Aborted Children: "They're Just Thrown Away Like Garbage"

Father Dan Pattee of Franciscan University is interviewed by Emily Stimpson and talks faith, life, and human rights. Excerpts:

...OSV: Did spending weekend after weekend praying at abortion centers across the country change how you see the abortion industry?

Father Pattee: It did. As the weeks went by, I started noticing that these centers tended to be unmarked. You often would have no way of knowing what was going on inside except for the pro-life groups praying outside on the sidewalks. It’s like they’re trying to cultivate a stealth presence.

Others have very misleading names. In Shreveport, La., the abortion center is called the Hope Family Care Center. There is deception at the heart of the abortion movement, and that comes across even in the way their centers look. Of course, along the way, it came out in far worse ways as well.

OSV: Like what?

Father Pattee: The reason they always give for keeping abortion legal is that it’s necessary to keep women safe. But to make that argument, they have to cover up all the ways abortion is not safe for women and all the terrible things that happen to women inside abortion clinics. 

For example, in Birmingham, Ala., right before we got there, two ambulances came rushing to the abortion center, and two women were carried out on gurneys. The pro-lifers standing outside took pictures, but if they hadn’t, no one would have known about that. Again, in Jackson, Miss., the day before we arrived, the court permitted the last abortion center in the state to stay open for another 90 days so that it could find a way to bring itself into compliance with the law that requires only OB-GYNs perform abortions. Before that, they were allowing people who weren’t doctors to do abortions. No OB-GYN was present.

Then, there was the case in Chicago this summer, where a woman died because the clinic workers held off on calling 911. They knew she was in trouble, but they didn’t want it to look bad for the clinic. Again, there is deception at the heart of the pro-abortion movement. They claim they’re all about the health and well-being of the mother, but their actions say otherwise.

OSV: Before Andrew Moore’s death, what was the hardest moment of the walk for you?

Father Pattee: That was in El Paso.
We had just finished praying a couple of rosaries outside an abortion center, and while the young people were deciding what we were going to do next, I sat down by the dumpster to pray morning prayer. Right at that moment, one of the center’s workers came walking out with refuse from the morning’s procedures, with the bodies of the aborted babies. They were in a trash bag. I watched her as she unlocked the garbage bin. I was stunned and said to her, “Miss, can it stop?” She didn’t acknowledge me. After she threw the bag away and locked up the dumpster, I asked one more time: “Miss, can it please stop?” She just walked away.

After that, we all gathered around this dumpster and began to pray. I said a prayer of committal for the babies that had been aborted that morning, and it was both a low moment and a high moment for me. On the one hand, I felt privileged I was able to be there to give these babies a proper burial, to give them their due. But I was sad because the masses of babies aren’t that fortunate. No one is there for them. No one cares. They’re just thrown away with the other garbage. No one deserves that..