Tuesday, May 22, 2012

A Paramedic Talks About His Experience with Abortion

Catholic Exchange:

Our city’s Fire and Rescue departments receive multiple 911 emergency calls from that clinic every month. Despite the fact that this clinic must be shut down due to its health and safety issues, I am simply writing this to expose to you another side of abortion and its negative fallout, particularly on first-responders. Many people believe that, besides a women’s immediate family and friends, the only other people exposed to the procedure are the doctors and nurses at the clinic and hospital. Yet, has anyone ever wondered how the bleeding woman [following a botched abortion procedure] was transported to the hospital in the first place? EMS professionals such as myself and many of my friends are the ones who have to deal with the abortion before the doctors do. We are simply providing physical care for the women as we transport her to the hospital. That explains why she is usually in a more “stable” state when she arrives.

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Can you imagine what it is like arriving onto the scene of a botched abortion? One of my fellow paramedics told me just the other day that he and his crew had to run a call for a woman who had just undergone an abortion. As he started to tell me the story, he grew very quiet and eventually trailed off into silence. I won’t give any details of the accounts like this but my observations have led me to believe that no one knows just exactly how to describe dealing with a post-abortion victim. The entire ordeal is very traumatic, especially for first-responders. We are often taken for granted and some of us eventually just lose any feeling of fear, disgust, or sympathy for the victims we deal with on a day-to-day basis. It is simply by nature of our line of work: we see horrific car accidents and burn victims all the time and at one point, you just don’t feel anything for them anymore. That is why people never hear from first-responders about, say, abortion clinic victims. It’s just simply something that doesn’t cross your mind because, as a paramedic, you’re used to it.

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First-responders are often times the only witnesses to the death of a botched-abortion victim, yet they always remain silent. Well not today. You have heard my story. You now know that we hold on to these things. Please, if you or anyone you know is in touch with a firefighter or paramedic, do not hesitate to ask them if they want to talk about their experiences. It is very similar to what a soldier goes through with post traumatic stress. Oftentimes, first-responders are still hurting from traumatic abortion-related calls; they just don’t want to think about it. Abortion hurts everyone and it’s about time that first responders started speaking out. If we could get more people to give their first-hand accounts, to really open up about their darkest memories, maybe, just maybe, we can end this curse of abortion once and for all. You see, my fellow Catholics, oftentimes it is those who are there for us who are also secretly in need themselves.

Poor-choicers try to remind people what it was like when abortion was illegal. Whole hospital wards used to be filled with women with their guts hanging out, they said.

This is why abortion should be legal, they said.

The thing is, they pointed to the wrong problem.

They thought the problem was that the abortion was poorly done.

But the problem is abortion itself.

If you reject abortion, this.will.not.happen.

I know that people say "but women die of pregnancy."

Bull. Women die of underlying conditions concurrent with pregnancy.

The pregnancy is not the problem. The concurrent condition is the problem.

If you are a healthy woman, your chances of dying from pregnancy in the West are close to nil. You have more chance of being hit by a bus walking  down the street.

If you have an underlying problem, and you have prenatal follow up, your chances of surviving pregnancy are excellent.

I hope more responders speak up about what they have seen. Because if abortions are still being botched, then legalization did not solve the problem. Legalization only hid the problem. Because now no one wants to compromise abortion access.