some 6,000 altogether) but by 1983 he had to make a "Sophie's choice" between bringing babies into the world and making sure that they did not arrive. He chose the latter. Twenty-two years later he also choose to offer free abortions to survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Harrison ended his Daily Kos essay by offering a "short answer" to the rhetorical question of why he provides abortion. In remembering the request of a woman for an abortion long ago, "I eventually heard… a still, small voice asking, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' to which I was at last compelled to reply, 'here am I, send me.'" For the few for whom this is unfamiliar, the latter is an allusion to the prophet Samuel, responding to God's call. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |
When
I read that Arkansas abortionist William Harrison had died
Friday at the age of 75, I thought of his family, for whom his
death must be a grievous blow, the enthusiasm with which he
lambasted pro-lifers as "right-wing crazies," and two very
telling quotes that appeared in a very sympathetic 2005 Los
Angeles Times profile.