The Abortionist of Arkansas

Since 1973, when Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, there have been 46 million legal abortions in the United States. Where have they all occurred? Fayetteville, Arkansas, is a good place to start looking.

On January 11, Nightline profiled an abortion clinic in Fayetteville, run by Dr. William Harrison. A few scenes (with comments):

Dr. Harrison, who had "performed" somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 abortions in his career (he had lost count), tried to tell the reporter that the fetus was a "blob of tissue." But under sharp (and surprising) questioning, he was forced to concede–when confronted with the scientific realities of brainwave activity and the beating heart within weeks of conception–that the unborn are human life. He fell back to the old canard that, well, they are not "persons." (And how does he know this? And if he doesn't, what gives him the right to kill these living "blobs of tissue"?)

The doctor said giving up a child for adoption is harder than having an abortion. He said adoption is "not like giving a puppy away." (So, by this reasoning, you might as well kill the puppy.)

He said the women who get abortions from him are "born again," with new leases on life. (He said nothing about the many real risks to their psychological or physical health via abortion, nor the fact that many of the women who make this choice feel subtle–and sometimes not so subtle–pressure to abort from boyfriends and others.)

The doctor said that abortion is "just another form of birth control," and that the life of the mother is more important than the life of the unborn. (It must be much more valuable, as he had no qualms about giving the same person eight or even nine abortions.)

An 18-year-old in for an abortion said she was not "ready" to be a mother. (Then why was this young, unmarried girl having sex? Didn't she know the connection?)

Most abortion-rights people (such as Bill Clinton) at least say that they want to make it "safe, legal and rare." Hillary Clinton has even conceded that abortion is a "tragic choice." Not Dr. Harrison, who has a financial stake in making it safe, legal and commonplace.

One could say that many women who come to this doctor's office don't grasp the gravity of what they are doing. You can't say the same for him. God, have mercy.

Update: Here's a URL with an article by reporter Martin Bashir: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1495429&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312