The Cold Scissors

The Cold Scissors

It’s dark, but I’m not scared at all. My mom’s soothing voice is a constant reminder that she is near. She will keep me protected, I know it. I’m so warm and comfortable and happy. In this place, nothing can harm me! I eat, I sleep, I play, I kick, and I hear stories. It’s perfect here. Yes! Mom is lying down, time to sleep! Wait a minute… Whose voice is that? “Okay, just lay down. Relax. Breath. It will be over in a few minutes.” Ah! I feel something cold grabbing my feet. I’m being pulled out! I don’t want to leave this place! Mom! Stop him! Half of my body is out in the cold, I’m trying to grab for you mom! Don’t you see me kicking and moving? Help! I’m stuck in this position and I am so cold! Ow, there is a freezing sharp object coming closer to my head. What is th…?

The question was never finished. The baby was killed before he finished asking, “What is that?” Well, do you want to know what the chilled object was approaching his head? A surgical instrument resembling scissors used to puncture this third trimester baby’s skull. But why would any doctor need this? To create a hole for an easy insertion of a suction tube to suck out the baby’s brains. A pleasant thought? No, I didn’t think so either. This procedure is named “a partial-birth” or “third-trimester” abortion and it is one of the most awful medical practices used for the termination of life.

Since the trial of Roe vs. Wade when the court held that “women’s right to abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the fourteenth amendment” and allowed abortion during any time of pregnancy (Hull & Hoffer para. 4,6), abortion has been a widely debated topic. Overall, the public is 57% pro-choice and 43% pro-life; an even split (Langer para. 4). Specifically, the pro-choice population has maintained the same view for the past thirty years: about 90% believing abortion should be legal in the first and second trimester but only 10% supporting third-trimester abortion (Rosen para. 6). I, on the other hand, strongly oppose this last form of abortion. I believe it to be murder. The name itself has such a strong connotation: partial birth. Obviously, what is being aborted is a baby, specifically a “partially” born baby.

Many may ask, “What is partial birth abortion, exactly?” This procedure is not best explained by definition, instead it is most accurately understood after reading Nurse Brenda Pratt Shafer’s encounter. “The baby’s heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor delivered the baby’s body and arms, everything but his little head. The baby’s body was moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet. The doctor took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby’s head, and the baby’s arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the high-powered suction tube in the hole and sucked the baby’s brains our. Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But I am still haunted by the face of that little boy” (Shafer). However according to pro-choice supporters, this definition and the term “partial birth abortion” is not accurate because of its negative connotation. They prefer to label the procedure “intact dilation and extraction” and defined as the abortion procedure used in the third trimester when needed to save the mother’s, or fetuses, life from physical illness or injury (Coffin para. 11). These problems include genetic and developmental abnormalities, cancers that require the mother to be treated by chemotherapy, and psychiatric problems. However I, along with our president George Bush, do not buy into these excuses for partial-birth abortion.

George W. Bush is a strong-moraled man who has opposed all types of abortion since the Roe vs. Wade ruling. He demonstrated his beliefs by not only signing the “Laci and Conner’s Law,” a law viewing an unborn child killed or injured as a victim, but also by opposing spending tax dollars on abortion. In November of 2003, Mr. Bush signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act concluding that partial birth abortions are unjust and now illegal. Bush says, and I fully agree, “our nation owes its children a different and better welcome. America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalienable right of life.