Former abortionist: Babies feel pain during brutal "dismemberment" abortions

In the video, abortion survivor Claire Culwell says that she survived her birth mother’s D&E (dilation and evacuation or “dismemberment”) abortion, which killed her twin. “I’ve always wondered what my twin experienced,” she says to Levatino, “And what maybe I experienced in the womb next to my twin.”

Levatino explains that though he is not an expert on fetal pain, he has felt a preborn child flinch and pull away from a needle inserted into the amniotic sac during a diagnostic amniocentesis.

“We’re talking 16 and 17 weeks, so anyone who sits there and tells you that these fetuses can’t feel pain, I don’t believe that for a minute,” he told Culwell. “They would feel the pain of being dismembered until and unless that anesthesia kicked in — if they’re even using the kind of anesthesia that would do that.”

A D&E abortion is a brutal procedure in which the abortionist uses a sopher clamp to tear the arms and legs off of the preborn child. Often, the child’s head is too big to come out in one piece, so the skull is crushed before it is removed from the womb.

“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,” Levatino explained in a previous Live Action video. “That was the baby’s brains. You can then extract the skull pieces. If you have a really bad day like I often did, a little face may come out and stare back at you….”

Studies have shown that preborn children old enough to undergo a second-trimester D&E procedure are most certainly capable of feeling the process of being dismembered. Multiple studies and mounting evidence point to these children feeling pain as early as eight to 12 weeks gestation.