ABCNews' "Nightline" on Wednesday profiled William Harrison, 70, a physician with Fayetteville Women's Clinic in Arkansas, who has been providing abortion services for more than 30 years and who estimates that he has terminated more than 10,000 pregnancies (Bashir, "Nightline," ABCNews, 1/11). Harrison said protesters picketed and vandalized his clinic, and the clinic was firebombed once during the 1980s. Abortion-rights opponents protested outside his house and threatened him routinely. In recent years, Harrison has become more outspoken about the issue, describing himself as an "abortionist" and his patients as "born again" (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 11/30/05). According to ABCNews, Harrison began to consider offering abortions after a woman came to him wishing she had cancer instead of a pregnancy, as well as many other patients who had undergone "horrific, botched procedures" -- some at their own hands. Harrison said he considers "the mother's life to be much more important than that little blob of tissue" and that he would be "more distressed" if he could not "terminate that life for the patient that that life is going to be a disaster for." In the ABCNews interview, Harrison also discussed his thoughts on Roe v. Wade and Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito ("Nightline," ABCNews, 1/11).

A transcript of the segment is available online.

A video excerpt of the segment is available online in RealPlayer.