Protecting the Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion: A Trial Notebook
By Jay Sekulow
www.aclj.org/resources/prolife/pba/040329_trial_notebook.asp

Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Time: 12:54pm
Southern District Court of New York

The doctor for the plaintiff describes the intact D & E procedure:

The doctor said, “What they did, they delivered the fetus intact until the head was lodged in the cervix. Then they reached up and crushed it. They used forceps to crush the skull.”

Judge Casey asked about the instruments, “Like a cracker that they use to crack a lobster shell?”

The doctor answered, “Like an end of tongs you use to pick up a salad, except they are thick enough and heavy enough to crush the skull.”

Judge Casey responded, “Except in this case you are not picking up a salad, you are crushing a baby’s skull.”

Then Judge Casey asked, “According to affidavits I have read, the fetus is still alive at this point?”

Answer: “Yes, sir.”

Question: “The fingers of the baby opened and closed?”

Answer: “I did not observe the hands when I observed the procedure.”

Question: “Were the feet moving?”
Answer: “Yes sir, until the skull was crushed.”

Date: Monday, April 5, 2004
Time 5:49pm
Southern District Court of New York

Judge Casey asks a National Abortion Federation doctor what she tells the patient about the procedure.

Q: Do you use simple English words, so they know what they are doing and
authorizing?
A: I do.

Q: In a dismemberment D-and-E procedure, do you tell them you will tear the
limbs off, or do you say, “disarticulate”?
A: I tell them that we will try to get it intact, but it may come out in parts.

Q: Do you discuss the killing of the fetus?
A: I tell them that when I cut the umbilical cord of the fetus, the fetus exsanguinates.

Q: “Exsanguin” what?
A: In layman’s terms, it would be drained of blood.

Q: Do you tell them that?
A: No.

Q: Do you tell them whether the fetus feels any pain?
A: The fetus may have a heartbeat, but I do not think it is alive.

Q: Do you ever tell them it will hurt?
A: It does not hurt her.

Q: No not the mother, that it will hurt the fetus?
A: The intent of the abortion is that the fetus will be terminated.

Q: Do you ever tell them that if you use an intact D-and-E method you will use scissors and insert them in the base of the skull?
A: I have not told them that.

Q: And do you tell them that afterwards you suck the brains out?
A: I use my finger to disrupt the central nervous system and collapse the skull…

Q: Do you tell the mother the fetus will feel pain?
A: I have never talked to a fetus.

Q: I did not ask you that. Do you ever tell the mother?

At this point in her testimony the doctor became very angry and raised her voice and said: “That is what I tell my patients, I’m sorry! ... I do not believe the fetus feels pain, so I do not tell them that.” Then the Judge asked her if she had ever read any of the studies on fetal pain, and she responded that she had not. ….