Denver, Colo., Oct 26, 2020 / 05:06 pm (CNA).-
Coloradans are preparing for a ballot referendum that would ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy in the state. While abortion advocates argue that such abortions are “extremely rare,” statistics recorded by a longtime Colorado abortionist shed light on the late term abortions performed at one Boulder clinic.
The data reveals hundreds of late-term abortions performed over a 20-year period on babies with fetal abnormalities such as Down syndrome.
Warren Hern, an abortionist who has been active in Boulder, Colorado since 1975, released a paper in 2014 which included many self-reported statistics about the abortions his clinic performed between 1992 and 2012.
The statistics show that Hern’s clinic performed hundreds of abortions between 1992-2012 on women who were at or past 24 weeks pregnant, including several performed on women between 38 and 39 weeks gestation.
Nearly 240 of those late-term abortions were performed on babies with Down syndrome.
The self-reported statistics only cover abortions Hern performed for reasons of fetal abnormality, which in some years made up just 2.5% of the thousands of abortions he performed.
Colorado remains one of the only a handful of states that does not have some legislation on late-term abortion. As a result, abortions can take place in the state up until birth.
The Boulder Abortion Clinic is one of just a handful of clinics in the U.S. that publicly accept patients seeking late-term abortions from anywhere in the world.
Colorado voters are set to decide on Proposition 115 in November, which asks voters whether to ban abortion in the state after 22 weeks of pregnancy, except in cases where a mother’s life is threatened.
More than 150,000 Coloradans signed a petition to put Prop. 115 on the ballot, which has garnered bipartisan support.
A poll conducted in early October by 9 News / Colorado Politics found that among 1,021 registered likely voters, 42% of respondents said they are certain to vote yes on Prop. 115; 45% said no, while 13% are uncertain.
If the late-term abortion ban passes in November, it would mark the first time since 1967 that Colorado would impose voter-approved restrictions on abortion.
While some abortion supporters claim the phrase “late-term abortion” is “imprecise and misleading,” Hern uses the term “late abortion” throughout his paper.
Hern reports that between Jan. 4, 1992 and Oct. 31, 2012, just more than 1,000 women requested a “late abortion” for reasons of fetal disorder.
Abortion supporters frequently cite CDC data from 2016— data which excludes abortion hotspots like California, Illinois, New York state, and Washington DC— to argue that abortions after 21 weeks gestation make up only 1.2% of all abortions performed in the US and are thus “extremely rare.”
In Colorado, the percentage of abortions performed after 21 weeks is higher than the national average, at 3.3%— a figure higher than any other state in the CDC’s data except New Mexico.
The statistics do not account for the fact that women have traveled from other states to Boulder for decades to avail themselves of Hern’s late-term abortion services. At least 11% of all abortions performed in Colorado are on out-of-state residents, according to the CDC data.
Each year, about 200 to 300 babies are aborted after 21 weeks gestation in Colorado. Dilation and evacuation abortions are typically used in the second trimester of pregnancy, and result in the crushing of the head and eventual dismemberment of an unborn child.
The trend in Hern’s statistics suggest that the proportion of all patients seeking abortions because of fetal disorders increased over time from 2.5% to 30%.
Hern credited this increase to “gradual change in clinic policy to accept patients with more advanced gestations, more requests for late termination of pregnancy because of fewer options being available elsewhere, and advances in fetal diagnosis.”
“Genetic disorders”— as opposed to “structural anomalies”— were the most common disorders among the babies aborted, appearing in 40% of cases.
Of those cases, 63% of the genetic disorders were Trisomy 21, commonly known as Down syndrome. Hern reported 237 total abortions of babies with Down syndrome.
The most common “structural anomalies” reported were neural tube defects such as anencephaly and spina bifida; but some of the babies were aborted for reasons such as extra fingers or toes, cleft hands or lips, or because two twins were conjoined.
The median age of all 1,005 patients in Hern’s study was 32, and the median gestational age was 24 weeks, or five and a half months. He said many patients who request abortions after 30 weeks have had their fetus evaluated as “normal” around 18 to 20 weeks.
Patients seeking particular kinds of abortions at Hern’s clinic tended to request abortions, on average, around eight months into their pregnancies.
For example, some patients carrying twins requested an abortion for one of the twins—“selective termination”— usually because of a fetal abnormality.
Hern writes that in these cases, the abortions were generally done after 32 weeks— more than seven months— gestation to “permit optimum development and survival probability for the healthy twin.”
Patients seeking “selective termination” or “induced fetal demise”— an injection to kill the fetus before the abortion operation— tended to be in their mid-30s in age. Hern said these patients typically request abortions between 33 and 36 weeks— over eight months— gestation.
Several of his patients suffered major complications, including major unintended surgery, hemorrhage requiring transfusion, and pelvic infection, he reported.
A Nebraska couple filed a lawsuit against Hern and the Boulder Abortion Clinic in 2015, alleging that Hern left a nearly two-inch piece of a fetus’ skull inside a patient’s uterus during a late-term abortion, apparently forcing a patient to undergo a hysterectomy.
In 2016, Hern was the subject of a congressional investigation into the practices of late-term abortionists. The panel requested information on any infants who were born alive at his clinic and the babies’ records thereafter. According to the Denver Post, Hern refused to provide any of the requested documentation, calling the panel a “witchhunt.”
During May 2019, Hern argued in a New York Times op-ed that because women are more likely to die in childbirth than from complications related to an abortion, “pregnancy is dangerous; abortion can be lifesaving.”
Dr. Mary Jo O’Sullivan, a high-risk obstetrician and Professor Emeritus of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Miami, responded at the time that although any pregnancy carries some risk, it is not a “serious” threat to a woman’s health, especially in the United States where maternal deaths are still very rare, even in rural areas.
Opponents of Colorado’s late-term abortion ban, including groups like Abortion Access for All, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America have raised millions of dollars to attempt to defeat the proposition.
If the ballot measure becomes law, doctors would face a three-year license suspension for performing or attempting to perform an abortion of an unborn child beyond 22-weeks of gestation. Women would not be charged with seeking or obtaining an abortion.
The Catholic bishops of Colorado asked voters to support the ban in a June 30 letter and placed the ballot measure under the patronage of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, also known as Mother Cabrini, who aided orphans and immigrants in her time in Colorado.
In addition, the Catholic Medical Association and a group of more than 130 medical professionals and scientists in Colorado have backed Proposition 115.
Colorado was the first state in the nation to decriminalize abortion. The initial legislation, signed into law April 25, 1967, allowed abortion in certain limited cases: rape, incest, or a prediction of permanent mental or physical disability of either the child or mother. Six years later, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade declared abortion a constitutional right nationwide.
Abortion-rights groups in Colorado have touted the fact that for a time during the pandemic, many women from other states were traveling to Colorado to take advantage of the state’s permissive abortion laws.
Abortion clinics in states like Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, which did not introduce any pandemic-related restrictions on abortion, saw increases in patients traveling from other states, such as Texas, to undergo the procedure during spring 2020.
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Seitz’s position (and that of the majority of US bishops, since they elected him as their representative on this issue) is nothing less than an endorsement of open-borders mayhem. CNA would doubtlessly consider it disrespectful to ask His Excellency if he thinks there ought to be any restrictions, quantitative or qualitative, on immigration to America. He would refuse to answer anyway, but we know.
His list of harmful measures is bogus. Unaccompanied children have been exposed to the greatest dangers imaginable as they are smuggled north by drug dealers and pimps. Almost all the asylum claims are phony. People who enter a country illegally should expect to be detained and deported. They certainly have no right to employment in a country where their presence is illegal. Of course, Seitz has no concerns about the welfare of the American people whose wages are being undercut, neighborhoods are being made unsafe and whose country is being turned into a vast, incoherent Third World dump. All of this will only make life more miserable for all parties, with the possible exceptions of the oligarchs and their well-connected flunkies like the ones shown in photo.
When have any of these bishops condemned Pope Francis for praising the tyrannical governments that exacerbated the poverty that increased the desperation of the migrants?
“The provisions discussed,” wrote Seitz, “underscore the extreme nature of this bill, its incompatibility with Catholic social teaching, and its inconsistency with our nation’s broadly bipartisan commitment to humanitarian protection.”
These official statements by “Bishop” Seitz and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and its Committee on Migration are flagrant and outright lies that in no way, shape, form, or fashion represent Catholic social teaching or the values of the United States. What they do represent is approval, support, and encouragement of unrestricted invasion by illegal alien invaders, almost all of whom are single men in their 20’s and 30’s, from almost 190 countries around the globe, including Islamist and Communist terrorists; virtually total control of this country’s by barbarically criminal drug cartels profiting in the billions of dollars annually from human trafficking, fentanyl and methamphetamine drug trafficking; the sex slavery of children and women and the massive rape and sexual exploitation of hundreds of thousands of children and women seeking to avail themselves of illegal entry to this country; the collapse of social welfare, hospital, and health care facilities throughout the entire Southern border as well as in virtually every major city in this country; the corruption of elections throughout this country by millions of fraudulent votes; and spread of documented deadly infections such as tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhoea, leprosy, polio, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox, or severe acute respiratory syndromes.
Is it any wonder that Catholics who read such cynical propaganda from “Bishop” Seitz and his fellow hirelings at the USCCB are scandalized and outraged when they learn that billions of dollars of their taxpayer money is being paid every year to carry on this sordid charade? For example, Catholic Charities had revenues last year of $4.7 billion, $2.9 billion of which came from the U.S. government for illegal immigration support.
Every year over the past 10 years the cry has grown louder and louder that there is an ape Church which has eclipsed the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church in the Vatican with its world-wide sexual perversions, stunning financial crimes and corruption, and almost daily denials and deformations of dogma and doctrine. It is actions like these of “Bishop” Seitz and the USCCB that only extend and confirm these realities.
I think that the doors to our country need to be open to those wishing to immigrate and become hard-working American citizens. Due to legalized abortion (69-72 million killed since 1972) and Americans choosing to remain childless or limiting their families to 1 or 2 children (or discovering that they are unable to conceive for various reasons, including waiting until late in life to try to conceive), our population is decreasing. The Baby Boomer generation (my generation) is still with us and many of us who were born in the late 1950s and early 1960s are just now coming to the age of retirement–and many of us do NOT wish to continue working (or cannot work due to various physical/mental conditions). WE NEED PEOPLE TO DO THE WORK THAT KEEPS OUR NATION GOING! The shortage of medical professionals, especially in the non-nursing fields (lab, X-Ray, respiratory, MRI, Physical Therapy assistants, etc.) is alarming–if the nation knew how short-staffed many medical labs are, there would be panic. And the various industries are short-staffed–in Missouri, a factory is supposed to be opening that will offer employment to 10,000 workers–they are counting on immigrants (primarily Mexican) and are preparing housing and other services to assist them as they move to Missouri. The Catholic Church is also preparing, as one of the parishes is scheduled to become a Hispanic parish. The need for workers in all fields is huge! WE NEED MORE PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY! Yes, stop the drug lords, the mobs, the sex-traffickers, and street gang recruiters from getting into this country, but everyone else who wants to come to the U.S. and become Americans should be welcomed and given the assistance to assimilate into our great country and join us as we work and play!! I find it hypocritical that the Republicans want to save the unborn but reject the immigrants. They should welcome ALL human beings. (I am a registered Republican.) We have plenty of room in the U.S.!
Well, in principle yes Mrs. Sharon. We need immigration but we need to do it through reasonable legal channels as our neighbors do. Canada being an example.
Mexico has pretty strict requirements re. immigration & rules for foreign nationals residing in their country.
Mexico is no longer a Third World nation & their birth rates have plummeted also. Mexico will be looking for young people to fill their future workforce too & they should be looking to accommodate more Latin American migrants rather than sending them North to be preyed upon further by cartels.
A truly disheartening stand by these bishops [I’m confidant not all agree]. Flagrantly socialistic in tone. With all the horrors committed at the border, child exploitation, trafficking, fentanyl they stand smilingly in unison, hold hands with the greatest purveyor of in utero infanticide, perversion, sexual mutilation of children the world has known.
Of course, the bill has no chance of clearing the Senate much less being signed into law, so the bishops have no cause for concern.
Title 42, a pandemic-era public health policy that placed restrictions on immigrants entering the US, comes to an end 11 May. The public health legislation was issued by the TRUMP administration and denied refugee status to migrants on the US’ southern border. The policy’s end comes as the Biden administration is ending the Covid public health emergency nationally.
I ask, since the illegal immigrants are coming mostly from Central American countries whose COVID testing is suspect, at best, should President Biden lift Title 42?
CNN: “What will happen if Title 42 is lifted? Officials predict that lifting Title 42 is likely to spur a significant increase in the number of migrants trying to cross into the US. One reason for the expected spike: Many migrants who were sent back to Mexico under the policy are desperate and losing patience.” Can we honor the saying on Lady Liberty?
““Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
You know Morgan, Mexico is no longer a Third World country and they can lend a hand in offering other Latin American migrants a place to live and work. Especially folks escaping the situation in Venezuela.
Immigration through proper channels…not enmassed to repeatedly rush the borders of the southern states. Biden didn’t end the Covid emergency; if he could he would permanently extend such a power grab.
Ellis Island and the immigrants from Europe were radically different from those currently swarming US borders. Today’s illegals, from Federal government data, will rely on services and aid that did not exist one-hundred years ago. There are no language requirements and the idea of assimilation exists where?