Fifty years ago, the Shankill Butchers — a renegade loyalist paramilitary gang — were responsible for the brutal murders of dozens of people, many of whom were picked up at random while walking home and tortured and mutilated beyond recognition.
Indeed, such was the horror of what they inflicted that the corpse of one of their victims was said to have been found with hair as white as snow.
What set the Shankill Butchers apart from all the other paramilitary killers of that time (and throughout the remainder of the Troubles) was the sheer depravity and unfathomable wickedness of their actions.
These men were not soldiers fighting for what they believed was a just war; they were straight-up serial killers in the same category as Jeffrey Dahmer and Peter Sutcliffe; they killed for the pleasure of killing.
And yet, the death toll of the Shankill Butchers — reported to be twenty-three — is nothing compared to the body count racked up by some doctors inside modern NI hospitals, and their chosen method of killing, as of December 13th 2023, is not dissimilar, either (more on that later).
Legality aside, the only difference between the Shankill Butchers and this new generation of NI serial killers is a mere matter of appearance. While the Shankill Butchers wore their evil and disdain for human life on their sleeves and, with their vacant eyes and crazed expressions, looked every bit the murderous maniacs that they were, our local abortion providers are totally banal in their evil; they’re highly educated, painfully middle-class, card-carrying members of the Love-Not-Hate club, who most likely frequent all of your favourite independent food spots.
Case in point: Dr Laura McLaughlin — a NI-based abortion provider who goes by the name Golf Girl Laura on X — took to social media on December 16th to express her pride at the first-ever 2nd-trimester surgical abortion being performed in the Ulster Hospital, just a few days previous on December 13th.
Given that abortion advocates continually like to remind us that most abortions occur in the 1st trimester (which is true) and that later-term abortions are rare and very sad, it was interesting to see how quickly this veil of faux-modesty fell as the usual crowd of abortion-centric PhD elites and activist influencers chimed in to offer their congrats and express their hopes and dreams for more of the same.
Like orcs celebrating a victory at the Battle of Azanulbizar, this was a cause for joy and celebration, with not so much as a millisecond’s pause for reflection on the young human life snuffed out and used as promotional material for Dr McLaughlin’s services.
For those who do not know — because abortion advocates in the know are not, under any circumstances, going to tell you — a 2nd-trimester abortion is an elective surgical procedure that can take place anywhere between 12/13 weeks and 24 weeks gestation.
The two most common types of 2nd-trimester abortion are dilation and evacuation (D&E) and a variant called intact dilation and extraction (D&X).
D&E is the most common form of abortion for 2nd-trimester pregnancies and can also act as a backup for a failed 2nd-trimester medical abortion, hence its popularity.
A D&X abortion is similar in technique to a D&E abortion, but the objective is to keep the fetus’ body intact, should the situation call for it (more on the specifics below).
In the book Abortion Care (the editor of which also popped up in the comments to express his delight at Dr McLaughlin’s news), the D&E procedure is described as (comments in brackets mine): “Passing the jaws of the forceps through the internal os (the opening that leads to the uterus), ideally under ultrasound guidance, and opened as widely as possible to encircle the presenting fetal parts (the fetus’ arms and legs) in the lower uterine cavity”.
What happens next is something that would make even the Shankill Butchers wince.
“These (the fetal parts – again, the arms and legs) are reduced in size by closing the forceps and brought out through the cervix with gentle rotation.
The surgeon’s non-dominant hand is then used to palpate (examine) the size of the parts as they are pulled against the internal os or to palpate the uterus abdominally.
These manoeuvres help the operator to avoid extracting large parts which could cause a cervical laceration or rupture and maintain an awareness of the forceps relative to the uterine fundus (the part of the uterus that is furthest away).”
Following this, the book continues, the fetal parts are accounted for and removed (two arms? Check! Two legs? Check!) to ensure that no part of the now-fragmented fetus is left behind that could later cause a medical issue. Once this is complete, a vacuum aspiration removes any remaining blood or tissue.
In non-Orwellian language, the fetus — which is, scientifically speaking, a complete human organism, the same kind of thing as you and I — is dismembered alive with serrated forceps and discarded as medical waste. I say dismembered alive because the Royal College of Gynaecologists only recommends feticide (an injection of potassium chloride through the fetus’ heart to kill the fetus before the abortion) for abortions after 21 weeks and 6 days.
Even then, only 1% of all abortions and 41% of abortions at 20 weeks and over involve feticide due to a limited amount of doctors willing or able to carry it out and, most tellingly, a limited number of nurses and other support staff willing to witness it (Chapter 16, p146).
So, chances are, the subject of this particular 2nd-trimester abortion was alive when he or she was pulled limb from limb.
In the case of a D&X abortion, when the fetus’ body needs, for whatever reason, to be kept intact, wide cervical dilation is required, followed by an assisted breech delivery of the fetus’ trunk and decompression of the calvarium. Put another way: the body of the fetus is partially delivered, and its head crushed.
It is worth bearing in mind that this procedure is legal in NI for any reason up to 24 weeks gestation, with exceptions made beyond that (up to birth in theory) for cases of fetal abnormality, because who needs disabled people in this tolerant and compassionate New World Order that is being prepared for us by our progressive moral overlords, eh?
All this is to say that Dr McLaughlin — the well-spoken, golf-loving, well-to-do, and otherwise entirely banal subject of this podcast interview — was, in essence, celebrating the dismemberment (or skull-crushing) of a whole, complete and unique member of the human species.
And, if Dr McLaughlin has her way, many other 2nd-trimester abortions will follow, replete with the full backing of the law and funded with your tax money.
The Shankill Butchers could only dream of such freedom and privilege.