BY THEA JARVIS

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--Clad in a heavy black winter coat and high black boots, Brenda Pratt Shafer looked like she had just blown in from her home in cold and blustery Dayton, Ohio.

Delivering a simple but graphic message about partial-birth abortion on the Capitol steps in downtown Atlanta, Shafer spared no details as she described the procedure she had witnessed as a registered nurse assisting at a Dayton abortion clinic. Her talk reiterated testimony she has given before Congress in support of the partial-birth abortion ban which was later passed, but vetoed by President Clinton.

In the first of three partial-birth abortions Shafer watched, the doctor began by delivering a 26 and a half week baby boy's body and arms, keeping the head inside the mother's uterus. The baby's fingers clasped and unclasped, his feet kicked, she said, as the doctor went about the procedure.

After partially delivering the baby, the doctor inserted a scissors through the back of the baby's head, which was still in the womb. At that point, said Shafer, the baby's arms jerked out in a startled reaction, much like a baby does when he senses a fall.

The doctor then opened up the scissors and placed a high-powered suction tube into the cavity he had created. The baby's brain was thus removed from his head and the baby's little body went limp.

"I almost hit the floor," Shafer remembered. "I thought: ?This isn't happening!'"

In retrospect, she feels God allowed her to view the carnage.

Seven partial-birth abortions were performed at the Dayton clinic that day, said Shafer. Of those, one might have had Down syndrome and six were "perfectly healthy." The mothers of these children were healthy as well, she said.

On two previous days, she had watched a clinic doctor terminate first and second trimester pregnancies. As tiny limbs were discarded as waste, and small perfectly formed hearts stopped beating, Shafer wondered, "Where is this blob of tissue they tell you about?"

Her firsthand experience was enough to make Shafer reverse a long-held position adamantly supporting abortion.

"There are so many lies out there being told" about saving the life of the mother, she said, adding that statistics are manipulated to suit abortion proponents.

"It's only done to justify what they're doing," Shafer believes.

Three years ago, Shafer told the crowd, "I would have been in the corner making fun of you people," referring to a small group of pro-choice advocates who had jeered at them as they moved toward the Capitol.

Now, she said, "I'm trying to light one candle in this big darkness."