If we think of hell, we might imagine screams coming out of the flames, or the sinister laughter of the devil. But the sound I recently heard coming from there was that of applause.
What I heard was an audiotape of Dr. Martin Haskell giving a presentation at the 16th Annual Meeting of the National Abortion Federation Conference in 1992 in San Diego. It was a gathering of abortionists — men and women who make their living by killing babies. Haskell was describing to his audience how to do a partial-birth abortion. Listen to his words about how this procedure takes place:
"The surgeon then introduces large grasping forceps ... through the vaginal and cervical canal ... He moves the tip of the instrument carefully towards the fetal lower extremities — and pulls the extremity into the vagina ... The surgeon then uses his fingers to deliver the opposite lower extremity, then the torso, the shoulders, and the upper extremities. The skull lodges in the internal os. The fetus is oriented ... spine up ... The surgeon then takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. ... the surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull — spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon--surgeon then introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents."
Haskell, having described these brutal details, shows his audience a video of himself doing one of these procedures. And at the end of the video, after the sound of the suction machine taking the brains out of the baby's head, the audience applauds.
That, my friends, is applause from hell.
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