17-year-old pressured by clinic to have a late-term abortion, refuses
BY SARAH TERZO
- Thu Oct 31, 2013 10:10 EST
October 30, 2013 (LiveActionNews) – I recently read an account from a 17-year-old who was 24 weeks pregnant and was pressured by abortion clinic workers to abort her baby. The testimony appeared in the book Bitter Fruit: Women’s Experiences with Unplanned Pregnancy, Abortion, and Adoption. I did not find this book to be biased towards the pro-life position. The author seems to take, as far as is possible, a neutral stand. Nowhere in the book does she condemn abortion or claim that adoption or parenting are better options.
When 17-year-old Darla (last name not given) became pregnant, her mother wanted her to have an abortion. In Darla’s own words:
I didn’t want to do it, but it was like I was being dragged. The first thing they did was an ultrasound, and I think I was 24 weeks pregnant. So I had a week legally left.
At 24 weeks, the unborn baby was at the end of the 2nd trimester. At this time, the baby is fully formed. He or she reacts to sudden, loud noises, and, according to the Endowment for Human Development: “This response is very much like what adults and children exhibit in the same situation.” She can feel pain, and has a sense of taste. She breathes amniotic fluid. She also sleeps and dreams. REM sleep has been observed in unborn babies as early as 18 weeks.
33.6 % (over a third) of unborn babies born at 24 weeks survive. (Cara Acred The Abortion Debate (Independence Educational Publishers, 2012)
You can see pictures of babies aborted at 24 weeks here.
Darla goes on to say:
I saw her [the baby] actually on the ultrasound, of course. I was 17 years old, I wasn’t going to say, “Turn the machine around; I don’t want to see.” And when I saw her, I knew that I wasn’t going to do it.
Darla says that her mother and the clinic workers argued with her about her decision to have her baby.
So we spent the whole day over there, crying and arguing with the doctors and staff like that. When it came down to signing the piece of paper that said I could die during the procedure, I said no, I wouldn’t do it. We went all the way up to the director of the clinic. They were saying it was best for me, because I was young. My mom was really pushing for it too, so they stood by her. Maybe she was trying to get people to convince me. …They were trying to convince me that it was safe, that in years nobody had died or whatever, that it was relatively safe.
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