“The former abortion counselor was so horrified she bolted from the clinic. What shocked her was not only that the baby was fully formed with miniature arms and legs. The baby was moving. He or she was still alive.”
Former Planned Parenthood worker Abby Johnson, who was the director of a Houston abortion facility, has written a book compiling the testimonies of former abortion workers. Her book, “The Walls Are Talking,” contains first-hand accounts of workers who helped commit abortions or performed other jobs in abortion centers.
Warning: Contains graphic images
One of the most compelling stories in the book is about the POC lab in a busy abortion facility. POC stands for “Products of Conception.” It is a euphemistic term used in the abortion industry referring to the preborn baby. The POC lab is where the bodies of aborted babies are taken after abortions. These bodies have to be carefully examined by abortion facility staff to make sure all pieces of the baby have been removed from the woman’s uterus. If any parts are left behind, such as an arm or leg, the woman could develop a dangerous infection.
Reflecting on her time in the industry, one worker describes working in the POC lab:
The POC (products of conception) – or babies, as I now like to call them – lab is a horrific place full of unspeakable gore… As is the case with any atrocity, the perpetrators must whitewash their evil acts and slowly draw their unwitting accomplices in by somehow convincing them that evil is good – that even if an act is distasteful, the end justifies the means.
I believe there is no better example of this than the hundreds of abortion clinics across the United States, each one of them with their own POC lab where workers casually converse as they piece together the torn limbs of dead babies like macabre puzzles.
The former worker says that most abortion facilities gradually expose new employees to the realities of abortion. They start new employees out with easier, less emotionally draining tasks like receptionist work, answering phones and abortion counseling. Only later, when the worker has adjusted to her workplace and become entrenched in the pro-abortion mindset, do they assign her to the POC lab.
READ: Aiding Abusers: Planned Parenthood’s Cover-Up of Child Sexual Abuse
This worker’s particular facility, however, did things differently:
They held more of a “sink or swim” type of philosophy.… Fresh young abortion idealists found themselves standing over a dish full of death. And it was their job to piece the body back together to make sure that the abortionist had ‘gotten it all’. By throwing the newbies into the trenches of the POC lab, the ‘weak’ ones were weeded out; the ones who managed to stomach it the first time or two promptly toughened up.
The worker was instructed to go into the POC room and handle the bodies of aborted babies without any real preparation. Even though she had taken a job in the abortion industry, she was not aware how developed the aborted babies were. She had always believed the pro-abortion argument that fetuses were simply cells and tissue. It was only when she examined the remains of actual aborted babies that she discovered the truth:
Of course, I had seen the graphic signs that the pro-lifers liked to hold up as they screamed at the abortion-minded women as they were escorted into our building.
However, we were always taught those images were not legit. They were falsified by antichoice radicals in an attempt to sway the public. We were taught that a first trimester abortion resembled nothing more than a blood clot, and that the visuals used by pro-lifers showing almost fully formed tiny fetuses were doctored. They had to lie to support their arguments. Science was on our side.
In reality, a preborn child at just seven and a half weeks after conception has arms and legs with fingers and toes. By eight weeks, the child looks like a miniature baby.
The abortion worker gives a possible reason why she never believed the aborted baby photos and fetal development information that pro-lifers shared were true:
I wonder now if I never questioned this because not only did I work in the abortion industry, but I had also had several abortions myself. It was so much easier to accept the fact that I had removed a clot of blood from my uterus that had the potential to become a baby than to think that I had hired a man to end the life rapidly growing in my womb.
How many post-abortive women struggle to acknowledge the facts about fetal development because they don’t want to face what really happened during their abortions? Denial can be a powerful motivator. It may lead a person to reject the evidence. Some pro-choice people may fail to believe the facts about abortion out of a sense of self-preservation – if they acknowledge that they destroyed a baby with a beating heart, brain waves, arms and legs, and fingers and toes, they would be overwhelmed with guilt and grief. They become emotionally invested in denying reality and assuming that everything pro-lifers say is untrue.
Despite her realization that the aborted babies she was handling were fully developed and human looking, the abortion worker was able to repress her emotions. Like a professional, she handled the aborted remains and showed no emotions.
The director of the facility was impressed by this lack of feelings. She told the worker, “You are the only person that I’ve ever brought back here that hasn’t gotten all emotional. You’re the one who will take over this affiliate.”
Working in the POC lab became a daily task for this abortion worker. She examined the bodies of the babies and carefully counted arms and legs.
The worker describes what happened when another abortion facility employee was instructed to help in the POC lab. This woman had been working for the abortion facility for years. She was an abortion counselor. She had “counseled” many women, encouraging them to have abortions. But she had never seen the remains of an aborted baby. She was shocked when she saw the body of a 16-week-old aborted child.
The abortion worker narrating the story says:
This woman had no idea what she was getting into.
When she was tasked to piece together the remains of a 16 week old baby, she cracked. Over her years of employment with the clinic, that woman had undoubtedly sold countless abortions to women in crisis. She knew how to answer their questions. ‘Will my baby feel anything?’ ‘What does it look like now?’ ‘Will it hurt?’ She had spent years in the abortion industry, but a few short seconds in the POC lab was all it took to send her flying out the door, never to return.
The former abortion counselor was so horrified she bolted from the clinic. What shocked her was not only that the baby was fully formed with miniature arms and legs. The baby was moving. He or she was still alive.
The narrator of the story had nothing but contempt for the woman who fled. She says:
I rolled my eyes, annoyed at her weakness, and headed to the lab to clean up her mess and get the job done. Most babies come out in pieces. But occasionally, they will come out almost whole. This particular baby’s head, torso, and arms were still intact. The legs were ripped off. There was movement, but only for a moment. I accounted for the parts, estimated gestational age based on the chart, and moved on to the next one.
The aborted baby was alive even after the legs were torn from her body. The partially dismembered baby must have been suffering agonizing pain. According to the former worker, the baby quickly died.
Yet, this abortion worker was unfazed and continued to work at the abortion facility.
It is not unheard of for babies to be aborted alive. In another case, documented by The Center for Medical Progress, Stem – Express technician Holly O’Donnell witnessed a baby who was alive after an abortion. O’Donnell was at the abortion facility to collect fetal parts for research. She recalls what she saw when another abortion worker called her over:
She calls me in and says, ‘Hey Holly, I want you to come over here I want you to see this, this is kind of neat.’
So I come over and the moment I see it I’m just flabbergasted. This is the most gestated fetus and closest thing to a baby I have seen.
She’s like, ‘I want to show you something.’ So she grabs one of her instruments and she just taps the heart and it just starts beating.
I’m sitting here and its heart is beating and I don’t know what to think.…
It had a face, it was not all torn up, its nose was very pronounced it had eye-lids its mouth was pronounced.
Since the fetus was so intact she said, ‘This looks like a really good fetus, we can procure a lot from this. We’re going to procure brain.’
Holly’s colleague then began cutting open the aborted baby’s face to extract her brain. O’Donnell helped her in this task, and when it was done, she shoved the baby’s body into a container to be disposed of.
Holly later told the story in a pro-life video.
Incidents like these take place in abortion facilities around the country every day.