ex-abortionists: Why they quit, The

Human Life Review, Spring 2000 by Meehan, Mary

The woman wanted to see her baby, so they cleaned up the baby and put it in a blanket and handed it to her. She cried the whole time. She kept saying, "I am so sorry, please forgive me." I was crying, too. I couldn't take it.8

Shafer later gave congressional testimony about her experience and appeared widely in the media speaking against partial-birth abortion. Seldom, one suspects, has a doctor been so sorry that he hired a temporary worker.

Shafer also saw Haskell do D&E abortions. He would "take three-monthold babies and dismember 'em just tear 'em from limb to limb while the baby's heart was beating, yank off a leg, yank off an arm and just bring it outside . . . And that was horrible. I'd never seen it before. Never really wanted to think about it before."9

She learned early what others learned so late. Carol Everett summed it up well when she looked back upon her own abortion, which her husband, Tom, had wanted and she had not: "Death was the ultimate winner; not Tom, and not Carol. Death."10

Attitudes Toward Women, Minorities and Money

A few former clinic staffers reported that they or colleagues had negative attitudes toward women who came to them for abortions. Former ultrasound technician Joy Davis reported that in an Alabama clinic where she once worked, there were doctors who were "doing abortions because they hated women." Dina Madsen, who worked in a feminist clinic in California, admitted that she didn't have much sympathy for her patients. Her attitude was, "Well, you got yourself into this position; you better tough it out:' A couple of the doctors there, she said, "hated women . . . And there was a lot of comment-making . . . crude jokes . . . sarcasm . . . touchy-feely type of games with the staff members." Some of the women staffers "wouldn't let any of these guys touch ' em with a ten-foot pole," Madsen said. Yet they told women coming to the clinic that: "They're wonderful doctors. They won't hurt you. They're the best at what they do. He's really a nice man."11

A few also reported wretched attitudes toward minorities. Mark Bomchill worked as a guard at a Minnesota clinic where he heard a doctor make racist and anti-Semitic comments. After former clinic worker Luhra Tivis became involved in pro-life work in Little Rock, Arkansas, she found herself up against an abortionist "who brags about killing black babies:' She said he had told pro-life sidewalk counselors, "If you would just leave me alone, I could clear out Harlem."12

Far more commonly reported, though, was an avid interest in money. Doctors and administrators can make fortunes from abortion. Other staff-wellpaid at some clinics, poorly-paid at others-are often single mothers in precarious economic circumstances, and they understand that their jobs depend on abortion sales. Hellen Pendley, who ran a Georgia clinic, would listen in on telephone conversations to see whether her staffers were good at sales. She said they knew the bottom line: "If you can't sell abortions over the phone, you will not last."13