Kate Cox and D&E Abortion
Kate Cox, who was pregnant with a baby with Trisomy 18, sued the state of Texas to obtain a legal abortion. Many media outlets covered her story. Cox demanded a Dilation & Evacuation, or D&E abortion. She was denied an abortion in Texas but had one elsewhere. Cox's child was over 21 weeks old.
Cox was falsely told that her daughter couldn't survive and that there were no treatment options available. She had an abortion partly because "I didn't want her to suffer. I felt it was best for her…"
Cox also claimed that, because of two previous caesarian sections, having her daughter would destroy her future fertility and make her unable to have more children. A Live Action News article challenged this claim and pointed out that D&E abortions can also jeopardize fertility.
The D&E Abortion Procedure
Ironically, through the D&E, Cox's daughter likely suffered far more than she would've if Cox had given birth. In a D&E, the preborn child is dismembered and pulled out piece by piece.
Former abortionist Kathi Aultman describes the procedure:
Sometimes, abortionists inject the baby with the drug digoxin to kill her before dismemberment occurs. But digoxin takes hours to kill a baby and fails between 5-10% of the time. And many abortion facilities don't use it because it renders the baby's body parts useless for research and they can't be sold.
Potassium chloride is also sometimes used. This is the same drug used in executions. One woman considering abortion, who worked in the prison system, chose life because she didn't want her child to die the same way death row inmates do.
A Former Abortionist Describes the D&E Abortion Procedure
Abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino described a D&E abortion.
He described the Sopher Clamp; the instrument used to dismember the child. It is:
about thirteen inches long and made of stainless steel. At one end are located jaws about two inches long and about an inch wide with rows of sharp ridges or teeth. This instrument is for grasping and crushing tissue. When it gets hold of something, it does not let go.
Once the cervix is dilated and the amniotic fluid suctioned out, the abortionist reaches into the woman's uterus with the Sopher Clamp. Levatino says:
Once you have grasped something inside, squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard—really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg … Reach in again and grasp whatever you can. Set the jaw and pull really hard once again and out pops an arm about the same length.
Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart, and lungs.
The toughest part of a D&E abortion is extracting the baby's head … You will know you have it right when you crush down on the clamp and see a pure white gelatinous material issue from the cervix. That was the baby's brains. You can then extract the skull in pieces.
If you have a really bad day like I often did, a little face may come out and stare back at you.
Levatino finishes his description by saying, "Congratulations … You just made $600 cash in fifteen minutes."
A Witness to the D&E Procedure
Nurse Brenda Pratt-Shafer worked in a late-term abortion facility and witnessed several D&E abortions before quitting. One was committed under ultrasound, and she saw the baby being aborted on the screen. She saw the child trying to escape the forceps after one leg and an arm had been torn off:
Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabbed one of the fetal legs with his forceps. He clamped down hard and, with a twisting and tearing motion, ripped the leg from the little body. He brought it out and threw it in the pan beside me. I stood in horror as I looked at that little leg in the pan with perfectly formed toes…
The next time he went in, he tore off an arm with hands and little fingers!
I could see the fetus on the ultrasound screen trying to get away from the forceps! Then I no longer saw the heartbeat on the ultrasound screen.
The ultrasound's sound was turned off so the mother couldn't hear her dying baby's heartbeat. The abortionist had turned the screen away from her as well.
Pratt-Shafer watched the abortionist tear off the remaining arm and leg, pull out the intestines, and crush and remove the baby's head.
The baby was conscious and alive after being partially dismembered. He was still trying to escape. The child would've experienced intense physical pain. There is a great deal of research showing that babies in the womb feel pain by 20 weeks, or even earlier.
The Awareness of a Preborn Baby
This baby reacted to a physical assault. But witnesses have reported that preborn babies also react when foreign objects are put into the womb and come near them, even when they aren't actually touched.
Diagnostic sonographer Sarah Cleveland assisted in an amniocentesis done under ultrasound guidance. In amniocentesis, a doctor inserts a needle into the uterus to withdraw amniotic fluid for testing. It isn't an abortion procedure. The target of the needle isn't the baby.
The baby having the amniocentesis was 18 weeks old. Before the doctor inserted the needle, Cleveland says the baby was "kicking, playful, and happy."
But when the needle was inserted:
I saw Baby dart away from where we were in the uterus and move as far away as possible to the other side of the womb. He stopped kicking and playing … His little heart rate skyrocketed. He was scared. In fact, I am convinced he was terrified.
After the needle was removed, she watched the baby's heart rate decelerate and saw him "come out of the corner" where he'd retreated.
The baby reacted to a needle that never touched him, and Cleveland witnessed what she interpreted as fear and distress. It is impossible to know what the child was truly feeling, but he was clearly aware of the needle.
D&E abortions are brutal to preborn children and never the kinder option.
How Planned Parenthood Describes a D&E Abortion
Many Planned Parenthood abortion clinics provide D&E abortions. Planned Parenthood describes the procedure on its website for people considering abortion.
In her 2024 book One’s Own Journey to Healing after Abortion, author MN Jensen quotes Planned Parenthood’s description from their website.
Here is what Planned Parenthood thinks people considering abortion should know about a D&E procedure:
“Various medical tools and a vacuum device delicately remove the contents of the uterus.”1
You have read descriptions of the D&E abortion procedure from those who performed and witnessed them. Does it sound to you like the baby is “delicately removed?”
This sentence on Planned Parenthood’s website is the only information a pregnant person coming to Planned Parenthood for an abortion is given about a procedure that is done on her body and her baby. I say this based on years of research and hundreds of articles I’ve written.
In the past, I have quoted at least seven or eight former Planned Parenthood workers admitting that they gave pregnant people little to no information about the development of their preborn babies.
They admitted giving little information about abortion procedures, except a surface description of what the pregnant person would experience – nothing about what would happen to the baby. Some of these workers have even admitted to lying to pregnant people about fetal development and aspects of abortion procedures.
You don’t have to believe them. Live Action recorded Planned Parenthood workers lying to pregnant undercover investigators about the development of their babies. You can hear these lies, directly from the mouths of Planned Parenthood employees, here.
In addition to the workers, I’ve quoted dozens of women who went to Planned Parenthood for abortions and were either lied to or had information withheld from them. There are so many stories I could not possibly link to them all in this article.
Planned Parenthood doesn’t make any money if a pregnant person decides not to have an abortion. It’s not in their best interest to tell pregnant people the truth.
Much as I sympathize with Kate Cox, her loss, and the difficult decision she had to make, I don’t believe she did the right thing by having her baby dismembered and killed. And I don’t think the state of Texas did the wrong thing by trying to stop her.
1. Quoted in MN Jensen One’s Own Journey to Healing after Abortion (2024) 31
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This article originally appeared on Sarah Terzo’s Substack. You can read more of her articles here.
Sarah Terzo covered the abortion issue for over 13 years as a professional journalist. In this capacity, she has written nearly a thousand articles about abortion. She has been researching and writing about abortion since attending The College of New Jersey (class of 1997) where she minored in Women’s Studies.