In June of 1989 I was on a pro-life mission. At 27 I thought I had seen and heard all that there was to see and hear on the abortion issue. That very same month I made my way to the National Right to Life Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and what became most clear with each workshop and general session I attended was how much I hadn’t seen or heard or knew.
On the last day of the convention I took a break from the workshops and walked into the room where pro-life educational films were being shown and sat down just as Dr. Bernard Nathanson began introducing his film, “Eclipse of Reason.”
I couldn’t finish watching–nothing in my previous 27 years could possibly have prepared me for the barbarity filmed and shown on that screen. I ran out of the room fighting back tears and didn’t quite make it to my room before I started to sob.
I’ve thought about that first visceral reaction I had to seeing an abortion performed as I’ve read and reread the profile of abortionist Steven Brigham by Eyal Press in his piece for The New Yorker – aptly if not ironically titled – “A Botched Operation.“
Much clearer thinkers and incredibly better writers than I will read this story and find all manner of nuances to what goes into becoming a profitable late-term abortionist like Brigham. Some will focus on his many enablers within the pro-abortion lobby and abortion industry who gave him cover when various state agencies sought to suspend his license, thus allowing him to continue.
Others may comment on the ease with which he set up profitable clinic upon profitable clinic all the while skirting state and local laws. Many more will write about the bloodied trail littered with dead babies left behind.
What I can’t seem to let go of is this: How does anyone do what Brigham does more than once? If I tried very hard and disregarded all reason, science, and ethics I might be able to understand how a misinformed pro-abortion zealot becomes an abortionist–maybe.
But once you’ve ripped the arms off of a 20-week-old developing baby, how do you go back and do it a second time? How blind, how desperate, how despicably dead inside must you be to be able to perform that barbarity over and over and over again?
Mr. Press, whose father was also an abortionist, doesn’t pose that question to Dr. Brigham. But I sure wish he had because I still, 25 years later can’t fathom the barbarity that is abortion.
Daniel Miller is responsible for nearly all of National Right to Life News' political writing.
With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Daniel Miller developed a deep obsession with U.S. politics that has never let go of the political scientist. Whether it's the election of Joe Biden, the midterm elections in Congress, the abortion rights debate in the Supreme Court or the mudslinging in the primaries - Daniel Miller is happy to stay up late for you.
Daniel was born and raised in New York. After living in China, working for a news agency and another stint at a major news network, he now lives in Arizona with his two daughters.
