I am an old nurse now, nearly 75, and I still remember seeing my first operation in a nursing home. I was not told what the operation was for. I was just sixteen and was allowed into the theatre because there was a shortage of staff. I was told I would see a caesarean and could hold the basin for the baby. I dearly loved babies and you can imagine my feelings when a baby of 6 months gestation was lifted out and dumped, still in its amniotic sac, into the bowl I was holding. I was told to take it out and put it in the sluice and cover it with a lid. That bowl stayed in the sluice room for days and every time I went there I thought of that baby. Some time later I was ordered to take the bowl and dump it in to the incinerator. I have never forgotten that traumatic experience. I am glad I am no longer a nurse as the medical profession seems to have become more and more mercenary. I was happy to be able to help my fellow men and their recovery was my satisfaction.
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I am a retired nurse and feel that it is a disgrace that to be trained to save lives we must help to destroy them. There was a young nurse I will always remember who was new and was given a parcel to take to the incinerator. On the way it whimpered. She returned, with tears streaming down her face and gave in her notice there and then. We are chasing away the most caring nurses because they cannot take this destruction.
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Having worked on gynae. wards for the year during which the Abortion Law came into effect and then for the last 13 years, I have seen the changing attitudes to abortion. At first patients were subdued and sad about what they were admitted for, now more and more of these women almost brag about their abortions to the other women. These often include women in for infertility and miscarriage I might add. It would seem hardly fair that the NHS continues to pay for these women who seem to take so lightly the consequences of their actions.
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