Ed Vitagliano

AFA Journal news editor

November-December 2004 – “[A]t the end of the day, the truth is that when you perform an abortion you are killing something,” said Dr. David Molloy of the Australian Medical Association. 

For pro-lifers, that is a statement of the obvious. But what if you were confronted with the full horror of what that death represented – and still didn’t care? Is it possible that pro-abortionists could finally admit that abortion is murder, but then collectively shrug their shoulders?

That seems to be the case after the release of a British documentary entitled My Fetus, which aired in Britain in April, and then in Australia in August. The documentary contains footage of an unborn baby being sucked out of a mother’s womb, shows dismembered babies – one of whom is being rinsed in a sieve – and other remains being carefully put back together in order to ensure that no body parts were left in Mommy’s tummy.

The film is apparently staggering in its emotional impact. One pro-abortion journalist, Lauren Booth of the Daily Telegraph (London), who has herself had an abortion, watched the documentary and was stunned. “My hand flew to my mouth in shock,” she said. “I swallowed. I didn’t want to say it, but the word ‘murder’ came to my lips.”

There is tremendous irony involved here, however, because My Fetus was not made by pro-lifers. It is the work of pro-abortion activist and filmmaker Julia Black, daughter of Tim Black, who heads up Britain’s largest abortion provider. Black had her own abortion when she was 21.

So what was her reason for making such a film? She told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that it was to “reclaim the most powerful weapon the anti-abortion groups currently have – the fetus and the baby.” Black wanted pro-abortionists to be faced with the gruesome reality of what they were advocating – in order to better defend it. Certainly not apologize for it.

What’s truly horrifying is Black’s apparent indifference to the gruesome reality of what her film presents all too clearly. In an interview with ABC’s Tony Jones, Black said the idea of “dismembering a baby and pulling it out in pieces … is obviously horrific. But at the same time, it is easy to get caught up in that emotion.”

Later she told a newspaper, “I can take on board the emotional significance, but I still really do believe it’s my right and I don’t regret my abortion and I would never say I would never have one again.”

It’s one thing for someone to advocate abortion in ignorance of what is being done to an unborn child, or even to support abortion while refusing to look at the nature of the act. But how does one stare dismemberment in the face and  simply shrug?

A similarly abhorrent attitude was expressed non-chalantly in the U.S. by another pro-abortion evangelist, Amy Richards. A feminist activist and author, an abortion rights advocate who has worked with Planned Parenthood, and a co-founder of a feminist organization that has financed abortions, Richards recounted in The New York Times Magazine how she handled the news that she was pregnant – with triplets. 

“I’d have to give up my life,” Richards thought after getting the bad news. “[N]ow I’m going to have to move to Staten Island. I’ll never leave my house because I’ll have to care for these children. I’ll have to start shopping only at Costco [a wholesale club] and buying big jars of mayonnaise.”

Her decision? She asked her obstetrician: “Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?” When told that an abortion specialist could, in fact, perform a “selective reduction,” Richards agreed.

Her boyfriend balked before the deed was done, however. Richards recounted: “But Peter was staring at the sonogram screen thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, there are three heartbeats. I can’t believe we’re about to make two disappear.’”

It mattered not to Richards. She waved off her boyfriend’s request that they at least consider having the triplets, and Richards proceeded to have two unborn children aborted.

The deaths of two innocent children, of course, is deplorable enough. But again, as in the case of Black, it is the ruthlessness exhibited by Richards that is most chilling. As one woman wrote to the editors at The New York Times, “Of all the reasons for having an abortion, I never thought that the prospect of living in Staten Island and shopping at Costco would be among them.”

Just how hardened to suffering and our own iniquity can our hearts become? It seems likely that pro-abortionists will continue to plumb hell’s depths before being able to provide an answer to that one.