William Mudd Martin Haskell is an extremely controversial figure in the abortion industry. Haskell was an early proponent of partial-birth abortion, also known as Intact Dilation and Extraction (IDX), and claims to have invented the procedure. He did not in actuality invent the partial-birth abortion, but only popularized it because he was such a fan of it. This method of abortion was previously used only in late-term abortions but began to be used often at earlier stages of pregnancy because it was a more convenient way to extract the child from its mother. This is because the child is removed intact, rather than piece-by-piece as it is in other abortions. This means that the mother does need to be dilated, just like a normal birth where the doctor doesn't intend to kill the child after it is born.
During other methods of abortion the individual parts of the child are pulled apart and taken out one-by-one. Dilation is not necessary for this procedure. Because the head, the largest part of the child, is too large to remove this way, it is squeezed by the doctor with forceps until it "pops" which allows the brain to flow out leaving a smaller, crushed head for the doctor to pull out. To perform Haskell's partial-birth abortion procedure the mother must be dilated so that the child can be pulled out intact and alive, feet-first, up to the neck. After this the abortionist stabs into the baby's head through the neck with scissors, opening them to enlarge the hole. A suction tube is inserted into the head and the brain is suctioned out of the head, deflating it. During a "normal" D&X abortion this process, or the severing of the spinal cord by the abortionist with the scissors is what finally kills the child, but there are other methods which can be used if needed such as strangulation or simply throwing the baby away, leaving it to die. In this video you can hear a description of the IDX process from a former abortionist who has performed this type of abortion many times.
The Dilation and Extraction, partial-birth abortion procedure was banned by federal law but is still performed in Haskell's clinics. He does this by slightly modifying the procedure so that he can utilize a loophole in the law to avoid prosecution. Haskell has performed this type of abortion a startling number of times and continues to do so at the 3 clinics he operates in Indianapolis, IN, Dayton, OH and Cincinnati, OH.
