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The pro-life community is in disbelief that NPR aired "horrifying and inappropriate" audio of a Michigan woman having an abortion on Thursday.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser blasted NPR over the 11-minute segment that featured journalist Kate Wells talking to women and observing procedures at an abortion clinic outside Detroit. One of the women who decided to terminate a pregnancy at "about 11 weeks," according to Wells, allowed NPR to record and broadcast audio of procedure.
"It is horrifying and inappropriate for a taxpayer funded outlet to air the excruciating moments for child and mother of an abortion. If I were an advertiser, I would question the judgment of affronting viewers who see this death of a 11-week-old human being with fingers, eyes toes, revealing left or right-handedness as tragic," Dannenfelser told Fox News Digital.
NPR SHOCKS BY AIRING AUDIO OF WOMAN GETTING AN ABORTION: 'DISTURBING AND EVIL ON EVERY LEVEL'
The pro-life community is in disbelief that NPR aired "horrifying and inappropriate" audio of a Michigan woman having an abortion on Thursday. (iStock)
"Perhaps intended to anesthetize listeners, it is most likely to cause a recoil away from those who promote it," she continued. "Including advocates of abortion seeking votes at the polls next Tuesday."
NPR noted during the controversial segment that women have been traveling to Michigan in "record numbers" in search of abortions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year. Abortion has emerged as a major issue for Democrats in the midterms.
Dr. Tara Sander Lee, who serves as senior fellow and director of life sciences at Charlotte Lozier Institute, said NPR had reminded the country of the "cost" of having the world's most permissive abortion laws.
"The sound of a mother’s suffering as her unborn child is being suctioned from her womb is painful and unforgettable. That child’s heart had already beat over 9 million times and will be heard no more. That child already displayed a preference for using their right or left hand when sucking his thumb," Sander Lee told Fox News Digital.
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NPR shocked listeners on Thursday when it aired audio of a Michigan woman having an abortion. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
"NPR referred to the baby as ‘pregnancy tissue.’ Yet that baby had already developed over 4,000 distinct body parts, or 90% of the named body parts found in an adult," Sander Lee continued. "I find the phrase ‘pregnancy tissue’ to be cruel and demeaning, as it denies what science knows about the humanity of the baby and seeks to obscure what we instinctively know to be true."
Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins believes NPR’s move backfired and inadvertently educated listeners on why many women are anti-abortion.
"NPR inadvertently told a powerful story, explaining why so many women are pro-life because in hearing a woman's fear and the sound of her baby's life slipping away, the natural reaction is sorrow and horror," Hawkins told Fox News Digital.
"Those radical abortion extremists who support abortion as Biden and his team push -- through all 9 months, for any reason at all, and even with taxpayer funding -- have gone tone-deaf to what the rest of us know," Hawkins said. "Abortion is a tragedy, and hearing a life ended was a shockingly disrespectful thing to do to both mother and child."
HORRIFIC NPR ABORTION AUDIO SHOWS AMERICANS HOW TERRIBLE PROCEDURE AND NPR TRULY ARE
A group of anti-abortion protesters crashes the Women's March Action Rally for Reproductive Rights at Mariachi Plaza in Los Angeles, California, on Oct. 8, 2022. ( DAVID MCNEW / AFP) (Photo by DAVID MCNEW/AFP via Getty Images)
The group 40 Days for Life tweeted, "NPR thinks they've done the abortion industry a favor by highlighting the gruesome reality of undergoing an abortion. Instead, they've revealed exactly what the pro-life movement has always known: abortions hurt women and kill babies. Women and their unborn babies deserve better."
The conservative Media Research Center’s Tierin-Rose Mandelburg wrote "the fact that NPR shamelessly played the sound of a child being slaughtered is extremely disturbing" and "simply heartbreaking."
Wells claimed during the NPR segment that dim lighting and "soothing music" makes it feel "a lot like a childbirth," but Mandelburg vehemently disagrees.
"In reality, a child is being killed. This is a crime scene," Mandelburg wrote.
NPR has not responded to multiple requests for comment. NPR president and CEO John Lansing did not respond to an email asking if the supports the decision to air audio of an abortion.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pro-choice groups for comment and did not receive responses.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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