Monday September 27, 2010
Arkansas Abortionist and Former Clinton Physician Dies at 75
By Kathleen Gilbert
FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas, September 27, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An Arkansas abortionist notorious for mocking pro-life witnesses and who once claimed that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was his patient, has died of cancer at the age of 75.
William Harrison, a Fayetteville obstetrician/gynecologist, closed his abortuary earlier this year after he was diagnosed with leukemia, leaving only one abortion facility operating in the state. Operation Rescue reports that Harrison claimed to have killed over 20,000 children in the womb over the course of his 36-year practice.
Pro-abortion writer and professor Carole Joffe notes on RH Reality Check that Harrison was "an energetic writer as well as speaker" who often wrote for liberal and pro-abortion websites. Harrison also penned a novel, “There is a Bomb in Gilead,” as a pro-abortion response to converted abortionist Bernard Nathanson's “The Hand of God.”
The abortionist enjoyed an intimate friendship with former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the latter of whom was a former patient of Harrison's. It was around the time of her friendship with Harrison that Clinton developed what biographer Paul Kengor called a "religious devotion" to abortion, one that Harrison himself said he encouraged Bill to pursue more vigorously during one of his campaigns for the governorship of Arkansas.
Following an emotional encounter with a black woman who was deeply upset over her pregnancy in the late 1960s, Harrison abandoned his work delivering babies to pursue killing them in the womb full-time. Since then, he told ABC news, he has performed three abortions before lunch, and three after, four days a week. "I consider the mother's life to be much more important than that little blob of tissue, and that's all it is at that time," he told ABC's Martin Bashir.
Harrison has acknowledged he was "destroying life" as an abortion provider, but said that he felt he was allowing women to be "born again" by providing the abortion that would allow them to pursue the life they chose.
During the Spring 2010 40 Days for Life, a national pro-life prayer and fasting campaign, Harrison told media he felt the campaign was "silly," adding that "standing across the street and praying to end abortion - that doesn't work." He also "thanked" vigil participants for pointing out his location, because he doesn't advertise and claims that people praying outside will help newcomers find him.
40 Days for Life National Director David Bereit noted that, despite the taunts, both he and local pro-lifers were "praying for Harrison" to quit his work destroying unborn children.
Following Harrison's death, Operation Rescue president Troy Newman also said he would offer prayers for the abortionist, and said that "this man will never again have the opportunity to kill any more babies, hurt any more women, or cause any more human misery on this Earth."
"We pray other aging abortionists around the nation will not follow Harrison's example [of unrepentance], but will instead find repentance and forgiveness for their bloodguilt through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ," said Newman.