An abortionist’s letter to Slate is astoundingly lifeless and cold, clinically describing some of the procedures he has used to perform abortions and wondering whether the new Partial-Birth Abortion Ban that Bush is expected to sign will affect him and his practice. He asks whether those procedures are in violation of the new bill and if so, how will anyone know, since the wording of the law is vague. Here’s a sample of what he’s written:

I reassured [the patient] that I do not perform the “partial-birth” procedure and that there is no likelihood that the ban’s passage would close my office and keep me from seeing her. The fetus cannot be delivered “alive” in my procedure?as the ban stipulates in defining prohibited procedures?because I begin by giving the fetus an injection that stops its heart immediately. I treat the woman’s cervix to cause it to open during the next two days. On the third day, under anesthesia, the membranes are ruptured, allowing the amniotic fluid to escape. Medicine is given to make the uterus contract, and the dead fetus is delivered or removed with forceps. Many variations of this sequence are possible, depending on the woman’s medical condition and surgical indications.

And then later, he writes the following:

Earlier this year, I began an abortion on a young woman who was 17 weeks pregnant. Because of the two days of prior treatment, the amniotic membranes were visible and bulging. I ruptured the membranes and released the fluid to reduce the risk of amniotic fluid embolism. Then I inserted my forceps into the uterus and applied them to the head of the fetus, which was still alive, since fetal injection is not done at that stage of pregnancy. I closed the forceps, crushing the skull of the fetus, and withdrew the forceps. The fetus, now dead, slid out more or less intact. With the next pass of the forceps, I grasped the placenta, and it came out in one piece. Within a few seconds, I had completed my routine exploration of the uterus and sharp curettage. The blood loss would just fill a tablespoon. The patient, who was awake, hardly felt the operation. She was relieved, grateful, and safe. She wants to have children in the future.

Could it be that he is completely without feeling with regards to these lives he’s snuffing out? Can he really be that cold and uncaring? How does this description, much less the actual, physical procedure, not sicken him with its total lack of humanity and morality?
What he fails to understand is that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban is aimed at stopping exactly this type of procedure, because no matter how clinical you make it sound, the truth is, life is being snuffed out as gruesomely as can be imagined, with such utter detachment it makes Idi Amin look like a humanitarian.