“[A]bortion is life and death and I think for me it’s about providers saying, “Yes, we end lives here,” and being okay with that … I had a woman wake up in the recovery room and say, “I just killed my baby.” And I said to her, “You did, and that’s okay.” And just, being okay, to say that…. That’s what I feel we’re doing here. And I’m okay with that,” said an abortion provider in “Dangertalk: Voices of abortion providers” published in Social Science and Medicine 184 (2017)1.
Doctors performing abortions are not disillusioned about what they are doing. They are ending lives, and they know it.
Another doctor, Bernard Nathanson, who performed 75,000 abortions and played an instrumental role in the legalization of abortion in America, explained the tactics used to change the culture: “We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favour of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority.”2
In a stunning 180, Dr. Nathanson became a staunch pro-life advocate after his experience using new-at-the-time technology for studying fetal development. “A favorite pro-abortion tactic is to insist that the definition of when life begins is impossible; that the question is a theological or moral or philosophical one, anything but a scientific one. Fetology makes it undeniably evident that life begins at conception and requires all the protection and safeguards that any of us enjoy.”3
Why are doctors who know abortion is killing still doing it? According to Dr. Nathanson, “Simple arithmetic: at $300.00 a time 1.55 million abortions means an industry generating $500,000,000 annually, of which most goes into the pocket of the physician doing the abortion.”4
A man responsible for the intentional killing of 75,000 human lives had a change of heart so profound, he wrote in 2013: “It is clear that permissive abortion is purposeful destruction of what is undeniably human life. It is an impermissible act of deadly violence. One must concede that unplanned pregnancy is a wrenchingly difficult dilemma. But to look for its solution in a deliberate act of destruction is to trash the vast resourcefulness of human ingenuity, and to surrender the public weal to the classic utilitarian answer to social problems.”5
It is clear as day: abortion is killing. That is not a religious statement. It is a scientific fact.
What is the killing of human life? According to Alaska law, “A person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if with intent to cause the death of another person, the person causes the death of any person.”6 While some may argue that a fetus is not a person yet, Alaska statute 11.41.150 clarifies: “A person commits the crime of murder of an unborn child if the person with intent to cause the death of an unborn child or of another person, causes the death of an unborn child.”7
Alaska’s own law makes it clear: a fetus is an unborn child and causing the death of an unborn child is murder. But abortion is legal in Alaska? How could that be?
The law continues: “AS 11.41.150 – 11.41.170 do not apply to acts that cause the death of an unborn child if those acts were committed during a legal abortion to which the pregnant woman consented or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf consented, or for which such consent is implied by law.”8 Notice the language of the law: abortion is “the death of an unborn child.” However, the law does not provide equal protection for the unborn child that is wanted by his or her mother and the unborn child that is not wanted.
We often boast the equality of our society. We are “equal under the law.” But Alaska’s laws are clear: unwanted unborn children are not equal under the law. Unwanted unborn children may be killed without any legal penalty. But the absence of legal penalty does not erase the reality that an unwanted unborn child has the same characteristics of human life that a wanted unborn child has.
“Unborn child” is not language invented by the pro-life movement. It is the language of the law. It is the language of reality.
Alaskan abortionists are playing the same game with the media that pro-abortionists used nationwide: lie, deflect, hide. We hear about the “right to privacy” and the Supreme Court’s decisions to include abortion under that right. But we never hear about Statute 11.41.150 that identifies a fetus as an “unborn child” and identifies the intentionally killing of that unborn child as murder. We are hardly ever confronted with the logical inconsistency of our own laws regarding unborn children. Why should whether someone wants you determine your rights? Why is a mother elevated to the bestower of rights in direct contradiction to the principle that the human right to life is “inalienable” and “endowed by our Creator?”
When will we reject the idea that a person’s wantedness determines rights? When are Alaskans going to defend the right to life for all?
- Lisa A. Martin, PhD, Jane A. Hassinger, MSW, Michelle Debbink, MD, PhD, Lisa H. Harris, MD, PhD “Dangertalk: Voices of abortion providers” Social Science & Medicine 184 (2017) 75-83 ↩︎
- Nathanson, Bernard. “Confessions of an Ex-Abortionist” In The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind (Washington, D.C.: Regenery Publishing, 2013). ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- AK Stat § 11.41.100 (2025) ↩︎
- AK Stat § 11.41.150 (2025) ↩︎
- AK Stat § 11.41.180 (2025) ↩︎
