Quote of the Day: The baby is “the largest organ in the body”

Alabama state Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin is pushing a new TRAP bill that could shut down all five of the state’s abortion clinics. According to her, the strict regulations are necessary because abortion is a major surgery. In fact, she claims:

“When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body. That’s a big thing. That’s a big surgery. You don’t have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that.”

Image via Feministe.

A few questions for Rep. McClurkin:

1) Wait, is a fetus an organ or a person?

2)  Almost 90 percent of abortions take place in the first trimester. At that point, the fetus is roughly the size of this fish. On what scale is that considered big?

3) A first-trimester surgical abortion takes about 10 minutes and usually doesn’t even require general anesthesia. Less than .5 percent of patients have serious complications. I have had a baby-organ removed from my uterus. I have also had a couple wisdom teeth removed from my mouth. Both things, coincidentally, were approximately the size of a blueberry. The dental surgery seemed way more invasive to me. Why do you think you know better than medical professionals what regulations are necessary to ensure patient safety?

4) What did the liver ever do to deserve this erasure?