Feminist political correctness washed over Elaine Woo's Los Angeles Times obituary honoring Harvey Karman, "a flamboyant psychologist whose invention made a key contribution to women's reproductive health, particularly by making abortions simpler, cheaper and less painful."
The Times headline was "Harvey Karman, 84; invented device for safer, easier abortions." No one at the Times thought if the abortion was "safer" for the unborn child, just for the alleged mother, and no one must have wondered if the term " women's reproductive health" sounded euphemistic, especially since reproducing was something that was being avoided. It's at best "counter-reproductive."
(UPI copycatted the Times obit.)
But Woo found friends and policy allies who touted his humanitarianism for making abortion "safe" and easy, especially by inventing a tube (or cannula) which made abortion easier:
He freely demonstrated its use for doctors and other medical professionals and in 1972 was part of a humanitarian mission to terminate the pregnancies of 1,500 Bangladesh women and girls who had been raped by Pakistani soldiers. His cannula is still widely used today.
"Harvey Karman did more for safe abortion around the world than practically any other person in the world," said Dr. Malcolm Potts, Bixby professor of Population, Family Planning and Maternal Health at UC Berkeley, who accompanied Karman to Bangladesh 35 years ago.
"Karman's name is not known, yet his ingenuity and to some extent his courage has made safe abortion available to literally millions of women around the world."
At least Woo turned to Karman's rather mixed record for "safer" abortions in paragraph 9:
Karman also had many detractors, particularly because of his attempt to revolutionize second-trimester abortions with a device called the super coil, which was inserted into the uterus and expanded when exposed to moisture, causing a miscarriage. It caused serious complications, including hemorrhaging and infection, when it was used on about a dozen women in Philadelphia on Mother's Day in 1972.
Woo found a feminist to decry his experimentation on women's bodies, so that feminists would be on both sides of the discussion of his legacy.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.
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Comments Policy
less painful for
May 18, 2008 - 21:06 ET by USA4freedomless painful and safer.. for who..
Ronald Reagan, 1962: I did not leave the Democratic party, the party left me.
Insert: your name, 2008, and the Republican party.
Romney / Jendil 2012 (if,we survive)
Not for the women
May 20, 2008 - 02:50 ET by GrannyGrump42The idiot killed a woman in 1955 doing an abortion on her wit a nutcracker! She died an excrutiating death.
http://realchoice.0c...
And his "humanitarian" aid in Bangladesh consisted of stuffing rape victims full of plastic springs and balsa wood, with predictable results. God alone knows how many of those women and girls went back to their villages and died for want of medical care thanks to Karman.
He treated women like lab rats. He left them with hemorrhage and infection from pieces of plastic and wood stuck through the walls of their wombs. He killed at least one. And this makes him a hero to the abortion movement.
Then they have the gall to claim that it's all about the women for them.
Women's Health?...really?
May 18, 2008 - 21:09 ET by HippopaulimusDoes anyone else get the sense that he really wasn't that concerned with women's health?
Just looking to make a buck on killing babies more efficiently.
And to run experiments like that here in America, on an American holiday celebrating motherhood....just beyond disgusting.......
I guess all that's left to ask is, "Hey Harv, do you finally get it? Now that you're roasting like a pig in hell?"
White - does not mean racist
Heterosexual - does not mean homophobic
Male - does not mean sexist
Exactly
May 20, 2008 - 03:26 ET by GrannyGrump42The guy's only claim to fame was that he had unbridled enthusiasm for abortion. Women were just so many lab rats to test his fetus-extermination techniques on.
http://realchoice.0c...
The adulation of Harvey Karman is proof positive that the whole abortion thing isn't about helping women, it's about killing babies. Because if it was about helping women this guy would have been a paraiah.
Safer? A highly questionable claim
May 18, 2008 - 21:10 ET by nkviking75Since abortions are shrouded in secrecy in this country in the name of privacy, the claim that abortions are "safer" is suspect at best. Abortion is the least regulated medical procedure in America, and pretty much the only one that any minor old enough to get pregnant can legally consent to.
As to paragraph 9 from the article:
Karman also had many detractors, particularly because of his attempt to revolutionize second-trimester abortions with a device called the super coil, which was inserted into the uterus and expanded when exposed to moisture, causing a miscarriage. It caused serious complications, including hemorrhaging and infection, when it was used on about a dozen women in Philadelphia on Mother's Day in 1972.
A dozen on Mother's Day? It sure smacks of a publicity stunt that became a tragedy. From years of anecdotal evidence, it seems leaders on the pro-abortion side have highly inflated egos and greatly diminished compassion for patients
When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.
Publicity is right
May 20, 2008 - 02:54 ET by GrannyGrump42He invited a news crew from a New York public television station to record the whole thing for posterity!
http://realchoice.0catch.com/library/weekly/aa082701c.htm
He was a sick, sick man. But he was enthusiastic about abortion and to some people, that's all it takes to be a hero.
No one at the Times thought
May 18, 2008 - 21:36 ET by balboaNo one at the Times thought if the abortion was "safer" for the unborn child
Just a point of logic: There's really no way to make an abortion "safer for the unborn child," .
Balboa-Banana-Fanna-Falboa
May 18, 2008 - 22:03 ET by Tim GrahamCorrect. My point was the L.A. Times reporter knows full well it's not safe for the child, but the child is irrelevant to them. How very "pro-choice" it is.
Is there a way they could
May 18, 2008 - 22:08 ET by balboaIs there a way they could have worked that into the article?
(BTW, one of the best band names of all time? Chuck Chuck Bo-buck and the Banana-fana Four.)
The woman isn't even relevant to them!
May 20, 2008 - 02:56 ET by GrannyGrump42He killed Joyce Johnson. He left rape victims in Bangladesh with infection and hemorrhage from plastic springs and hunks of balsa wood stuck through the walls of their wombs! And he's a hero because of what he did for WOMEN?
Who has the fetus fetish? The abortion lobby, that they'd worship the likes of this man, simply because he made abortions CHEAPER.
Making it easier to murder
May 18, 2008 - 22:22 ET by easygoerMaking it easier to murder children; something I want on my resume.
Byron White's brilliant dissent in Roe:
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST joins, dissenting.*
At
the heart of the controversy in these cases are those recurring
pregnancies that pose no danger whatsoever to the life or health of the
mother but are, nevertheless, unwanted for any one or more of a variety
of reasons -- convenience, family planning, economics, dislike of
children, the embarrassment of illegitimacy, etc. The common claim
before us is that, for any one of such reasons, or for no reason at
all, and without asserting or claiming any threat to life or health,
any woman is entitled to an abortion at her request if she is able to
find a medical advisor willing to undertake the procedure.
The
Court, for the most part, sustains this position: during the period
prior to the time the fetus becomes viable, the Constitution of the
United States values the convenience, whim, or caprice of the putative
mother more than the life or potential life of the fetus; the
Constitution, therefore, guarantees the right to an abortion as against
any state law or policy seeking to protect the fetus from an abortion
not prompted by more compelling reasons of the mother.
With
all due respect, I dissent. I find nothing in the language or history
of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply
fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers
[410 U.S. 222] and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its
action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most
existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the
legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally dissentitled to
weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and
development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of
possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand. As an exercise of
raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does
today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant
exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends
to this Court.
The
Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more
than the continued existence and development of the life or potential
life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that
marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court's judgment
because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of
priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive
area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable
men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court's
exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional
barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers
and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate
it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and
to the political processes the people have devised to govern their
affairs.
Wow. The dehumanization of
May 19, 2008 - 00:29 ET by rbosqueWow. The dehumanization of babies continues, easier to get over that troublesome thing called a "conscience". Hitler would be so proud!
wow. *not* 1500 rapes
May 19, 2008 - 05:23 ET by sarcasmo1500 pregnancies resulting from what must have been many-more thousands of rapes. And the lower ranks of the Pakistan Army from back in those "good ol' days" might just be in their leadership today, which, for me, serves to explain a few things about a situation far-removed from the abortion issue.
JMR
The tax & spend drug war looks racist in the real world.
Sure he may get glowing
May 19, 2008 - 05:54 ET by taterSure he may get glowing praise from a rag...but I'd like to see how he is judged by God for his invention.
"They need to have a course in college called common sense and everyone should take it. Problem is there isn't too many people that could pass or teach it." -my grandfather
abortionist Harvey Karmen
May 19, 2008 - 08:19 ET by WR JonasI agree with tater . Where do you suppose the soul of Harvey Karmen resides this morning ?
This is not an insignificant question. Where ever he is ,he will be spending eternity there. His spirit and soul now depends on the the judgement of God. From his investment in the serial murder of thousands of unborn babies I believe his chances of finding peace and glory in the afterlife are very slim.
Harvey Karman's improved
May 19, 2008 - 10:05 ET by celatorHarvey Karman's improved efficiency in the assasination of unborn human beings would be the envy of Drs. Josef Mengele, Carl Clausberg, Herta Oberheuser (she was particularly enthusiastic about experimenting with abortion techniques and corresponded with Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, on various abortion, ah, methodologies) and Karl Brandt.
Oh those crazy Nazi physician/murderers must now be toasting their new friend, Harvey Karman.
Abortion is the only 'safe'
May 19, 2008 - 12:01 ET by mattmAbortion is the only 'safe' procedure during which one of the people involved is guaranteed to die.
Abortions ???
May 19, 2008 - 12:23 ET by LionKingIn this day of modern medicine, when is an abortion medically necessary, not medically convenient?
Yeah, Harvey was a hero
May 20, 2008 - 02:46 ET by GrannyGrump42Do you know what he did to those rape victims in Bangladesh during his "humanitarian" visit? He stuck them full of plastic springs and balsa wood. Yup. Model airplane parts. He left them with pieces of wood and plastic stuck in their uterine walls. He left them with hemorrhage and infection. God only knows how many of them were sent back to their villages to die for want of aftercare.
He also killed Joyce Johnson in 1955, right home in California, when he got it into his head that a NUTCRACKER would make a good abortion instrument.
He treated women like lab rats. He injured them. He killed at least one. But he's a hero, an icon. Why? Because of his unbridled enthusiasm for abortion. That's all it takes for some people. Kill babies and you're a hero, even if you injure and kill the mothers as well.
Then they have the gall to claim that it's all about the well-being of women.