Another searing expose of abortion fallacy

Reviewed by Tony Gosgnach

It’s a well known fact among those involved in pro-life work for any length of time that virtually all the main planks of the abortion movement have been built on deceptions of various sorts. Some of the most prominent examples include the claims made during the push to legalize abortion in the 1960s that huge numbers of women were dying because out of desperation, they were trying to perform crude operations on themselves. 

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former poobah in the National Abortion Rights Action League, put the kibosh on those assertions after becoming pro-life, when he made it clear that NARAL reps simply pulled their abortion death figures out of thin air because it advanced their cause. Truth was a secondary consideration. (We now see the UN doing the same thing with its claims that women around the world are dying in large numbers from “unsafe” abortions.) 

Then Norma McCorvey served as the linchpin for the infamous Roe vs. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973, acting as Jane Roe, a woman who purportedly had been gang raped, was pregnant, and wanted an abortion. The only problem was, there was no gang, no rape, and McCorvey didn’t end up having an abortion. 

Big lie theory 

Then, more recently, a leading pro-abortion figure appeared on U.S. national television to admit that his side had lied on key points of its argument in support of the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure. 

There are more examples, but you get the idea. 

It is most refreshing, then, when accounts are published that lay clear the record on these and other points. It was most certainly the case when Nathanson wrote his moving book, The Hand of God, which outlined his evolution from a rabid pro-abortion supporter, who himself had performed the procedure countless times, to one of the leading spokespersons for the unborn. 

It’s also the case with the new book by Norma McCorvey, which tells the tale of how she went from being legal abortion’s poster girl, to a sorry figure who worked for pitiable wages in messy surroundings in a Dallas abortion clinic, to a woman who has been baptized as a Christian, counsels women through her Roe No More ministry and speaks out for the rights of the unborn. 

Father Ted Colleton, in his March Interim column, outlined the human side of McCorvey’s odyssey, telling of how McCorvey was indeed “won by love” and how God has the ability to soften hearts bent even on destroying the lives of others. 

But for our purposes here, we’ll look at McCorvey’s book with an eye to determining how it can best advance the pro-life cause by telling us about the real roles of the various players in the abortion controversy and how the pro-life movement can best seize on them. 

Useless media 

First of all, the media. Pro-lifers know only to well that the mainstream media are more or less useless in reporting anything to do with the abortion issue (even peripherally - consider the indifferent response Dr. Joel Brind received when he produced news that abortion conservatively increases the risk of breast cancer by 30 per cent). But McCorvey shows us not only that the media are useless, but that they have about as much integrity as Bill Clinton alone in a hotel room with the latest female White House intern. 

“Channel 4 in Dallas was always one of my favorites,” McCorvey writes about the time she worked in a Dallas abortion clinic. “As an abortion advocate, my views were consistently well represented on that network, and I knew I would get a sympathetic (if not an overtly biased) hearing.” 

Imagine that - having the media at your beck and call. Not bad, but it must be typical of what those poor, oppressed abortionists and abortion supporters have to deal with. 

That’s not all. McCorvey recalls a California press conference when she was firmly within the pro-abortion camp. Normally, as any reporter worth their salt knows, press conferences are a good time to submit the subject at hand to some intense grilling, intense enough to break down the subject’s defences and hopefully prompt them to reveal something they hadn’t intended to beforehand. 

That’s usually the case when a Christian, pro-life or pro-family subject is on the spot. It’s not the case when an abortionist or an abortion sympathizer is the subject in question. Consider the fluffballs thrown at Henry Morgentaler and how the press corps almost stumble over themselves in their haste to report their hero’s latest inane pronouncements. 

“The press were very gentle and gracious with follow-up questions; not a single reporter threw a hardball my way,” writes McCorvey. “Twenty minutes later, several members of the press asked us to lunch” (emphasis added). 

“Most of the national reporters are strongly pro-abortion, or at least what they call ‘moderately pro-choice.’ Interviews were usually conducted on a friendly basis,” she adds. 

In light of this lovey-dovey relationship between the media and the abortion industry, what are the chances of abuses, malpractices and the real feelings of workers in clinics getting reported to the public at large? If you said, “A snowball’s chance in a very hot place,” you’re right. 

“Sinks were backed up ... and blood splatters stained the walls,” McCorvey writes of the A to Z Clinic in Dallas. “The parts room, where we kept the aborted babies, was particularly heinous ... babies were stacked like cordwood once every body part had been accounted for.” 

Let’s go over to the North Dallas Women’s Clinic now, where the freezer “was full of jars, dozens of them, every one full of tiny body parts ... Minuscule hands and feet (were) pressing against the sides of the jars, frozen in a mixture of blood ... Clearly, each jar held more than one child.” 

Lest you think these are isolated occurrences, keep in mind that McCorvey says, “Some clinics were such a macabre mess that you wanted to do drugs just to escape. Most people do not realize how unregulated abortion clinics are ... We fought for legal abortion, not safe abortion.” 

Yes, you won’t be seeing or hearing these details on your friendly neighborhood newscast tonight, even though scenes like it, and worse, are probably commonplace in abortion clinics. Instead, you might be subjected to the latest nonsense about an anti-abortion conspiracy to shoot doctors. 
“The media never want to show the dark side or divisions in the abortion movement,” writes McCorvey, by way of understatement. 

McCorvey provides us with some intimate insights into the abortion mentality as exhibited by the people who work in the field. It’s a mentality that those in the pro-life movement may not want to be associated with or even learn about, but it is illuminating nonetheless. 

“You see, abortions are an inherently dehumanizing business. You have to let a part of your soul die, or at least go numb, to stay in practice ... The day-to-day stress inside an abortion clinic is unbelievable.” 

McCorvey then takes us into a typical clinic scene, where women begin to cry as soon as the suction machine that has killed their babies is shut off. “We could never admit to the fact that (a patient) might be crying because she realized what she had just done to her baby,” says McCorvey. “Unfortunately, (one woman) looked down during the procedure and saw the baby’s hand as the doctor took it out. I heard her gasp ... she had already passed out.” 

Then there’s the pro-abortion version of “counselling.” According to McCorvey, it goes something like this: 

Doctor: “You want an abortion?” 

Woman: “Yes.” 

Doctor: “You sign here. I give abortion.” 

And what of the integrity of clinic staff? As McCorvey describes it, the intent was always to extract as many greenbacks from patients (or their health plans) as possible, even if that meant inflating the gestational age of their babies beyond what it actually was. 

“The difference between an abortion at 10 weeks and 12 weeks was $100,” says McCorvey. “Abortionists routinely jack up the estimates of a baby’s age because most women simply won’t argue about it ... It is child’s play to cash in by inflating an unborn baby’s age.” 

Consider as well that McCorvey says she regularly performed medical manoeuvres such as administering nitrous oxide and drawing blood while working in abortion clincs, even though she never received any medical training, “because most abortionists do not want to spend money to pay a specialist.” Hello, where are the medical licencing authorities? 

In conclusion, Won by Love is not only the story of Norma McCorvey’s trek to life and love, but a searing indictment of the abortion industry, its supporters and others who, either through sins of omission or commission, allow it to continue its macabre trade. It’s must reading for any pro-lifer and serves as a valuable tool in the continuing effort to smash pro-abortion arguments. 

A review of McCorvey’s book would be incomplete if a moment was not taken to tip the hat to McCorvey herself, not only for her decision to switch to the pro-life camp, but for having the integrity and courage to tell it like it is in retrospect through this book. Many others probably wouldn’t have been brave enough to do it. Such a move is sure to draw the wrath of those who still rely on abortion’s shaky foundations to prop up their sorry lives. 

It’s important that McCorvey receives the support she needs in these crucial first few years following her conversion. Let’s all say a prayer for her.