If the unborn is a human...

If the unborn is not a human, no justification for abortion is necessary (all abortions would be no different than using a condom and there would be no reason for abortion to be a "tough, gut-wrenching choice that no one wants to make" as a lot of pro-choicers describe it).

However, if the unborn is a human, no justification for abortion is adequate (not the fact that we're poor, not the fact that we're single, not the fact that we have career goals, not the fact that we don't want to be mothers etc. Being labelled as "unwanted" by someone else could never possibly be a reason to kill someone, lest we want to create the world's most totalitarian society.)

Science does indeed tell us that the unborn are distinct living human beings and not just clumps of human cells.

The science of the unborn

"5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization...The majority of the sample identified as liberal (89%), pro-choice (85%) and non-religious (63%). In the case of Americans who expressed party preference, the majority identified as Democrats (92%)....most Americans believe that the question of “when life begins” is an important aspect of the U.S. abortion debate (82%); that most believe Americans deserve to know when a human’s life begins in order to give informed consent to abortion procedures (76%); and that most Americans believe a human’s life is worthy of legal protection once it begins (93%). Respondents also were asked: “Which group is most qualified to answer the question, ‘When does a human’s life begin?’” They were presented with several options—biologists, philosophers, religious leaders, Supreme Court Justices and voters. Eighty percent selected biologists, and the majority explained that they chose biologists because they view them as objective experts in the study of life."

https://quillette.com/2019/10/16/i-asked-thousands-of-biologists-when-life-begins-the-answer-wasnt-popular/

 "We talk of human development not because a jumble of cells, which is perhaps initially atypical, gradually turns more and more into a human, but rather because the human being develops from a uniquely human cell. There is no state in human development prior to which one could claim that a being exists with not-yet-human individuality. On the basis of anatomical studies, we know today that no developmental phase exists that constitutes a transition from the not-yet-human to the human."
"In short, a fertilized egg (conceptus) is already a human being." -Erich Blechschmidt, Brian Freeman, The Ontogenetic Basis of Human Anatomy: The Biodynamic Approach to Development from Conception to Adulthood, North Atlantic Books, June 2004. pp 7,8

“Traditional ways of classifying catalog animals according to their adult structure. But, as J. T. Bonner (1965) pointed out, this is a very artificial method, because what we consider an individual is usually just a brief slice of its life cycle. When we consider a dog, for instance, we usually picture an adult. But the dog is a “dog” from the moment of fertilization of a dog egg by a dog sperm. It remains a dog even as a senescent dying hound. Therefore, the dog is actually the entire life cycle of the animal, from fertilization through death.” -Scott Gilbert, Developmental Biology, 6th Edition

“All of us were once human embryos, so the study of human embryology is the study of our own prenatal origins and experiences.” (p. 2) “Fertilization, the uniting of egg and sperm, takes place in the oviduct. After the oocyte finishes meiosis, the paternal and maternal chromosomes come together, resulting in the formation of a zygote containing a single diploid nucleus. Embryonic development is considered to begin at this point.”
Schoenwolf, G. C. Larsen’s Human Embryology, 5th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier, Saunders, 2015. p. 2, 14.(p.14)


“The life cycle of mammals begins when a sperm enters an egg.” Okada et al., A role for the elongator complex in zygotic paternal genome demethylation, NATURE 463:554 (Jan. 28, 2010)

“Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.”

-Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, CELL TISSUE RES. 349(3):765 (Mar. 20, 2012)

“The oviduct or Fallopian tube is the anatomical region where every new life begins in mammalian species. After a long journey, the spermatozoa meet the oocyte in the specific site of the oviduct named ampulla, and fertilization takes place.”

-Coy et al., Roles of the oviduct in mammalian fertilization, REPRODUCTION 144 (6): 649 (Oct. 1, 2012) 

"Fertilization is the epic story of a single sperm facing incredible odds to unite with an egg, and form a new human life. It is the story of all of us." "The two sets of chromosomes join together, completing the process of fertilization. At this moment, a unique genetic code arises, instantly determining gender, hair color, eye color, and hundreds of other characteristics. This new single cell, the zygote, is the beginning of a new human being."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFrVmDgh4v49 (Fertilization (Conception) by Nucleus Medical Media)

"The two cells gradually and gracefully become one. This is the moment of conception, when an individual's unique set of DNA is created, a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33R2zTGK1eM (In the Womb by National Geographic)

"Biologically speaking, fertilization (or conception) is the beginning of human development...Fertilization begins with the spermatozoon contacting the cells surrounding the oocyte and ends with the mixing of the 23 male and 23 female chromosomes. The result is a single-cell embryo called a zygote, meaning "yoked or joined together," and it is the first cell of the human body. The zygote, like the oocyte, is encased by its protective covering, the zona pellucida, and contains 46 unique chromosomes with the entire genetic blueprint of a new individual."

http://www.ehd.org/dev_article_unit1.php#fertilization (Prenatal Form and Function – The Making of an Earth Suit by the Endowment of Human Development)

*"Biologically speaking, human development begins at fertilization...The result is a single-cell embryo called a zygote, meaning "yoked or joined together""The zygote's 46 chromosomes represent the unique first edition of a new individual's complete genetic blueprint. This master plan resides in tightly coiled molecules called DNA. They contain the instructions for the development of the entire body. DNA molecules resemble a twisted ladder known as a double helix."
"From the completion of 8 weeks until the end of pregnancy, the developing human is called a fetus, which means "unborn offspring."

http://www.ehd.org/pdf/BPD%204-26-2006%20English.pdf (The Biology of Human Development by National Geographic and The Endowment of Human Development)

"Fertilization occurs when the nuclei of a sperm and an egg fuse to form a diploid cell, known as zygote. The successful fusion of gametes forms a new organism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_fertilization (even wikipedia acknowledges a zygote is a new organism)

"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte."

-"Human Embryology & Teratology, 3rd Edition, New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8." by Ronan R. O'Rahilly and Fabiola Müller

“Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. … The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.”
-[O'Rahilly, Ronan and Muller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]

"Although human development is usually divided into prenatal (before birth) and postnatal (after birth) periods, development is a continuum that begins at fertilization (conception). Birth is a dramatic event during development, resulting in change in environment.
Development does not stop at birth; important developmental changes occur after birth-- development of teeth and female breasts, for example."

-"Before We Are Born : Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects,(5th Edition) (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998) 36." by  Keith L. Moore and  T. V. N. Persaud

"Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual."
"A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo)."

“Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte (ovum) from a female is fertilized by a sperm (spermatozoon) from a male. Cell division, cell migration, programmed cell death, differentiation, growth, and cell rearrangement transform the fertilized oocyte, a highly specialized, totipotent cell – a zygote – into a multicellular human being. Although most developmental changes occur during the embryonic and fetal periods, important changes occur during later periods of development: infancy, childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Development does not stop at birth. Important changes, in addition to growth, occur after birth (e.g., development of teeth and female breasts). The brain triples in weight between birth and 16 years; most developmental changes are completed by the age of 25. Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal (before birth) and postnatal (after birth) periods, birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change in environment.” (p. 2)

“Embryo. The developing human during its early stages of development. The embryonic period extends to the end of the eighth week (56 days), by which time the beginnings of all major structures are present.” (p. 3)

“The zygote is genetically unique because half of its chromosomes come from the mother and half from the father. The zygote contains a new combination of chromosomes that is different from that in the cells of either of the parents.” (p. 33)

-"The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition, Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003, pp. 16, 2." by Keith L. Moore and  T. V. N. Persaud

“Human development begins at fertilization when a sperm fuses with an oocyte to form a single cell, the zygote.”

“All major external and internal structures are established during the fourth to eighth weeks.”

“Upper limb buds are recognizable at day 26 or 27 as small swellings on the ventrolateral body walls.”

“Embryos in the sixth week show spontaneous movements, such as twitching of the trunk and developing limbs.”

“By the end of this week (8^th week), the embryo has distinct human characteristics; however, the head is still disproportionately large, constituting almost half of the embryo.”
-The Developing Human 10th edition, by Keith L Moore, T.V.N. Persaud, and Mark Torchia, 205

"The scientific answer is that the embryo is a human being from the time of fertilization because of its human chromosomal constitution. The zygote is the beginning of a developing human."

Keith L. Moore, T.V.N. Persaud, Mark G. Torchia, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 8th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2013. p.327

"[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being."

-Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.

"Fertilization is the process whereby the sperm and egg--collectively called gametes--fuse together to begin the creation of a new individual whose genome is derived from both parents... Thus, the first function of fertilization is to transmit genes from parent to offspring" -Developmental Biology 10th edition by Scott F. Gilbert.

"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual." -Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3

"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote." -Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3

"It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual." -Human Embryology, 3rd ed. Bradley M. Patten, (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968), 43

“The zygote is human life….there is one fact that no one can deny; Human beings begin at conception."- Landrum B. Shettles, M.D., P.h.D.

“The zygote and early embryo are living human organisms.” Keith L. Moore & T.V.N. Persaud Before We Are Born – Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects (W.B. Saunders Company, 1998. Fifth edition.) Page 500

"Development begins with fertilization, the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the female gamete, the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote."

-T.W. Sadler, Langman's Medical Embryology, 10th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. p. 11.

"Human embryos begin development following the fusion of definitive male and female gametes during fertilization... This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."

-William J. Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998. pp. 1, 14.

"A Zygote (Created fertilization) is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization."

-Developing Human Clinical 6th edition

"An Embryo is an organism in the earliest stages of development."

-Harper Collins Illustrated medical dictionary

"It is an established fact that life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception…"- r. Hymie Gordon, professor of medical genetics and physician at the Mayo Clinic

"It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual."

-Clark Edward Corliss, Patten's Human Embryology: Elements of Clinical Development. New York: McGraw Hill, 1976. p. 30.

"The term conception refers to the union of the male and female pronuclear elements of procreation from which a new living being develops. It is synonymous with the terms fecundation, impregnation, and fertilization."
"The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life."

-J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Friedman, Biological Principles and Modern Practice of Obstetrics. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1974. pp. 17, 23.

"Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition."

-E.L. Potter and J.M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant, 3rd edition. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975. p. vii.

“Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism…. At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun…. The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life.”
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

Dr. Jerome Lejeune of Paris, France was a medical doctor, a Doctor of Science and a professor of Fundamental Genetics for over twenty years. Dr. Lejeune discovered the genetic cause of Down Syndrome, receiving the Kennedy Prize for the discovery and, in addition, received the Memorial Allen Award Medal, the world's highest award for work in the field of Genetics. He is often called the "Father of Modern Genetics". The following are some notable statements by him:
"After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception."
- 1989 court testimony in Tennessee, cf. also Louisiana Legislature's House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice on June 7, 1990

1981 Us Senate sub committee
Dr. Michelin Mathews Roth
"It is incorrect to say that biological data can not be decisive. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception."
*reached a conclusion after all their testimony that physicians and biologists agree that human life begins at conception.

"The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence."
- The Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Report to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th
Congress, First Session, 1981

"Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings."
- The official Senate report from Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981
Background on the Committee testifiers:
A group of internationally-known biologists and geneticists appeared to speak on behalf of the scientific community on the subject of when a human being begins. They all presented the same view and there was no opposing testimony. Among those testifying:
Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School
Dr. Jerome Lejeune (“Father of Modern Genetics”)
Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee
Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Dr. Richard V. Jaynes
Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the "Father of In Vitro Fertilization"
Professor Eugene Diamond
Gordon, Hymie, M.D., F.R.C.P., Chairman of Medical Genetics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester
C. Christopher Hook, M.D. Oncologist, Mayo Clinic, Director of Ethics Education, Mayo Graduate School of Medicine

“Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus.” 
(Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993) p. 146.

“…Every human embryologist in the world knows that the life of the new individual human being begins at fertilization. It is not belief. It is scientific fact.”

Ward Kischer, human embryologist, University of Arizona

“You Can Stop Injustice” Human Life Alliance Supplement, 2010

“The fusion of sperm and egg membranes initiates the life of a sexually reproducing organism.”

-Marsden et al., Model systems for membrane fusion, CHEM. SOC. REV. 40(3):1572 (Mar. 2011)

“In that fraction of a second when the chromosomes form pairs [at conception], the sex of the new child will be determined, hereditary characteristics received from each parent will be set, and a new life will have begun.”

-Kaluger, G., and Kaluger, M., Human Development: The Span of Life, page 28-29, The C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, 1974.

“It should always be remembered that many organs are still not completely developed by full-term and birth should be regarded only as an incident in the whole developmental process.”

-F Beck Human Embryology, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1985 page vi

“In this text, we begin our description of the developing human with the formation and differentiation of the male and female sex cells or gametes, which will unite at fertilization to initiate the embryonic development of a new individual” (p. 1)

-Human Embryology, William J Larsen, 3rd Edition, 2001

“Fertilization – the fusion of gametes to produce a new organism – is the culmination of a multitude of intricately regulated cellular processes.”
-Marcello et al., Fertilization, ADV. EXP. BIOL. 757:321 (2013)

The government’s own definition attests to the fact that life begins at fertilization. According to the National Institutes of Health, “fertilization” is the process of union of two gametes (i.e., ovum and sperm) “whereby the somatic chromosome number is restored and the development of a new individual is initiated.”
-National Institutes of Health, Medline Plus Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary (2013),  http://c.merriam-webster.com/medlineplus/fertilization 

“Your baby starts out as a fertilized egg… For the first six weeks, the baby is called an embryo.”
-Prenatal Care, US Department Of Health And Human Services, Maternal and Child Health Division, 1990

"Thus a new cell is formed from the union of a male and a female gamete. [sperm and egg cells] The cell, referred to as the zygote, contains a new combination of genetic material, resulting in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.”
-Sally B Olds, et al., Obstetric Nursing (Menlo Park, California: Addison – Wesley publishing, 1980)  P 136

"[All] organisms, however large and complex they might be as full grown, begin life as a single cell. This is true for the human being, for instance, who begins life as a fertilized ovum.”
-Dr. Morris Krieger “The Human Reproductive System” p 88 (1969) Sterling Pub. Co

“The first cell of a new and unique human life begins existence at the moment of conception (fertilization) when one living sperm from the father joins with one living ovum from the mother. It is in this manner that human life passes from one generation to another. Given the appropriate environment and genetic composition, the single cell subsequently gives rise to trillions of specialized and integrated cells that compose the structures and functions of each individual human body. Every human being alive today and, as far as is known scientifically, every human being that ever existed, began his or her unique existence in this manner, i.e., as one cell. If this first cell or any subsequent configuration of cells perishes, the individual dies, ceasing to exist in matter as a living being. There are no known exceptions to this rule in the field of human biology.”
-James Bopp, ed., Human Life and Health Care Ethics, vol. 2 (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1985)

"In fusing together, the male and female gametes produce a fertilized single cell, the zygote, which is the start of a new individual.”
-Rand McNally, Atlas of the Body (New York: Rand McNally, 1980) 139, 144

“… Conception confers life and makes you one of a kind. Unless you have an identical twin, there is virtually no chance, in the natural course of things, that there will be “another you” – not even if mankind were to persist for billions of years.”

-Shettles, Landrum, M.D., Rorvik, David, Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence for Life Before Birth, page 36, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1983

"Human life begins when the ovum is fertilized and the new combined cell mass begins to divide."
-From Newsweek November 12, 1973:Dr. Jasper Williams, Former President of the National Medical Association (p 74)

“The formation, maturation and meeting of a male and female sex cell are all preliminary to their actual union into a combined cell, or zygote, which definitely marks the beginning of a new individual. The penetration of the ovum by the spermatozoon, and the coming together and pooling of their respective nuclei, constitutes the process of fertilization.”

-Leslie Brainerd Arey, “Developmental Anatomy” seventh edition space (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1974), 55

“The zygote therefore contains a new arrangement of genes on the chromosomes never before duplicated in any other individual. The offspring destined to develop from the fertilized ovum will have a genetic constitution different from anyone else in the world.”
-DeCoursey, R.M., The Human Organism, 4th edition McGraw Hill Inc., Toronto, 1974. page 584

“The science of the development of the individual before birth is called embryology. It is the story of miracles, describing the means by which a single microscopic cell is transformed into a complex human being. Genetically the zygote is complete. It represents a new single celled individual.”
-Thibodeau, G.A., and Anthony, C.P., Structure and Function of the Body, 8th edition, St. Louis: Times Mirror/Mosby College Publishers, St. Louis, 1988. pages 409-419

“The development of a new human being begins when a male’s sperm pierces the cell membrane of a female’s ovum, or egg….The villi become the placenta, which will nourish the developing infant for the next eight and a half months.”
-Scarr, S., Weinberg, R.A., and Levine A., Understanding Development, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1986. page 86

“Each human begins life as a combination of two cells, a female ovum and a much smaller male sperm. This tiny unit, no bigger than a period on this page, contains all the information needed to enable it to grow into the complex …structure of the human body. The mother has only to provide nutrition and protection.”
-Clark, J. ed., The Nervous System: Circuits of Communication in the Human Body, Torstar Books Inc., Toronto, 1985, page 99

“A zygote (a single fertilized egg cell) represents the onset of pregnancy and the genesis of new life.”
-Turner, J.S., and Helms, D.B., Lifespan Developmental, 2nd ed., CBS College Publishing (Holt, Rhinehart, Winston), 1983, page 53

“…but the whole story does not begin with delivery. The baby has existed for months before – at first signaling its presence only with small outer signs, later on as a somewhat foreign little being which has been growing and gradually affecting the lives of those close by…”
-Lennart Nilsson A Child is Born: Completely Revised Edition (Dell Publishing Co.: New York) 1986

"Embryo: 1. An organism developing inside a womb, egg, or seed. 2. A human baby in the first two months of growth in the womb.
Zygote: First cell of new living thing."
-The Usborne Internet-Linked Science Encyclopedia

"Every baby begins life within the tiny globe of the mother's egg... It is beautifully translucent and fragile and it encompasses the vital links in which life is carried from one generation to the next. Within this tiny sphere great events take place. When one of the father's sperm cells, like the ones gathered here around the egg, succeeds in penetrating the egg and becomes united with it, a new life can begin."

Geraldine Lux Flanagan, Beginning Life. New York: DK, 1996. p. 13.

Some of the world’s most prominent scientists and physicians testified to a U.S. Senate committee that human life begins at conception:

A United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee invited experts to testify on the question of when life begins. All of the quotes from the following experts come directly from the official government record of their testimony.

         Dr. Alfred M. Bongiovanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania, stated:

“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.... I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life....

I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty...is not a human being. This is human life at every stage.”

          Dr. Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down syndrome. Dr. LeJeune testified to the Judiciary Subcommittee, “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.” He stated that this “is no longer a matter of taste or opinion,” and “not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” He added, “Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

           Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic: “By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: “It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive.... It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.... Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.”

           Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School: “The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter—the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political, or economic goals.”

            A prominent physician points out that at these Senate hearings, “Pro-abortionists, though invited to do so, failed to produce even a single expert witness who would specifically testify that life begins at any point other than conception or implantation. Only one witness said no one can tell when life begins.”

Many other prominent scientists and physicians have likewise affirmed with certainty that human life begins at conception:

            Ashley Montague, a geneticist and professor at Harvard and Rutgers, is unsympathetic to the prolife cause. Nevertheless, he affirms unequivocally, “The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception.”

            Dr. Bernard Nathanson, internationally known obstetrician and gynecologist, was a cofounder of what is now the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). He owned and operated what was at the time the largest abortion clinic in the western hemisphere. He was directly involved in over sixty thousand abortions.

Dr. Nathanson’s study of developments in the science of fetology and his use of ultrasound to observe the unborn child in the womb led him to the conclusion that he had made a horrible mistake. Resigning from his lucrative position, Nathanson wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that he was deeply troubled by his “increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.”

In his film, “The Silent Scream,” Nathanson later stated, “Modern technologies have convinced us that beyond question the unborn child is simply another human being, another member of the human community, indistinguishable in every way from any of us.” Dr. Nathanson wrote Aborting America to inform the public of the realities behind the abortion rights movement of which he had been a primary leader. At the time Dr. Nathanson was an atheist. His conclusions were not even remotely religious, but squarely based on the biological facts.

             Dr. Landrum Shettles was for twenty-seven years attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Shettles was a pioneer in sperm biology, fertility, and sterility. He is internationally famous for being the discoverer of male- and female-producing sperm. His intrauterine photographs of preborn children appear in over fifty medical textbooks. Dr. Shettles states,

I oppose abortion. I do so, first, because I accept what is biologically manifest—that human life commences at the time of conception—and, second, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic, and humanitarian. 

             The First International Symposium on Abortion came to the following conclusion:

The changes occurring between implantation, a six-week embryo, a six-month fetus, a one-week-old child, or a mature adult are merely stages of development and maturation. The majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg, or at least the blastocyst stage, and the birth of the infant at which point we could say that this was not a human life.

The Official Senate report on Senate Bill 158, the “Human Life Bill,” summarized the issue this way:

Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being—a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.

"The most authoritative scientific conclusion on when human life begins that has been made in recent years, was the conclusion from The First International Conference on Abortion, held in Washington DC, October 1967. Approximately 60 major scientific authorities from the field of medicine, ethics, law and social sciences participated as consultants in this symposium. Carefully chosen for their scientific knowledge and integrity, they presented a cross-section of race, religion, culture, and geographic backgrounds. After several days of “think tank” discussions, the medical group, made up of geneticists, biochemists, physicians, professors, research scientists, etc., came to a near unanimous conclusion (one dissension):

“The majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg, or at least the blastocyst stage, and the birth of the infant at which point we could say that this was not a human life [blastocyst stage occurs approximately one week after fertilization, and would account for twinning]”.… The changes occurring between implantation, the 6 week embryo, six-month fetus, a one week-old child, or mature adult are really stages of development and maturation.”

-“Five Ways to Kill an Unborn Child” from the Knights of Columbus

"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2] 

 "Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus."
[Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.] 

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1] 

"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]

"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."
[England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]

"A human being at an embryonic age and that human being at an adult age are naturally the same. The biological differences are due only to the differences in maturity. Changes in methylation of cytosine demonstrate that the human being is fully programmed for human growth and development for his or her entire life at the one cell stage."

-Dr. David Fu-Chi Mark, a distinguished molecular biologist. Report of the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion, pp.21-25. quoted in United Families International Guide to Family Issues: Abortion (Gilbert, Arizona: United Families International, 2007) 24

“Every human embryologist, worldwide, states that the life of the new individual human being begins at fertilization (conception).… We exist as a continuum of human life, which begins at fertilization and continues until death.”

-Christine Watkins, editor The Ethics of Abortion (New York: Greenhaven press, 2005) 5

“Reproduction depends on the union of male and female gametes (reproductive, or germ, cells) each with a half set of chromosomes, to form a new individual with a full, unique set of chromosomes.”

-Human Physiology: From Cells to Systems 2nd Cd Ed,Sherwood, Kell & Ward, 2013, 2010, Nelson Education Ltd. 709

"ABSTRACT: The predominance of human biological research confirms that human life begins at conception—fertilization. At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is one of form, not nature. This statement focuses on the scientific evidence of when an individual human life begins. "

-American College of Pediatricians – March 2017

“[T]here is nothing in the entire phenomenon of the transmission of life that deserves more to be called an event, scientifically speaking, that does fertilization. It is the natural and scientific boundary at which a new and genetically unique human individual can be said to begin his existence. We conclude, therefore, that by objective and scientific criteria the individual human being is a person throughout his [or her] entire biological development from conception, which is synonymous with fertilization, to natural death… Any other conclusion would be arbitrary, unsupportable by scientific fact or rational argument, divorced from objective reality, and based on a particular ideology, philosophy or creed.”

-Direct report on S. 158 by Dr. Sean O’Reilly, Director of the Neurobiology Research Training Program at George Washington University, dated July 2, 1981

Quoted on page 28 – 29 of Randall J Hekman Justice for the Unborn (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Books, 1984)

“The task force finds that the new recombinant DNA technologies indisputably prove that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a living human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine.”

“The task force cited scientific advances since 1973 as showing an embryo to be a “whole, separate, unique, living, human being” from the moment of conception. The advances in question include DNA fingerprinting, which shows a pattern of DNA that can identify an individual, and the polymerase chain reaction, which makes it possible to amplify and extract that information from a single cell. Techniques that show an embryo has a complete set of DNA “have proven that each human being is totally unique immediately at fertilization”, the panel’s report says. The task force also cited findings that control of growth and development are established by the embryo’s DNA after the third division of the fertilized egg: this stage is reached long before the embryo is implanted in the womb, which has previously been cited as signifying when personhood began.”

-“When does life begin?” New Scientist 3/18/2006, Vol. 189, Issue 2543

"Birth may be a grand occasion, says the Johns Hopkins University psychologist [Janet DiPietro], but “it is a trivial event in development. Nothing neurologically interesting happens.”

-Janet L. Hopson “Fetal Psychology” Psychology Today, Sep/Oct98, Vol. 31 Issue 5, p44, 6p, 4c.

“A composite, unified, sacrosanct, unanimity of thought as to when life begins can be determined by studying embryologic physiology. Scientifically acknowledged pronouncements should be more acceptable in determining the onset of human life than legal opinion.”

-Bernard J Ficarra, M.D. Abortion Analyzed (Laurel, MD: Health Educator Publications, Inc., 1989) 9

“the fertilized egg (zygote) is the beginning of a new diploid individual.”
Jones, R. E. Human Reproductive Biology, 4th edition. Waltham, MA. Elsevier, Academic Press, 2014, p. 169.

“Human development begins at fertilization when an oocyte (ovum) from a female is fertilized by a sperm (spermatozoon) from a male…Embryology is concerned with the origin and development of a human being from a zygote to birth.”
Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 9th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2016. p. 1.

 “The main results of fertilization are as follows: Restoration of the diploid number of chromosomes, half from the father half from the mother. Hence, the zygote contains a new combination of chromosomes different from both parents. Determination of the sex of the new individual. An X-carrying sperm produces a female (XX) embryo and a Y-carrying sperm produces a male (XY) embryo. Therefore, the chromosomal sex of the embryo is determined at fertilization.” 
Sadler, T. W. Langman's Medical Embryology, 13th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2015. p. 42.

“Sexual reproduction occurs when female and male gametes (oocyte and spermatozoon, respectively) unite at fertilization.”
Dudek, R. W. Embryology, 4th edition. Philadelphia, PA. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2008, p. 1.

“Fertilization is the sum of the cellular mechanisms that pass the genome from one generation to the next and initiate development of a new organism.” 
Penetration, adhesion, and fusion in mammalian sperm-egg interaction. Primakoff P, Myles DG. Science. 2002. 296(5576):2183-5.

“Ca2+ signaling plays a crucial role in virtually all cellular processes, from the origin of new life at fertilization to the end of life when cells die.”
The cell cycle: a new entry in the field of Ca2+ signaling. Santella L, Ercolano E, Nusco GA. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2005. 62(21):2405-13.

 “Representing the 60 trillion cells that build a human body, a sperm and an egg meet, recognize each other, and fuse to form a new generation of life.” 
The immunoglobulin superfamily protein Izumo is required for sperm to fuse with eggs. Inoue N, Ikawa M, Isotani A, Okabe M. Nature. 2005. 434(7030):234-8.

 “At fertilization, eggs unite with sperm to initiate developmental programs that give rise to development of the embryo. Defining the molecular mechanism of this fundamental process at the beginning of life has been a key question in cell and developmental biology.” 
Signal transduction pathways leading to Ca2+ release in a vertebrate model system: lessons from Xenopus eggs. Sato K, Fukami Y, Stith BJ. Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2006. 17(2):285-92.

“Most readers of this review originated from a sperm-egg fusion event.”
Cell fusion during development. Oren-Suissa M, Podbilewicz B. Trends Cell Biol. 2007. 17(11):537-46.

 “As representatives of the 60 trillion cells that make a human body, a sperm and an egg meet, recognize each other, and fuse to create a new generation.” 
Sperm-egg fusion assay in mammals. Inoue N, Okabe M. Methods Mol Biol. 2008. 475:335-45.

 “Sperm are remarkably complex cells with a singularly important mission: to deliver paternal DNA and its associated factors to the oocyte to start a new life.” 
-Sperm chromatin: fertile grounds for proteomic discovery of clinical tools. Wu TF, Chu DS. Mol Cell Proteomics. 2008. 7(10):1876-86.

  “A proper dialogue between spermatozoa and the egg is essential for conception of a new individual in sexually reproducing animals. Ca(2+) is crucial in orchestrating this unique event leading to a new life.”
Calcium channels in the development, maturation, and function of spermatozoa. Darszon A, Nishigaki T, Beltran C, Treviño CL. Physiol Rev. 2011. 91(4):1305-55.

“In higher animals, the beginning of new life and transfer of genetic material to the next generation occurs in the oviduct when two distinct gametes cells unite resulting in the formation of a zygote.”
Oviductal, endometrial and embryonic gene expression patterns as molecular clues for pregnancy establishment. Salilew-Wondim D, Schellander K, Hoelker M, Tesfaye D. Anim Reprod Sci. 2012. 134(1-2):9-18.

“The egg-to-embryo transition marks the initiation of multicellular organismal development and is mediated by a specialized Ca(2+) transient at fertilization.”
How to make a good egg!: The need for remodeling of oocyte Ca(2+) signaling to mediate the egg-to-embryo transition. Nader N, Kulkarni RP, Dib M, Machaca K. Cell Calcium. 2013. 53(1):41-54.

“It is intuitive that fertilization-the start of life-involves communication between a sperm cell and an egg.”
Membrane rafts regulate phospholipase B activation in murine sperm. Asano A, Nelson-Harrington JL, Travis AJ. Commun Integr Biol. 2013. 6(6):e27362.

"Fertilization occurs when sperm and egg recognize each other and fuse to form a new, genetically distinct organism."
Juno is the egg Izumo receptor and is essential for mammalian fertilization. Bianchi E, Doe B, Goulding D, Wright GJ. Nature. 2014. 508(7497):483-7.

“Fertilization is the culminating event in sexual reproduction and requires the recognition and fusion of the haploid sperm and egg to form a new diploid organism.”
Cross-species fertilization: the hamster egg receptor, Juno, binds the human sperm ligand, Izumo1. Bianchi E, Wright GJ. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2015. 370(1661):20140101.

“Since a new individual is derived from the fusion of a single sperm and egg, we tested…”
Maternal non-Mendelian inheritance of a reduced lifespan? A hypothesis. Wilding M, Coppola G, De Icco F, Arenare L, Di Matteo L, Dale B. J Assist Reprod Genet. 2014. 31(6):637-43.

“The fusion of a sperm with an oocyte to form new life is a highly regulated event.”
An update on post-ejaculatory remodeling of the sperm surface before mammalian fertilization. Gadella BM, Boerke A. Theriogenology. 2015. 85(1):113-24.

“The time of our conception is when we are most vulnerable to survival and growing as a healthy human being.”
2015 RANZCOG Arthur Wilson Memorial Oration 'From little things, big things grow: The importance of periconception medicine'. Norman RJ. Aust N Z J Obstet Gynaecol. 2015. 55(6):535-40.

“Mammalian life begins with a cell-cell fusion event, i.e. the fusion of the spermatozoid with the oocyte”
State of the art in cell-cell fusion. Willkomm L, Bloch W. Methods Mol Biol. 2015. 1313:1-

“Mammalian life, with all its complexity comes from a humble beginning of a single fertilized egg cell.”
Mapping the journey from totipotency to lineage specification in the mouse embryo. Leung CY, Zernicka-Goetz M. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2015. 34:71-6.

“As the start of a new life cycle, activation of the first division of the zygote is a critical event in both plants and animals.”
The anaphase-promoting complex initiates zygote division in Arabidopsis through degradation of cyclin B1. Guo L, Jiang L, Zhang Y, Lu XL, Xie Q, Weijers D, Liu CM. Plant J. 2016. 86(2):161-74.

"Human life begins with sperm and oocyte fusion."
The role of syncytins in human reproduction and reproductive organ cancers. Soygur B, Sati L. Reproduction. 2016. 152(5):R167-78.

“New parents anticipate their job begins at birth. Little do they know they have been exerting control within the baby’s first cell since fertilization.”
Parental Control Begins at the Beginning. Chu D. Genetics. 2016. 204(4):1377- 1378.

“In sexual organisms, division of the zygote initiates a new life cycle.”
ZYGOTE-ARREST 3 that encodes the tRNA ligase is essential for zygote division in Arabidopsis. Yang KJ, Guo L, Hou XL, Gong HQ, Liu CM. J Integr Plant Biol. 2017. 59(9):680-692.

“Aging is a developmental process that begins with fertilization and ends up with death involving a lot of environmental and genetic factors.”
Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome: A Premature Aging Disease. Ahmed MS, Ikram S, Bibi N, Mir A. Mol Neurobiol. 2017. doi: 10.1007/s12035-017- 0610-7. [Epub ahead of print]

“At the end of oogenesis and spermatogenesis, both haploid gametes contain a single set of chromosomes ready to form the zygote, the first cell of the newly developing individual.”
“This is where it all started” - the pivotal role of PLCζ within the sophisticated process of mammalian reproduction: a systemic review. Gat I, Orvieto R. Basic Clin Androl. 2017. 21;27:9.

“Pronuclear/zygotic stage is the very first stage of life.”
.Epigenetic modifications and reprogramming in paternal pronucleus: sperm, preimplantation embryo, and beyond. Okada Y, Yamaguchi K. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2017. 74(11):1957-1967.

“Recognition between sperm and the egg surface marks the beginning of life in all sexually reproducing organisms.”
Structural Basis of Egg Coat-Sperm Recognition at Fertilization. Raj I, Sadat Al Hosseini H, Dioguardi E, Nishimura K, Han L, Villa A, de Sanctis D, Jovine L. Cell. 2017. 169(7):1315-1326.e17.

Timeline of major events:
The brain is there at 2 - 3 weeks after conception, the heart starts beating at 2 - 3 weeks after conception, this is before women even know they are pregnant, limb buds form at 3 - 4 weeks, the cerebral hemispheres and cerebellum are there and begin rapid growth by 4 and a half weeks, eyes are there at 4 and a half weeks, movements start by 5 and a half weeks, brain waves are detectable to us by 6 weeks, the face withdraws from light touch around the mouth at 6 weeks, eyelids are present by 6 weeks, they hiccup by 7 weeks, females have ovaries at 7 weeks, the testes begin to differentiate in males at 7 weeks, all the organs are there at 8 weeks, they roll over and open and close their mouths and squint and have complex responses to touch by 8 weeks, male fetuses make testosterone in their testes at 8 weeks, the neurons synapse in the cerebral cortex by 8 and a half weeks (meaning the cerebral cortex is there before), female fetuses have identifiable uteruses and early reproductive cells in their ovaries at 9 weeks, they yawn by 9 and a half weeks, and fingerprints are visible by 10 weeks. Most abortions happen at 8 weeks on up. You can watch the heart beating at 4 and a half weeks after conception right here. http://www.ehd.org/movies.php?mov_id=21

Here is the development timeline: (or go to ehd.org and hit the prenatal timeline button)

http://www.ehd.org/science_main.php?level=all&submit4.x=59&submit4.y=13&s1=on&s5=on&s17=on&s14=on&s2=on&s6=on&s16=on&s0=on&s12=on&s7=on&s11=on&s13=on&s10=on&s18=on&s19=on&s3=on&ops=&ex=on&re=on&L1=1&L2=0

Intellectual dishonesty in the pro-choice side/abortion industry

So I have heard a LOT of stories and of people who turned from pro-choice to pro-life or got an abortion and regretted it based off of the fact that they honestly didn't know and weren't told about the facts of the unborn, other choices, or what an abortion is or does. I've heard people say they literally go to pro-choice groups or websites and they won't give out info of other choices, or they will use lots of euphemisms and not tell the truth about the unborn, and I have even heard pro-choicers actually say we should be dehumanizing. This really does a disservice to their own supporters, as they don't actually know what they are supporting. They have the wool pulled over their eyes, and that isn't fair to them.

The problem with this is that whenever we advocate for lack of knowledge of something, we're doing it wrong and ensuring that people will make decisions they regret as they didn't have all the info to begin with. That's why all the post-abortive women who regret it's number 1 complaint is that people acted like it was just a "routine medical procedure" (There is also the problem of the more feminist women being told by their feminist friends that they have to be pro-choice in order to be a proper feminist and support womanhood, or telling them they should get an abortion if they are in whatever situation), or like it was no big deal and ignored to tell them info about anything, and they honestly didn't really know what they were doing, or maybe they did in the back of their heads but everyone acted like it was no big deal and skipped over what it actually is and does, so they went along with it. Here is my playlist for post-abortive women telling their stories and how they regret it. These women wish people actually told them stuff. They end up thinking it was their fault when really it's the society that decides to hide info and act like they can "exercise their legal right to choose" and use euphemisms the whole way. Dehumanizing and hiding info and not telling them of all their options is bad for everyone. We all hate abstinence only education because of that as well, so just think of that.

The only thing to say when a woman says she's pregnant is to tell her all of her options and any nearby pregnancy support centers or hotlines or websites and make sure she feels supported and is informed as possible on everything available to her, and that includes the support and choices she has like all the social safety nets and financial stuff and daycare and adoption and safe surrender/safe haven and so on and so forth, as well as what is happening with her unborn, and what an abortion is.

I just recently came across a post of a picture of abortion victims, and someone there posted that it wasn't an abortion and it was propaganda, and it made me realize that they really don't know what abortion looks like and that they are also told that anything showing abortion or describing abortion is just propaganda and they shouldn't believe it. I have come across a lot of abortion supporters that are very abortion illiterate, and if you try to describe it to them, they'll deny it and act like that's not what happens. These poor people have no idea what they are supporting. You can go see what the abortion doctors themselves say about the procedure, yet if you describe it to them or show them pictures or medical diagrams showing the procedure, pro-choicers are told not to believe this, that it must be propaganda from the pro-lifers who are distorting the truth, or make up lies about how abortions are always early enough to where it isn't developed yet and thus there is no blood or gore, or it doesn't even look human yet, or whatever else. I literally just came across a page where the admins were defended deleting comments and posts, and granted I didn't see the comments they were referring to so they could have been ones with the more conservative and religious side actually lying a bit, but usually you get that about the unborn or abortion in general, but they were going on and on about the "anti-woman forced birth opinions" and that they rely on lies. They actually think that people who are pro-life are lying about it all. This spreads even more of a stereotype that they are, especially when they delete comments so that no one can see what the person says and no further dialogue can be attained, so they have to take the admin's word for it, and once again advocates for a lack of knowledge of abortion, the unborn, other choices, how it hurts woman, and so on and so forth. Anything about any of that is not allowed to seep through to the media, and I've noticed pages who lean pro-choice will delete and block pro-lifers and pro-life comments more than any other pages delete and block. It's total censorship, and ensuring a world full of a lack of information on this subject. These people are so brainwashed it's ridiculous.

It is odd when you have pro-choicers advocating for lack of knowledge of it and not showing what it is. This is what you SUPPORT! This is the choice you proudly stand behind and say you think people should be allowed to choose, yet you can't stand to see it or know what it is about. That should be clue that you perhaps don't actually want to be supporting it. There was this controversy where a paper refused to show an accurate image of  a baby at 20-24 weeks and labelled it as being controversial. I love the quote Secular Pro-Live gave, and I couldn't have said it better myself, "If you find an accurate image controversial, it's time to reconsider your philosophy." 

There was also this one where three physicians were planning on giving presentations on risks of abortions, and their presentations were cancelled because of that. This just ensures even further that women will be more likely to end up going through all of this because they weren't told about it, because pro-choicers really like to censor those things.

It has been proven to work where pro-lifers by abortion clinics tell the girls coming in of other options instead of just shouting at them or calling them names, and they actually choose something else. When they know they actually do have other choices, they choose them. This shows that the people around them either weren't giving them enough support or weren't being honest and telling them of their other choices (though perhaps they honestly didn't know either.) Everyone (especially pro-choicers) always says that women only choose abortion because they feel like they have no other choice, and that's true. The thing is, they do have other choices. They just don't get told about them that much, and everyone's first response to a pregnancy is, "you know you can exercise your legal right to choose, right?" It all becomes about politics, and making sure they know first and foremost that they can abort, and that helps to ignore the other options and support for those other options as well. Supporting a choice that you know women only choose because they have no other choice, especially if you don't spend that much time on the other choices, is NOT pro-choice. It is anti-choice. I have heard so many sentiments from pro-choicers who prove that they really only care about that one choice. To them, even if you support all the other choices, you're a bad person if you don't support this one. One would think they would want to get rid of that choice and totally help out all the other choices, since they are so "pro-woman" and "pro-choice" and women only choose it because they feel like they have to and it isn't even a good choice (actually the worst) anyway. If it were that great of a choice, women would be lining up to do it with pride and utter happiness, or at the very least, not choose it because they feel like they have no other choice. To keep supporting something like that, and then claim to actually care about women, is just sick. Perhaps the pro-lifers that actively work towards getting women more choices, better and fixing the choices, and them knowing of their choices more should actually be the ones to be called pro-choice.

They aren't told what the unborn goes through, they aren't shown any pictures or ultrasounds, or pictures of abortion victims (or if they see them they are taught that it must be wrong and just political weaponry from the pro-lifers, or they are so gung-ho about their own position that they don't really pay attention to them) and a lot of people have turned pro-life or found out about what happens to the unborn just by seeing ultrasounds or sonograms or pictures or abortions or reading info about the unborn, and realizing that what they thought was "just a clump of cells" actually looked like a human, and had already formed this and that and the other. The pro-choice side is full of a lot of outdated mottos that still get spread around even though it isn't the 70s anymore and we have much better technology and a greater knowledge of science. People in their side just don't spread around the new info, and keep feeding people lies. Here are some links to just a few of the stories I have seen where people describe how their former side and the abortion industry is full of lack of knowledge, and I'll put parts of note below them...

Why I Lost Faith in the Pro-Choice Movement
"My first tipoff that something was wrong in the pro-choice movement was when I realized that there was a great fear of information. A year or two after Sara's situation, another friend found herself in a crisis pregnancy (also due to failed contraception), and was wrestling with the issue of abortion. She had asked me to find out how far her baby would have developed at this point, so I did some research online.

I found some images and descriptions of fetal development, and was amazed by how much I hadn't known. For all the time I'd spent talking about abortion rights, I'd never bothered to learn the details about what, exactly, happens within a woman's womb when she's pregnant, and no one had encouraged me to do so. I had never heard that fetuses have arms and legs and tastebuds at eight weeks gestation, or that they began practicing breathing at 11 weeks. I paused and thought about that for a long time. It didn't make me question my pro-choice stance, but for the first time I could understand how someone could be uncomfortable with abortion.

The biggest thing I noticed, however, was that pro-life sites had this information in abundance. The pro-lifers encouraged women to educate themselves about the details of pregnancy, suggested that they view ultrasounds to know what was happening within their bodies, and offered resources to educate women about all aspects of the female reproductive system.

On the pro-choice side, it was a totally different story.

I had started my research on websites for abortion providers and various feminist organizations, which I had assumed would equip women to make informed choices by providing them with full information. To my concern and surprise, I could not find one shred of information about fetal development on any websites associated with the pro-choice movement. When I read their literature about the details of abortion procedures, they were full of insulting euphemisms. Even when describing second trimester abortions, they would use eerily vague terms talking about "emptying the uterus" of its "contents." I felt like I had been transported back to Victorian England, where women weren't supposed to be told hard facts, even about their own bodies, because they might get all flustered."

Kristen Hatten's pro-choice feminism to pro-life feminism story
“Sadie spoke of human rights, ethics, and science. She explained the provable fact that the unborn human is a distinct and separate life from the moment of his or her conception. She shared the statistic that in more than 99 percent of cases, the pregnant woman willingly engaged in the act that led to her pregnancy. How then, she asked, could she treat her baby as an unwanted alien invader, a nutrient-stealing parasite, in order to justify its killing?

She also talked about the harm done to women by the abortion procedure – physically, mentally, and emotionally. She talked about the brutality of abortion, how the fetus is often ripped limb from limb, and how the woman is often left wounded – and sometimes infertile. She explained “partial-birth abortion.” She made me understand the cycle of violence that is continued when a woman, feeling oppressed herself, passes that oppression on to her children.

I asked to see the photographs to which she’d alluded during our conversation. I saw them. I saw proof of what abortion does, and the lie that says that an unborn child is just a “clump of cells” or a “blob of tissue” was destroyed for me – forever. My ignorance was gone, and I was pro-life.

Don’t get me wrong – I’d seen those images before, but I’d never really seen them. I did not see the humanity of the children shown in those images until my heart was opened to the fact that I was looking at a human being. As a pro-choice woman, when I was shown graphic images of aborted fetuses – held up in front of clinics, at protests, or seen accidentally while surfing the Web – I did not see murdered human beings. I saw my own opinion, assaulted. I saw crazy people holding gross signs, and my mind glossed over the rest.

To this day, I have many friends of various opinions on abortion. I don’t know a single person who has been converted by an unexpected graphic image waved in his or her face, and I don’t like the idea of making a clinic look like a safe haven from the scary people outside. But when I was ready, and asked to see them, graphic images of intact and aborted unborn children were the final nail in the coffin of my pro-abortion beliefs.

I kept saying to Sadie, “Oh, my God. You just made me pro-life.”

I spent the next week on the Internet trying to “un-convince” myself of the truth of abortion, hoping that something would make me pro-choice again. But you can’t unlearn what you’ve learned. Information made me pro-life. Information about the early feminists and their pro-life views convinced me that Sadie told the truth when she called herself a feminist.”


I Used To Be Pro-Choice...But... stories from people who went from pro-choice to pro-life
"The whole reason I was pro-choice was based on lies. I was very loyal to Planned Parenthood, but, when I did some research, I found out that a lot of the things they were telling me were false. I didn't know that most of the world's top scientists have said that the fetus is human, and I never really thought about it. I also didn't know that PP was lying when they said 1 million women died as a result of illegal abortions in 1972. The number is closer to 39. There were so many lies that I decided to see what the pro-lifers were really all about, instead of relying on what PP had to say about them. That's when I learned that the fetus deserves to live just as much as any of us. I still believe that if the mother's life is in danger, she can choose, along with the father of the child if he is in the picture, to save her life instead of the child's. But any other time, I now think abortion is murder."

"At one time I was for abortion, until I learned what it is actually about. I was greatly mislead by the media"


Here is a great blog post from Secular Pro-Life mentioning how parents got upset at people distributing fetal models and cards (strictly about prenatal development, not aborted fetus dolls or anything like that and not having anything to do with abortion).


Here is an interesting story, My Fake Abortion Story
"I decided to kick my experiment up a notch and sought out the Pro Life Club on campus. I stormed into their meeting, and said, "Keep your fetus worshippers away from me! If I want to kill this thing I will, I will even kill it myself.'' They were very nice, they tried to calm me down, tell me facts about my child, about abortion, and if I ever heard my other options.

Then I went to our campus' Pro Choice club. I told them I want to abort, had an appointment, but I wasn't sure. If they could me information or facts. I received none. Just warm smiles, ''comfy'' talk, and reassurance about my decision.

Personally I am neither Pro Choice/abortion/ solution/life . I try to see it logically and scientifically . Yet the attention I received from the Pro Choice club versus the Pro Life club was insufficient . It was downright scary. These women who are passionate about their bodies...don't seem to know anything about them, and even seem terrified about the facts surrounding them. I almost felt like the blind being led by the blind."

A post about someone's pro-abortion friend seeing an illustration of what happens in an abortion of a 23 week old baby, and realizing she doesn't think she's ok with that.

"I spend a lot of time reading articles. While my friend was visiting, I was reading an article that contained the illustration displayed here, of a D&E abortion of a 23 week old baby.

My friend looked over my shoulder and gasped.

“What are you LOOKING at?” she asked, horrified.

“That’s an abortion,” I answered plainly.

“But, that’s a baby!” she exclaimed. “That doesn’t happen!”

“That’s a 23 week abortion. That happens quite frequently, actually.”"

I tried to remain calm.

She’s not stupid. Really, honestly, she isn’t. She’s actually incredibly intelligent, educated. She has a degree.

I truly believe that my friend has been deceived.

How else could an intelligent, loving individual be completely “pro-choice”?

Deception.

People are told what they want to hear, that it’s “just a blob of tissue,” or they’re told, “abortion is OK in certain circumstances,” and most importantly, they’re told “abortion is a woman’s right.” But when they are presented with the reality that what they thought was a blob of tissue was actually a baby, a human being, a lot of them change their minds. Yes, a lot.

She just stared at the illustration with pain in her eyes.

“I don’t know if I’m OK with that.” She said with finality."

Here is a post about reporters getting to see abortions. 
"“This is kind of gruesome,” I said. “Was there some special reason she didn’t want to have her baby?”

“She wanted an abortion,” the nurse replied, “and we’re required by law to do what she wants.”

The doctor had been listening to our conversation. As he stood up, he said, “At this point in the pregnancy, the products of conception aren’t much.” I knew the emphasis on “products of conception” was for my benefit.

Is that what you have in that pail? I thought. Does that make it easier for you? I did not have the courage to put into words what I was thinking. I’ve always regretted that.

I stepped forward and peered into the pail. This time I broke out in a cold sweat. Dear Jesus! I thought. I just saw someone murdered! And I just stood and watched! Why did I come down here? How will I ever put this out of my mind?

“Are you OK?” the voice of the nurse brought me back.

“I’m sorry,” I smiled weakly. “I just never realized what it was like.

Do you assist with these all the time?”

“More than I care to admit,” the nurse said. “Actually, I can handle one, but when they start to come back for the second or third time, it really gets to me.”

As I left the operating room, I shook my head in an attempt to get the horrible vision out of my head. I couldn’t. It was there; it would always be there: a little hand…a little rib cage.

The author goes on to describe nightmares he had about the abortion. Now he is a pro-life activist."

Also, medical students can turn from pro-choice to pro-life by witnessing abortions and be disgusted by them, as even the scientific and medical minded can be tricked by society and not realize what an abortion actually is. Here is a story about just that.

"To begin, I must say that until yesterday, Friday, July 2, 2004, I was strongly pro-choice."

"This summer, I was accepted into a pre-medical program in NYC in which we are allowed to shadow doctors and see all sorts of medical procedures. When given the opportunity to see an abortion, I did not hesitate to accept the offer."

"The cervix was held open with a crude metal instrument and a large transparent tube was stuck inside of the woman. Within a matter of seconds, the machine’s motor was engaged and blood, tissue, and tiny organs were pulled out of their environment into a filter. A minute later, the vacuum choked to a halt. The tube was removed, and stuck to the end was a small body and a head attached haphazardly to it, what was formed of the neck snapped. The ribs had formed with a thin skin covering them, the eyes had formed, and the inner organs had begun to function. The tiny heart of the fetus, obviously a little boy, had just stopped — forever. The vacuum filter was opened, and the tiny arms and legs that had been torn off of the fetus were accounted for. The fingers and toes had the beginnings of their nails on them. The doctors, proud of their work, reassembled the body to show me. Tears welled up in my eyes as they removed the baby boy from the table and shoved his body into a container for disposal. I have not been able to think of anything since yesterday at 10:30 besides what that baby boy might have been. I don’t think that people realize what an abortion actually is until they see it happen. I have been tortured by these images – so real and so vivid – for two days now…and I was just a spectator.

Never again will I be pro-choice, and never again will I support the murder of any human being, no matter their stage in life."

This is about someone observing abortions for a book, and a couple examples from that.

"In the first session, a woman named Peggy sits with a clinic worker named Carye as the worker explains the procedure. Carye is telling her about how to prepare for her abortion. Korn says:

Peggy’s mind is off on a different track. ‘Is it true that at six weeks it has a heartbeat?’ Carye says nobody is sure exactly when the heart begins beating, and tries to deflect that concern. “This pregnancy and you are the same thing,” she adds, explaining to Peggy that prior to twenty-four weeks the fetus cannot survive outside her womb. (25)

The beating heart of an unborn baby can be heard with a fetal heart monitor or seen on an ultrasound screen in the first trimester. According to The Mayo Clinic “Pregnancy Week by Week” Timeline:

Just four weeks after conception, the neural tube along your baby’s back is closing and your baby’s heart is pumping blood.

Here you can see the image of an unborn baby’s heart working at four weeks and four days after conception. Scientists have known for decades when a baby’s heart started beating.

The clinic worker, rather than giving accurate information to the patient, answers evasively and tries to steer the subject away from the baby’s humanity. “The pregnancy [i.e., not the “the baby” or even “the fetus”] and you are the same thing.” Actually, the “pregnancy” and the mother are not the same thing. The baby has his or her own DNA, circulatory system, and developing organs. The goal of the clinic worker seems to be geared towards shifting Peggy’s view away from seeing her baby as a living being and toward convincing Peggy to accept the “it’s just part of your body” viewpoint that many abortion advocates share.

This is not unbiased counseling."

There was also one of the most extensive interviews of postabortion women ever done. There are tons of scary statistics here, but I'll post the ones that show they felt they had a lack of info below, which is actually most of them.

"82% said there abortion decision was “not at all” “thought out.” Only 9% felt that it was moderately well thought out and only 8% believe the decision had been well thought out.

“Do you feel you had all the necessary information to make a decision?” 93% said no.

40 – 50% of women surveyed were wavering in their choice and were actually hoping for another option when they first went to speak with a counselor.

91% reported that their abortion counselors offer little or no help in exploring her decision and options.

Only 4% of the women gave their abortion counselors high grades for being informative and helpful.

66% believe that there abortion counselors are strongly biased toward selling them on abortion is the best solution.

Only 9% believe that their counselors had been free of pro-choice bias

90% of women surveyed felt they did not have enough information to make an informed choice.

76% complained they were not given an accurate description of the procedure.

For example, there was no mention of the physical pain involved.

Only 16% felt the counseling session had adequately informed them about the technical aspects of the abortion procedure

over 80% remarked that there were little or no discussion of risks

only 8% believe their counselors had adequately discuss the surgical risks of the procedure.

Over 90% of women stated that the biological nature of the fetus had not been discussed during a counseling session.

Only 2% said that the fetal development had been thoroughly or even moderately discussed

asked whether they felt “well-informed about the procedure and fetus through other sources before seeking an abortion.” 90% claimed they had little or no prior knowledge and 5% stated that they had only moderate prior knowledge. Only 4% claim to have been well informed about abortion, fetal development, through prior knowledge.

80% felt their counselors had not encouraged – or even attempt to discourage – questions about the abortion. only 5 to 13% believe that their counselors were open and willing to answer their questions. When questions were asked, only 8% thought the questions were thoroughly answered. 8% believe they receive moderately complete answers and 52 to 71% said the questions were trivialized or avoided

21% were at a Planned Parenthood facility for their counseling and/or abortions. 60% stated that there Planned Parenthood counselor had very strongly encouraged them to choose abortion as the “best solution to their problems. Over 90% of those encouraged to abort by their planned parenthood counselor said there was a strong chance they would’ve chosen against the abortion if they had not been so strongly encouraged to abort by others, including a counselor

Of the Planned Parenthood patients, over 60% were still hoping to find an alternative to abortion when they went for counseling. Only 25% were already firm in their abortion choice. All felt their Planned Parenthood counselor did little or nothing to help them explore their decision. 89% said the Planned Parenthood counselor was strongly biased in favor of abortion.

95% of Planned Parenthood counselors gave “little or no biological information about the fetus which the abortion would destroy.” And over 80% of the Planned Parenthood counselors gave little or no information about the potential health risks

Only 13% felt “adequately prepared” by Planned Parenthood counselors"

Mom Baby God is the name of a pro-abortion play written by an abortion supporter after she went undercover at a Students For Life of America conference and was "disturbed by how much enthusiasm there was for the pro-life issue among youth" and wanted to show her side this and "wake up the pro-abortion movement." Yet she ended up censoring fetal development because this backfired and the facts made her own audience question their pro-choice beliefs.
“The writer admitted during the Question & Answer session after the premiere that she had to rewrite several scenes of the play relating to fetal development, because they were actually causing her audience to question their pro-abortion beliefs.”


There are also a lot of abortion doctors or abortion clinic workers that tell their stories of how they were specifically told to lie to their patients and not let them know about the development of the unborn. They know they are supposed to do this, because if they ever knew the truth, the girl wouldn't choose abortion, and then they would be out of money. You can find a lot of them on Clinic Quotes, especially in these sections, and here is a facebook page for that site as well, Clinic Quotes facebook page, and there is also another facebook page affiliated with that, Abortion Quote of the Day, and I will post some below.

http://clinicquotes.com/former-planned-parenthood-worker-describes-counseling-at-her-clinic/

Former Planned Parenthood worker Catherine Anthony Adair :

“In fact, clinic workers would purposefully avoid providing information on fetal development, what the child looked like, the child’s anatomical development and the pain he or she could feel. I was continuously reminded that when referring to the baby, the appropriate terminology was “clump of cells” or “contents of the uterus.”

Planned Parenthood’s mission is to pressure as many women into having an abortion as it can. Those in charge know that can’t be accomplished if they refer to the child as a “baby.”

Then women would know what was really growing inside them: a little person with a beating heart, functioning nervous system, tiny hands and feet. The child is entirely disregarded. There is no counseling, no care, no waiting and no discussion. Once a pregnancy is confirmed, it is off to termination.”

Catherine Anthony Adair “Planned Parenthood lies about itself” Washington Examiner, 11/22/11. Quoted in Abortion Industry’s “Mission Is To Pressure Women”, Afterabortion.org, Elliot Institute, January 12, 2012.

http://clinicquotes.com/clinic-worker-we-would-find-their-weakness-and-work-on-it/

Former Clinic Worker Deborah Henry:

“Many women could not afford to have babies, so we would use examples- like the price of babies’ shoes, the price of clothing, how much it cost to raise a baby. If they weren’t finished with their education, the hindrance it would have on their education, how would they find a baby sitter, who was going to take care of that baby for them? We would find their weakness and work on them…All they were told about the procedure itself was that they would experience slight cramping similar to menstrual cramps, and that was it. They were not told about the development of the baby. They were not told about the pain the baby would be experiencing or the physical effects or the emotional effects it would have on them. They had no idea who was going to be there to help them when they fell apart afterward…Some of the women were a little apprehensive about it. We were told that in explaining to them we could never use the word “babies.” It was always tissues, tissues of cells, or clusters of cells or products of conception.”

“The women were never given any type of alternatives to the abortion. It was just automatically assumed that they knew what they wanted. They were never told about adoption agencies. They were never told about people out there who were willing to help them–to give them homes to live in, to provide them with care and even financial support. The euphemisms that are used — clusters of cells, products of conception, or just plain tissue — are all lies.”

Personal Testimony “Meet the Abortion Providers” Convention

in 2005, in Georgia, a law was proposed that would’ve allowed women coming in for abortions to see information about their unborn babies. The woman would not be forced to look at this information, but she would have the option to if she chose to. Planned Parenthood vehemently oppose the law. According to Kay Scott, who is executive director of Planned Parenthood :

“Supporters of the Woman’s Right to Know bill say it would allow time for reflection, but this bill is really about deception. …women already receive full informed consent before having an abortion…..”

Kay Scott “ABORTION: 24-HOUR-WAIT SUPPORTERS TRY TO DECEIVE” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, GA), Jan 21, 2005 pA15

http://clinicquotes.com/ultrasound-technician-shari-richard-speaks-out-about-abortion-and-ultrasounds/

Ultrasound technician Shari Richard describes how effective ultrasounds are in changing the minds of women considering abortion.

“In my own career as an ultrasound technician, I’ve been told to turn the ultrasound monitor away from pregnant women so that they wouldn’t decide against an abortion (I refused). That’s because 90% of women change their minds about having abortions after viewing their babies via sonogram.”

She goes on to tell the following story:

“For 10 years I have been an ultrasongrapher and I have witnessed the development of pre-born children. I am convinced that if every mother could see her baby on ultrasound, the abortion argument would be over. A look through the window reveals the true victim of abortion. This is why ultrasound images are often censored, for example…

In 1990, I testified on fetal development before the House and Senate committee considering the “Freedom of Choice Act.” I brought an ultrasound videotape of fully formed fetuses as young as eight weeks after conception. Representative Don Edwards (D – CA) tried to prevent me from showing the videotape.”

Shari Richard “Now Wombs Have Windows” All about Issues vol 5 # 2

http://clinicquotes.com/abortion-clinic-workers-given-instructions-at-odds-with-clinic-advertising/

One Chicago abortion clinic said the following on a brochure aimed at women considering abortions at the clinic:

“From admission to recovery, patient ease and comfort are first considerations. She is encouraged to ask questions, share feelings or misgivings.”

These were the actual instructions given to the clinic workers:

“1. Don’t tell [the] patient. The abortion will hurt.

2. Don’t discuss [the abortion] procedure or the instruments to be used in any detail.

3. Don’t answer too many questions.

Pamela Zekman and Pamela Warrick “The Abortion Profiteers” Chicago Sun-Times November 12, 1978

This article was from a long time ago but things in the abortion clinics haven’t changed much. Read about what one former Planned Parenthood clinic worker says about how the clinic counseled their patients.

http://clinicquotes.com/abortion-provider-hides-ultrasound-screen/

In the article “Abortion Providers Share Inner Conflicts” in American Medical News, a Toronto physician said she didn’t know “how and whether we [should] protect the patient from the reality of the procedure.”

She said she regularly hid the ultrasound screen.

Diane M. Gianelli, “Abortion Providers Share Inner Conflicts,” American Medical News, July 12, 1993. Quoted by Rachel MacNair “Achieving Peace in the Abortion War

http://clinicquotes.com/lying-about-whether-babies-feel-pain/

“The hardest question you get asked is ‘does the baby feel pain?’ We had to lie to them or say we don’t know.”

Former clinic worker Amy

http://clinicquotes.com/adoption-is-subversive-says-abortion-clinic-owner/

From the essay “Alternatives to Abortion and Hard Cases” Patricia Casey. This quote was from an abortionist who runs a clinic in London:

“… it is not in any way standard to offer advice on adoption.  It would be subversive….  In fact I would consider firing anyone who did this.”

Today, BBC radio four, 28 August 1996

http://clinicquotes.com/clinic-counselor-on-how-to-think-of-abortion/

When a woman in an abortion clinic voiced her concern that abortion might be killing, her counselor said

“Don’t think of it is killing. Think of it is taking blood out of your uterus to get your periods going again.”

Dr. Monte Harris Liebman and Jolie Siebold Zimmer “The Psychological Sequelae Of Abortion: Facts and Fallacy” in David Mall and Dr. Walter Watts, editors The Psychological Aspects of Abortion (Washington DC: University Publications of America, 1979) 133

http://liveactionnews.org/is-it-a-baby-clinic-workers-respond/

Carol Everett, former owner of two abortion clinics and administrator of four, said that:

Every woman has these same two questions: First, ‘Is it a baby?’ ‘No’ the counselor assures her. ‘It is a product of conception (or a blood clot, or a piece of tissue)’ Even though these counselors see six week babies daily, with arms, legs and eyes that are closed like newborn puppies, they lie to the women. How many women would have an abortion, if they told them the truth?” 

Another former clinic worker, Linda Couri, who worked at Planned Parenthood, described how she responded when a teenager considering abortion asked her the following question: “If I have an abortion, am I killing my baby?”

Couri said:

‘Kill’ is a strong word, and so is ‘baby.’ You’re terminating the product of conception.

But Couri was haunted by the girl’s question and troubled about her response. She began questioning whether providing abortions was really moral. She recalls asking her supervisor if she had done the right thing. The supervisor did not deny that abortion was killing a baby but told her that in the teenager’s case, abortion was a “necessary evil.” Struck by the use of the word “evil,” Couri continued to question her position at the clinic. Eventually, she left, and now she is a pro-life speaker.

Clinic worker Peg Johnston, who works in an abortion clinic in New York, revealed how she dealt with women who said they were killing their babies in a 2005 article.

Johnston acknowledges that many women suspect that having an abortion is killing a baby. It seems that when directly misleading women fails, she uses semantics to separate the concept of “murder” from “killing.”

On the blog “Abortion Witness” in a post entitled “Talking about the babies: saying the things we cannot say,” a clinic worker discusses a similar situation when she describes a conversation with a patient.

“You’ve written in your chart that you feel guilty.” I say to the patient I am screening. “Can you tell me more about this? Why do you feel guilty?”

“I feel guilty because I am killing my baby,” she answers. “That’s why I feel guilty.”

The first time an abortion patient said this to me, I was completely unprepared for it. Although I was a long-time pro-choice activist, a Ph.D. who had studied feminist theory , and a former abortion patient myself, nothing in my experience had prepared me to talk with a woman about killing babies. “Oh no,” I said to her as gently as I could. “It’s not a baby- it’s just tissue.”

But the clinic worker later came to feel that her response was wrong.

She describes how pro-choice activists have trouble with using the word “baby” to describe the child who is killed in an abortion and says:

We all know that an unborn child dies in each abortion. And the majority of abortion care workers accept responsibility for our roles in these deaths. We have, for various reasons, determined for ourselves that having a part in these deaths is an important- and ethical- thing for us to do[.]

http://clinicquotes.com/just-a-clump-of-cells/
A woman getting an abortion at three months related the following conversation with an abortion clinic counselor:

ultrasound of the baby at three months

“Are there psychological problems?” I continued.

“Hardly ever. Don’t worry,” I was told.

“What does a three-month-old fetus look like?”

“Just a clump of cells,” she answered, matter-of-factly.

Later the woman said:

“When I saw that a three month old “clump of cells” had fingers and toes and was a tiny perfectly formed baby, I became really hysterical. I’d been lied to and misled, and I’m sure thousands of other women are being just as poorly informed and badly served.”

Quoted by David C Reardon, Randy Alcorn “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2000) 198

http://clinicquotes.com/woman-who-worked-for-dr-tiller-we-would-coax-women-into-abortions/

Former clinic worker Luhra Tivis, who worked for Dr. George Tiller, stated:

“We were told specifically to coax [pregnant women to have an abortion] by any verbal means available.”

Quoted by Cal Thomas, “Celebrate Life” Oct 1991


http://clinicquotes.com/former-clinic-worker-ellen/

And Then There Were None, a ministry that helps former clinic workers, told the following story in one of their emails:

“Ellen” recalled her time working at Planned Parenthood.  Like many others, she felt uncomfortable with her job there, but it paid the bills and offered the benefits she needed.  She was hired on as a patient educator and was reprimanded for quietly giving patients information on adoption services and resource centers in the counseling rooms, because she was not pushing the sale of abortion onto women who weren’t sure what they were going to do. ”It took a huge physical toll,” Ellen said. “I would always come home from work and cry.”

http://clinicquotes.com/abortion-clinic-worker-sallie-tisdale/
"A twenty-one-year-old woman, unemployed, uneducated, without family, in the fifth month of her fifth pregnancy. A forty-two-year-old mother of teenagers, shocked by her condition, refusing to tell her husband. A twenty-three-year-old motlier of two having her seventh abortion, and many women in their thirties having their first. . . .Oh, the ignorance . . . .Some swear they have not had sex, many do not know what a uterus is, how sperm and egg meet, how sex makes babies. . . .They come so young, snapping gum, sockless and sneakered, and their shakily applied eyeliner smears when they cry. . . .I cannot imagine them as mothers. I am speaking in a matter-of-fact voice about 'the tissue' and 'the contents' when the woman suddenly catches my eye and asks, 'How big is the baby now?'. . . .1 gauge, and sometimes lie a little, weaseling around its infantile features until its clinging power slackens. But when I look in the basin, among the curdlike blood clots, I see an elfin thorax, attenuated, its pencilline ribs all in parallel rows with tiny knobs of spine rounding upwards. A translucent arm and hand swim beside. . . .I have fetus dreams, we all do here: dreams of abortions one after the other; of buckets of blood splashed on the walls; trees full of crawling fetuses. . . ."


http://clinicquotes.com/former-clinic-worker-dina-madsen/
"My official title at the mill was “health worker.” I did various duties-lab work, leading groups (deceiving women about their abortions), “advocating” (deceiving women during their abortions), and assisting the abortionist, which included helping during the abortion and checking to make sure all the parts of the baby were there in the collection jar afterwards."

"There was no medical background required for the job, you just had to be able to accept abortion. And of all the women I worked with several of those women, at least half of them had had abortions and had repeat abortions. And yet they wouldn’t let any of these guys [abortionists] touch them with a 10 foot pole. Never. And yet every day they told these other women, “they’re wonderful doctors, they won’t hurt you. They’re the best at what they do. He’s really a nice man.” And sometimes the women would ask, “have you ever had an abortion?”And of course they wouldn’t say, “yes but not by him.”

I have to admit though I didn’t really have much sympathy for them.[the women] In my view, well you got yourself into this position, tough it out.

So I was looking at these babies as something to be disposed of. I didn’t see them as important, I didn’t see life as important, I didn’t value my own life, therefore how can I value anyone else’s life. And if these women were stupid enough to get pregnant, then it was their fault. And that’s how I felt.  And that was how the majority of the staff felt.

Some of the directors I worked with had eight or nine abortions, and we were the same people who would look down on these women when they came in for repeat abortions. How stupid can you get, you know?

And every time she’d come in for an abortion or a D&E, we’d stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp – some of these charts were filled in on both sides. And the doctor would take a look at them and say, “Gee, if she tries real hard she can come in again before Christmas.” And this is somebody who cares about women? I don’t think so."

"I just took it as the general consensus, the general population does, that it is a choice, unfortunately it’s often presented as the only choice.

A woman would call, and I’d make her feel that this was her choice and that we were going to support her in this choice. Because the women are looking for someone to support their decision.”

http://clinicquotes.com/naral-opposes-law-that-would-allow-women-a-choice-to-see-ultrasounds/

NARAL opposes law that would allow women a CHOICE to see ultrasounds

A Michigan law requiring abortion providers to ask women if they want to see the ultrasound before they consented to abortions was proposed. The women would not be forced to see the ultrasound. This law mandated that abortion providers perform an ultrasound for their patients. In many ways, this is a safety issue, for the only way to know for sure how far along a woman is is to do an ultrasound. Also, an ultrasound is the only way to make sure a woman does not have an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy. Most clinics, including Planned Parenthood clinics, routinely do ultrasounds before abortions.

But clinics didn’t want women to have a chance to see their unborn baby. According

REBEKAH WARREN of Lansing-based abortion rights group MARAL Pro-Choice, gave NARAL’s position:

“…requiring a doctor to ask a patient if she’d like to see an ultrasound in proximity to an abortion is a move Warren has described as “emotionally manipulative.”…

So is it emotionally manipulative to allow a woman the CHOICE to look at information that might let her make a more informed decision? Keep in mind that the woman would not be forced to view anything.

https://www.facebook.com/ClinicQuotes/posts/563952570339214
“I have never yet counseled anybody to have the baby. I’m also doing women’s counseling on campus at Albany State, and there I am expected to present alternatives. Whereas at the abortion clinic you aren’t really expected to.”

–abortion counselor

James Tunstead Burtchaell, editor Rachel Weeping and Other Essays About Abortion (New York: Universal Press 1982) p 42 From The Ambivalence of Abortion Linda Bird Francke

http://clinicquotes.com/former-abortionist-joseph-randallwhat-happened-then-was-a-christian-girl-came-into-my-life-and-influenced-me-basically-the-reason-she-came-into-my-life-to-start-with-is-because-the-only-prerequisite/
"When we started, we lost two nurses. They couldn’t take looking at it. Some other staff was lost. The turnover got greater when we started doing the D&Es and mostly, as I said, the ultrasounds. So I think the ultrasound was one of the keys there. The other thing, too, is because the women who are having the abortions are never allowed to look at the ultrasound, because we know even if they heard the heart beat that many times they wouldn’t have the abortion, and you wouldn’t want that. No money in that."

http://clinicquotes.com/former-clinic-worker-carol-everett-on-abortions-after-rape/

Former clinic worker and owner Carol Everett on abortions for rape victims:

“Abortion is a skillfully marketed product sold to a woman when she needs help.The mother has already been the victim of that crime [rape], and we don’t traumatize that victim a second time by aborting her.”

William Saletan Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (Berkley: California: University of California Press, 2004) 172

http://clinicquotes.com/chicago-abortionist-on-sales-tactics/

From the owner of an abortion clinic:

“We have to sell abortions. We have to use all the tactics we can because just like my other businesses [a trucking firm, a pollution control business, and a real estate sales office] we have competition. Now, we have to go by the rules, but rules have to be broken if we are gonna get things done.”

Pamela Zekman and Pamela Warrick “The Abortion Profiteers” Chicago Sun-Times November 12, 1978, 12

http://clinicquotes.com/theye-doing-it-for-the-money-says-former-clinic-worker/
Former abortion clinic worker Nina Whitten says:

“Every single transaction that we did was cash money. We wouldn’t take a check, or even a credit card. If you didn’t have the money, forget it. It was unusual at all for me to take 10,000 to 15,000 a day to the bank – in cash. It’s a lie when they tell you they’re doing it to help women because they’re not. They’re doing it for the money.”

“Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet” New Dimensions, October 1990, 31

https://www.facebook.com/AbortionQuoteOfTheDay/posts/148804571986947
"I'm sure that there have been doctors involved in performing abortions who have hated women. ....If you felt at all sadistic towards women, that was an area where you had them totally in your power."

Bertram Wainer, M.D, abortionist The Abortion Dilemma: Personal Views on a Public Issue. Contributors: Miriam Claire - author. Publisher: Insight Books. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 128-130



http://clinicquotes.com/former-abortionist-dr-george-flesh/

Dr. Flesh talked about the experience he had that led to him quitting abortion practice:

“… a married couple came to me and requested an abortion. Because the patient’s cervix was rigid, I was unable to dilate it and perform the procedure. I asked her to return in a week, when the cervix would be softer.

The couple returned and told me that they had changed their minds and wanted to “keep the baby.” I delivered the baby seven months later. Years later, I played with little Jeffrey in the pool at the tennis club where his parents and I were members. He was happy and beautiful. I was horrified to think that only a technical obstacle had prevented me from terminating Jeffrey’s potential life. The connection between the six-week-old human embryo and a laughing child stopped being an abstraction for me. While hugging my sons each morning, I started to think of the vacuum aspirator that I would use two hours later.”