“Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress.”¹ So begins an essay by Professor Robert George, a senior fellow with The Witherspoon Institute and member of the Presidents Council on Bioethics.  It’s a rather strong assertion, but also an accurate one.  It seems a lot of people are ignorant – many by choice – of what abortion truly is and why it matters as a topic of public policy, as well as personal faith. In this article, I hope to answer these often unasked questions.

Abortion has probably been the single most divisive topic in American politics since before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.  Taxes, unemployment, national defense, and even gay marriage are tame subjects in comparison to abortion.  This topic is both religious and a matter of public policy.  On the eve of the 2008 Presidential Election, abortion has again come to the forefront.  On one side, Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden are strongly pro-choice and have received high marks from pro-abortion groups Planned Parenthood and NARAL.  On the other side, Senator John McCain has a strong pro-life voting record and is endorsed by National Right to Life Coalition.  His running mate, Governor Sarah Palin, not only has strong pro-life views, but she is a living example of the pro-life worldview.  In a nation where 90% of babies are aborted after being identified in utero as having Downs Syndrome, Governor Palin and her husband Todd knew their youngest baby, Trig, deserved to live, even after finding out (while he was still in the womb) that Trig had Downs.  It’s important to our nation, both politically and socially, that people understand what abortion is and what the Bible has to say about the unborn.

In a 2004 Barna Group survey, 33% of born-again Christians found abortion to be morally acceptable, only slightly lower than the 45% of the general population that believes abortion is a moral choice!  This is disturbing to me, but I take small consolation in the fact that only 4% of Evangelical Christians agreed.² A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in September 2008 found 49% of respondents believed abortion should be legal all, or most of the time, and 47% believe it should be illegal with few or no exceptions.³ I firmly believe that the key to reducing this acceptance of abortion is to spread awareness of what abortion really is and how it’s accomplished. 

In the broader sense of the term, abortion refers to the end of a pregnancy with the death of the child.  Some abortions occur spontaneously, and are commonly referred to as “miscarriages”.  Other abortions, and the ones to which we refer in this article are “induced abortions”, where a physician knowingly and intentionally causes the death of the child and his or her expulsion from the uterus.  Any time we use the term “abortion” in this article, we’ll be referring to induced abortions.  Abortion supporters avoid using the terms baby, child, human, or person.  Instead, they prefer the word “fetus”. While that word correctly identifies the stage of human development, it is a stage of human development, just as infant, toddler, and adolescent also describe stages of development.  Let us not strip the child of his or her humanity by forgetting that.  Let’s be accurate as we look at abortion.  “Abortion ends a pregnancy by destroying and removing the developing child. That baby’s heart has already begun to beat by the time the mother misses her period and begins to wonder if she might be pregnant (about 31 days after the mother’s last menstrual period or LMP). Surgical abortions are usually not performed before seven weeks, or 49 days LMP. By that time, the baby has identifiable arms and legs (day 45) and displays measurable brain waves (about 40 days). During the seventh through the tenth weeks, when the majority of abortions are performed, fingers and genitals appear and the child’s face is recognizably human.”⁴ 

How do abortionists do their dirty work?  There are a number of methods, all designed to kill a vulnerable human child.  Some are surgical in nature, and others are chemical.  Some work best in the first trimester of pregnancy, and others work better later on.  In order for the reader to understand the horrors that occur behind the deceptively clean doors of an abortion clinic, allow me to briefly detail each method. 

1. Suction aspiration, also known as vacuum curettage: This is the most common technique used to kill babies in their first trimester of life.⁵ A curette is a surgical tool with a sharp cutting edge like a scoop or ring at one end.  This curette is attached to a suction tube and inserted into the uterus through the dilated cervix.  The suction and the cutting edge kill and dismember the tiny baby and suck it through the tube, along with blood, amniotic fluid, and the placenta.⁶  This is the first example of what some describe as a “woman’s right”.   
2. Dilation and Curettage (D&C):  We’ve already defined a curette as a surgical instrument with a sharp-edged ring or scoop.  This procedure is very similar to vacuum curettage, except there is no suction tube involved in a D&C.  Instead of using the assistance of suction, the doctor uses a more physical scraping action to kill, cut up, and remove the baby and placenta.  It should be noted that D&C’s are not only used as a means of induced abortion.  They are used for other medical reasons as well, such as to treat abnormal uterine bleeding and to remove a baby who died naturally in utero.⁷
3. RU 486: Also known as the “French abortion pill”, this first trimester chemical murder may sound cleaner and less maudlin than surgical methods of murdering a baby, but this isn’t necessarily so, and it definitely leaves the baby just as dead.  This abortion method isn’t as simple as taking a pill and going on about life.⁸ It actually involves three trips to the abortion clinic.  The first visit includes a physical exam to try to ensure the woman is healthy enough to not suffer potentially deadly complications from RU 486 (other than the deadly intended effect on her child).  If this goes well, she is given the pills.  These block the action of progesterone, which causes the nutrient-rich lining of the uterus to disintegrate, thus starving the baby.  A couple of days later, the woman returns for a dose of artificial prostaglandins to induce labor and cause the now-dead baby to be expelled from the uterus.  For most women, this will occur during her wait at the abortion clinic, but for nearly a third of women, this will occur up to five days later when she’s at home (or at work, shopping, etc.).  She’ll then return to the clinic a couple of weeks later to confirm that her choice to kill her baby has been successful.  If not, options 1 or 2 above will come into play.  Some women have apparently died from complications relating to their choice of taking RU 486.
4. Dilation and Evacuation (D&E): Methods 1 through 3 are typically used during the first three months of a baby’s life after conception – the first trimester.  D&E is typically a method of killing babies during the second trimester – up to 6 months.  This is similar in many ways to the D&C.  However, since the baby is bigger at this stage in life, the doctor will use forceps with sharp metal jaws to grip parts of the baby in order to twist and tear them away.  This continues until the slaughtered baby’s entire dismembered body has been removed.  This is not only the method for removing the baby’s body, but also the manner of causing his death.  Due to the fact that the baby’s skull has often hardened into bone at this stage, “the skull must sometimes be compressed or crushed to facilitate removal”.⁹ Sharp edges of skull bone may lacerate the cervix during removal causing the woman to bleed profusely.¹⁰    To see an artist’s realistic illustration of this procedure, click here (WARNING: GRAPHIC).
5. Saline Amniocentesis, (Salt Poisoning): This chemical abortion procedure is used after 16 weeks of pregnancy when enough amniotic fluid has accumulated around the baby to accommodate it.  In this abortion procedure, the doctor inserts a needle through the mother’s abdomen into the uterus and withdraws as much as a cup of amniotic fluid, replacing it with concentrated saline (salt solution).  The baby is poisoned by breathing in and swallowing the saline.  He is also subjected to painful burning of his skin until he dies, usually about an hour later.  At some point within the next couple of days, the woman will go into labor and deliver her dead, burned, shriveled baby.  In an alternative method that is considered safer (for the mother), urea is used instead of saline. 
6. Prostaglandins: You may remember this term from the RU 486 section.  Prostaglandins are a chemical produced naturally by the body to assist in the birthing process.  However, in this abortion method, artificial prostaglandins are injected into the amniotic sac to induce premature labor.  Usually salt or another chemical is used first to try to ensure the baby is dead when he is delivered, but many are born alive (which begs the questions as to who kills these survivors and how).
7. Partial Birth Abortion: As if the preceding methods of abortion weren’t horrendous and barbaric enough, we come to the one so heinous as to have been the subject of several legal bans – a few of which were even declared constitutional!  Abortion providers prefer medical terms such as “Dilation and Extraction (D&X) or “intact D&E” to describe this method.  The actual procedure is more barbaric than those terms convey.  This is used to abort babies that are 20 to 32 weeks into life post-conception, or even later.  Babies born at 23 weeks often survive unless aborted first. In this procedure, the abortionist uses ultrasound to guide him as he slips his forceps into the uterus and grabs the live baby’s leg and pulls his body into birth canal, leaving only his head still in the uterus.  At this point, the helpful doctor jams scissors into the back of the live baby’s skull and spreads the tips of the scissor apart to make the wound as large as possible.  Then he sticks a suction tube into the baby’s skull and suctions the brains out.  This is the cause of death, and also allows the now-collapsed head to be removed from the uterus.¹¹ To see an illustration of a Partial Birth Abortion, click here (WARNING: GRAPHIC).

There are a few other variations and procedures, some used in order to complete what a chemical abortion did not.  But the aforementioned procedures are the majority of ways that women kill their own babies in the name of “choice” or “reproductive freedom”.  Did you find this information disturbing?  I hope so.  I fear the person who isn’t disturbed by this discussion on how babies are killed.   The kind of person who cavalierly disregards the barbarism involved by defending a woman’s “right to choose” is either ignorant of the realities, or devoid of a conscience.  These acts aren’t perpetrated on lifeless clumps of tissue – they’re deadly assaults on human children. Let’s take a glimpse inside the womb at the victims of this legalized murder.

•  Day 1:  Fertilization of the egg occurs.  All human chromosomes are present, and a new life begins. 

• Day 6:  The baby begins attaching to the uterus. 

• Day 22:  The heart begins to beat with the babies own blood, often a different type than his mother’s.  The nervous system and other internal organs begin to form.  This is well before most abortions occur. 

•  Week 5:  The baby’s hands, legs, and eyes begin to develop.

• Week 7 (see photo at right):  Our little one has distinct brain waves, nose, mouth, and lips.  Fingernails are developing, as are eyelids and toes.  He is now kicking and swimming.  This is the earliest stage at which most abortions occur (most are performed between week 7 and week 10).

• Week 8:  The baby’s organs are all in place, and cartilage is being replaced by bone.  By the end of this week, he can begin to hear his mother, among other noises.

• Week 10:  Our baby is starting to get teeth developing, and can turn his head and frown.  The frowning is understandable, as he is now able to experience his first hiccups.  He can “breathe” amniotic fluid and urinate. 

• Week 12:  As we reach the end of only the first trimester of pregnancy, we find that Junior has been able to grasp objects for about a week.  All his organ systems are functioning, and he’s developed everything he needs to experience pain, including nerves, spinal cord, and thalamus.  The vocal cords are complete, and he can be found sucking his thumb. 

• Week 14:  The baby continues to grow, and his heart now pumps several quarts of his own blood each day!

• Week 16 (Month 4): As the baby continues to grow, his body starts pumping out 25 quarts of blood per day.  He can now have dream sleep. 

• Month 5 (see photo at right):  This month starts off with week 20, which is the earliest that partial-birth abortions are performed.  The child can recognize his mommy’s voice.  Babies born during this month can routinely be saved.  During the next couple of months, he will grasp his umbilical cord when he feels it, and his kicking, moving, and hiccupping is often noticeably more pronounced. 

•  Months 7-9:  This is the last trimester.  “Eyeteeth are present.  The baby opens and closes his eyes.  The baby is using four of the five senses (vision, hearing, taste, and touch.)  He knows the difference between waking and sleeping, and can relate to the moods of the mother.  The baby's skin begins to thicken, and a layer of fat is produced and stored beneath the skin.  Antibodies are built up, and the baby's heart begins to pump 300 gallons of blood per day.  Approximately one week before the birth the baby stops growing, and ‘drops’ usually head down into the pelvic cavity.”¹²

As you can see, people who characterize abortion as simply the removal of a mass of unidentifiable tissue are either dishonest or woefully uninformed.  Abortion is the murder of a human child.  The baby’s dependency on his mother for survival for the first several months does not deprive him of his humanity.  To me, hardly anything brings this point home better than hearing from those who have survived abortions. 

Between September 1975 and January 1976, Amy Charlton’s mother underwent three saline abortion procedures in an attempt to kill her.  They didn’t work.  On April 21, 1976, Amy was born alive, two months premature.  She was a healthy baby weighing four pound, five ounces.  Amy writes, “My mother had no right to try and abort me, no matter what the circumstances were, no matter how inconvenient her pregnancy was.”¹³

Gianna Jessen is another abortion survivor with a compelling story.  On April 22, 1996, Jessen told her story to the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.  Her story began as follows:

My name is Gianna Jessen. I am 19 years of age. I am originally from California, but now reside in Franklin, Tennessee. I am adopted. I have cerebral palsy. My biological mother was 17 years old and seven and one-half months pregnant when she made the decision to have a saline abortion. I am the person she aborted. I lived instead of died.

Fortunately for me the abortionist was not in the clinic when I arrived alive, instead of dead, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 6, 1977. I was early; my death was not expected to be seen until about 9 a.m., when he would probably be arriving for his office hours. I am sure I would not be here today if the abortionist would have been in the clinic as his job is to take life, not sustain it. Some have said I am a "botched abortion", a result of a job not well done.

There were many witnesses to my entry into this world. My biological mother and other young girls in the clinic, who also awaited the death of their babies, were the first to greet me. I am told this was a hysterical moment. Next was a staff nurse who apparently called emergency medical services and had me transferred to a hospital.

I remained in the hospital for almost three months. There was not much hope for me in the beginning. I weighed only two pounds. Today, babies smaller than I was have survived.

A doctor once said I had a great will to live and that I fought for my life. I eventually was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care. I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a result of the abortion.¹⁴

Ms. Jessen has an incredible faith in God and an amazing outlook on life.  She sees her cerebral palsy as a gift.  She has recently appeared in national news interviews and an advertisement highlighting Senator Obama’s opposition to Illinois’ Born Alive Infants Protection Act¹⁵ which will be covered later in this article.  Gianna and Amy are living examples that abortion targets human babies, not mere masses of tissue.  If their mothers’ plans had been fulfilled, Gianna and Amy would have been murdered in the womb.  The world would never have heard of them, because their mothers simply exercised their “right” to abortion. 

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, more than 48 million innocent babies have been poisoned, burned, dismembered, decapitated, scooped out, and discarded in the name of “reproductive freedom”.  The lives of 48 million people were violently ended before their voices could be heard.  This is the equivalent of killing every man, woman, and child in California, Nevada, and Arizona.  If a group of people committed such an atrocity, they would be regarded as terrorists and the perpetrators of the worst assault on mankind in history.  However, when the victims are unborn children, it is considered a “right” and a “choice” rather than an atrocity.  And the abortionists, the mothers who contract the murder of their children, and the political parties and organizations that support abortion are regarded – not as terrorists – but as the defenders of some grotesque “freedom”. 

Up until 1973, many states had laws restricting abortion.  In January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court released its infamous Roe v. Wade decision which effectively repealed most abortion restrictions in the U.S. and sentenced nearly 50 million babies to death in the time between then and now. ¹⁶  Many in the pro-life camp view Roe as a bad judicial decision that warrants reversal.  Just as the Supreme Court’s decision that freed slaves don’t count as a complete person, this decision was bad, and its effects are atrocious.  Many in the pro-abortion camp are under the misconception that if Roe were to be reversed, abortion would be illegal nationwide.  That’s not so.  Let’s briefly examine what the Roe decision stated and what would happen if a future court were to reverse it. 

In 1969, Norma McCorvey was 22-years-old, divorced, and pregnant for the third time.  She wanted to be rid of the burden of another baby, but Texas law at the time prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother.  McCorvey’s life wasn’t in danger.  She just didn’t want to have her baby.  So she sued to overturn the law.  She went by the pseudonym “Jane Roe”.  In January 1973, the Supreme Court handed her a victory (though she had miscarried the child that she had wanted to abort long before).  The Court found that the Constitutional guarantees of right to privacy allow a woman to make the decision to kill her unborn child with a minimal amount of government interference.  The court stated that in the first trimester of pregnancy, the government can’t infringe at all on a woman’s right to kill her child.  In the second trimester, “the State may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.” And in the final trimester, “the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe abortion, except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”  This is what has allowed laws against partial birth abortion that have an exception for the “life or health” of the mother.  If Roe were to be overturned, it would not automatically ban abortion.  It would simply allow states to regulate or ban it as they see fit.  Obviously, in today’s political environment, there would be states that would not be likely to regulate it at all, even if they were able. 

For the Supreme Court to decide that the murder of unborn children by their mothers is a constitutional “right” is disgusting to me.  It is ironic that murder is a crime in this country, unless it is perpetrated on the most vulnerable children in our society.  The mantra of pro-abortionists is “My body, my choice!”  Indeed, this is what the Supreme Court decided in 1973.  But this defies logic to me.  Former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.”¹⁸ It is that same philosophy that renders the pro-choice mantra – and the Roe decision – illogical.  I do not support telling any woman what she may do to her own body.  But when she chooses an abortion, she is choosing to destroy the body of a unique, defenseless, human being who is dependent upon her for survival. She has swung her fist and struck down another person.  That is not a “choice”, that is murder.  Should we then allow family members to kill their sick, disabled, elderly, or otherwise burdensome relatives for the sake of convenience? 

Several attempts to legislate an end to partial birth abortions have been overruled under Roe because they do not contain an exception for the health of the mother.  But this health clause is broadly defined and frequently abused.  In a U.S. Supreme Court decision released on the same day as Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court defined "health" to mean "all factors" that affect the woman, including "physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age."¹⁹ With this broad definition, almost anything can be determined by an abortion doctor to impact the mother’s health, and justify abortion.  If she’s likely to suffer anxiety, postpartum depression, stress, or stretch marks, then her health will be affected and she should be entitled to an abortion.  This is what makes the health clause such a joke.  The overwhelming percentage of abortions are performed for convenience.  If a woman chooses to have sex (this was her real choice) and gets pregnant, then we mustn’t stress her or, as Senator Obama said, “punish her with a baby”, so let’s let her murder the life she created.   

It amazes me that so many people can support this kind of slaughter.  It is, to me, inhuman to be indifferent to the murder of unborn life.  It goes beyond amazing to me when Christians are indifferent to this, or even support the so-called “choice” that takes the life of innocent babies.  To some extent, I think this can be explained by people avoiding the realities this article has described.  I also think that many people agree with Senator Obama, who said it is “above his paygrade” to know when life begins.  His running-mate, Senator Biden, has joined other Catholic Democrats in hemming and hawing about what the Catholic Church has said on the issue throughout history.  Even though they’re wrong, I am not concerned with what the Roman Catholic Church has taught.  I believe the Bible is the final authority, and that is where I look for answers.  Some will say that abortion is not mentioned in the Bible.  It’s true that the word “abortion” is not mentioned in the Bible.  That’s because in the Ten Commandments, all murder is forbidden (Exodus 20:13) and God didn’t see fit to create special exemptions and subcategories.  In Psalm 139:13, 16, David writes, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb…your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Think about this.  God “knitted” us within the womb.  God ordained our days and they were written in His book before we even existed.  This passage, inspired by God as is all Scripture, tells us that we were made specially by God, and that our unformed bodies are under His purview and ordination. 

There is more Scriptural support for the humanity of the unborn child. Some states have a version of an “Unborn Victims of Violence Act”.  Under these laws, if a pregnant woman is the victim of violence and her unborn baby dies, the perpetrator of the violence is held liable for the death of her child – usually charged with murder or manslaughter (interesting that the government recognize an unborn child as a human with rights so long as the mother wants to keep him).  The first such law was drafted by God and recorded in Exodus 21:22-25, “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”  This passage assigns human value to the unborn child.  God Himself assigns this value.  Shouldn’t we?

The prophet Jeremiah heard from God about his own value while still unborn, “"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). And in a very powerful passage of Scripture, the unborn John the Baptist recognized the unborn Jesus while both were still in the womb, and Jesus was in the first trimester of his physical development (Luke 1:35-44)! 

Clearly, God’s view is that a life in the womb is still a life – a human life which He created.  As a Christian, do you want to face God someday and answer to Him for why you did not stand up for “the least of these”? 

With the 2008 election imminently upon us, the differences between the presidential candidates cannot be starker.  We previously discussed the strong pro-life records of Senator McCain and his running-mate, Governor Palin.  Both view Roe v Wade as a bad decision, and both have the support of pro-life advocacy groups.  Senator McCain’s voting record is strongly pro-life, and he did not equivocate when he told Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church that he believes life begins at conception. 

On the other hand, Senators Obama and Biden are stridently pro-abortion.  In fact, as observed by many people, Senator Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion nominee for president from a major party in recent history.  Senator Obama has sponsored the “Freedom of Choice Act” (FOCA) and has said it would be a first priority for him as President to enact it.  FOCA would effectively do away with any abortion restrictions, including existing partial birth abortion bans, parental consent laws, and laws prohibiting minors from crossing state lines to get abortions.  In a speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in 2007, Obama said, “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.”²⁰ On the 35^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Senator Obama boasted “Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America…. And I will continue to defend this right by passing the Freedom of Choice Act as president.”²¹

Senator Obama refused to support various versions of a “Born Alive Infants Protection Act”.  This Act would require that abortion survivors who are born alive be provided with life-saving medical assistance.  While this measure, with wording to make sure that it wouldn’t infringe on abortion, has overwhelming bipartisan support it, Senator Obama passed up four opportunities to pass it into law in Illinois.  He has said that it was because it lacked the language that the federal version contained which would not infringe on abortions, but the record clearly shows that Senator Obama lied about this.²² He did not support a measure that was, in fact, identical to the federal bill.  Senator Obama has also stated in speeches and debates that he supports measures designed to reduce abortions. Yet in response to a pro-abortion questionnaire, Obama said he opposes federal funding of Crisis Pregnancy Centers!²³ CPC’s exist with the mission of reducing abortions by providing counseling, support, and adoption assistance to mothers who do not want to bring up a child they find themselves carrying.  Yet, Senator Obama does not want to give them support.  How does this meld with his claim of wanting to reduce abortions?  It doesn’t.  This is why we will be voting for Senator McCain and Governor Palin.  They will stand up for the most innocent and defenseless among us. 

Some object to “legislating morality”.  I submit that everyone tries to legislate their morality, or lack thereof.  Most of our laws are based on a moral viewpoint.  We have legislated that murder is a crime, as well as a sin.  It shouldn’t be a big reach to protect all people, born and unborn, from murder.  Only a Supreme Court decision can overturn Roe v. Wade.  Supreme Court justices are nominated by the President, and approved by the Senate.  The Democrat party platform supports abortion, so a President Obama and Democrat Senate will appoint justices to the Supreme Court that view abortion as a right.  Only by electing Senator McCain, and placing conservatives in the Senate, can we ever hope to save unborn children from being wantonly murdered. 

In Norma McCorvey’s (Jane Roe) autobiography, she talks about standing on an empty playground on a summer day, and hearing a voice deep within her say, “It’s all your fault, Norma. You’re the reason this playground – and playgrounds all across this country – are empty.”²⁴ Norma decided to change that.  She now stands up for unborn life.  Will you?  Will you stand up with your voice and your vote?  I hope and pray you will.

Footnotes:

1.      http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=

      2008.10.14_George_Robert_Obama's%20Abortion%20Extremism_.xml (Oct 14,2008)

2.      http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Topic&TopicID=2

3.      http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm (last accessed Oct 7, 2008).

4.      National Right to Life Committee, http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/ASMF/asmf3.html

5.      Phillip G. Stubblefield, "First and Second Trimester Abortion," in Gynecologic and Obstetric Surgery, ed. David H. Nichols (Baltimore: Mosby, 1993) p. 1016.

6.      A. Jefferson Penfield, M.D., Gynecologic Surgery Under Local Anesthesia, (Baltimore: Urban & Schwarzenburg, 1986), p. 79.

7.      Ibid, pp. 50-51.

8.      Étienne-Émile Baulieu, M.D., Ph. D., "1993: RU 486 -- A Decade on Today and Tomorrow," in Clinical Applications of Mifepristone (RU 486) and Other Antiprogestins, Institute of Medicine, eds. Molla .S. Donaldson et al (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1993), p. 92-96.

9.       National Right to Life Committee, http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/images/asmf8a.html

10.  Warren M. Hern, M.D., Abortion Practice (Philadelphia: J.B. Lipincott Company, 1984), pp. 153-154.

11.  Dr. Martin Haskell described the partial-birth abortion procedure, which he called "dilation and extraction,"at a Sept. 1992 meeting of the National Abortion Federation, a trade association of abortion providers. He said he had done 700 of these "procedures." See Martin Haskell, M.D., "Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion," in "Second Trimester Abortion: From Every Angle," Fall Risk Management Seminar, September 13-14, 1992, Dallas, Texas, National Abortion Federation.

12.  “Fetal Development from Conception to Birth”, http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/fetaldevelopment.html

13.  http://www.abortionfacts.com/survivors/amy.asp

14.  Read the rest of Gianna’s compelling testimony here: http://www.abortionfacts.com/survivors/giannajessen.asp

15.  http://www.bornalivetruth.org/

16.  http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113

17.  Interestingly, the “Jane Roe” plaintiff, Norma Leah McCorvey, has since accepted Christ and become an outspoken opponent of abortion.  She tried, unsuccessfully, to petition the Supreme Court to overturn the case she won in 1973.  http://www.afajournal.org/2008/january/0108norma_mccorvey.asp

18.  http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/1524

19.  http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=179

20.  Douglas Johnson, “Unholy Messaging” in National Review, October 7, 2008.

21.  http://www.barackobama.com/2008/01/22/obama_statement_on_35th_annive.php

22.  http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/Truth.html

23.  http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/12/21/sen-barack-obamas-reproductive-health-questionnaire

24.  http://www.afajournal.org/2008/january/0108norma_mccorvey.asp