Texas attorneys cited a former abortion doctor’s description of second-trimester abortions as “brutal” and sickening procedures during an abortions restrictions case which returned to court Monday.
In remarks separate from the current case, Dr. Anthony Levatino gave vivid descriptions of second-trimester abortions, which he had performed for years before stopping when he realized that the “pile of body parts” he collected was someone’s child, according to Express News. It’s a “brutal procedure in which a living human being is torn to pieces,” Levatino said.
Levatino performed hundreds of dismemberment abortions between 1980 and 1985, but when one abortion in particular sickened him, he decided to stop. “That’s what started a cascade, which over the next few months, ended in not doing any more abortions,” Levatino said. He has not performed abortions for more than 30 years and is a vocal pro-life advocate.
Levatino’s testimony is expected to carry serious weight in the case regarding Senate Bill 8, banning second-trimester abortion procedures, which U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel has repeatedly blocked. “Dismemberment abortions are a gruesome and inhumane method of ending human life. Senate Bill 8 protects the dignity and sanctity of life, along with the integrity of the medical profession,” Texas Attorney General Paxton said in August after the ban went to court.
Yeakel, however, said that the plaintiffs will “suffer irreparable harm by being unable to access the most commonly used and safest pre-viability second trimester abortion procedure ahead of any substantial constitutional review of the act” in his ruling, defending his decision to put an temporary ban on abortion restrictions. (RELATED: Texas Judge Blocks Abortion Restrictions From Taking Effect).
Included in the case testimony were statements from Dr. David Berry, a maternal-fetal specialist who described the manner in which unborn babies are injected with potassium chloride to kill them before they are aborted. However, many Planned Parenthood clinics don’t use this procedure, killing the fetus by tearing its limbs apart rather than ending its life prior to the dismemberment procedure.
The trial is expected to continue until Wednesday, and Yeakel will issue a final ruling by the end of November.
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