Abortion is not about the right to choose whether to become pregnant; that choice, often irresponsibly, was already made before the child was conceived. The choice the mother makes is whether to continue the “unwanted” pregnancy, whether to give birth to a live baby or to a dead one.
The fetus (meaning “young one” in Latin) is a separate person from his or her mother genetically from the moment of conception, although he or she depends on the mother for nutrition and a place to grow in safety. By just 16 days’ post-conception, the fetus has a heartbeat; and by 39 days’ post-conception, brain waves can also be measured. (A heartbeat and brain waves are the standards used medically and legally as evidence of life for people other than the pre-born.)
By weeks 9 to 12, the mother can hear the baby’s heartbeat on a Doppler machine. The baby’s major organs and tissues (even fingers and toes, complete with fingerprints) have developed, and the face is well-formed.
To see a 10-week-old pre-born baby’s tiny hands and feet, go to nationalgeographic.com and search for “In the Womb” (photo gallery, picture #4) and standupgirl.com (a 7-week-old girl).
According to one of the world’s leading experts in obstetrics, “We see the earliest movements [on a 4-D ultrasound] at 8 weeks. By 12 weeks or so they are seen yawning and performing individual finger movements that are often more complex than you’ll see in a newborn. It may be due to the effects of gravity after birth. The images reveal facial expressions, like smiling, at 20 weeks. Beyond 24 weeks fetuses may suck their thumbs, stick their tongues out ... and make apparently emotional faces” (National Geographic News).
If you are “for abortion” (pro-choice is just a euphemism), you need to know just exactly what it is that you are really for.
Just what is abortion? It is “the deliberate induction of a miscarriage – the purposeful termination of a pregnancy with intention other than to produce a live-born infant” (S. C. Dept. of Health and the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2005, S. 51).
During the first trimester, when the baby is known to have a beating heart, his or her own unique blood type, and the ability to suck his or her thumb, a suction aspiration and/or D & C (dilation and curettage) is performed. The baby is cut and torn apart limb-by-limb and then vacuumed out of the mother’s uterus to be discarded as medical waste. The body parts are reassembled to ensure complete removal from the mother to decrease risk of infection from the dead tissue.
Have you ever thought to ask, “Does the baby feel pain?” If stuck in the hand with a pin, an 8-week-old fetus will pull his or her hand away, open his mouth, and experience increased heart rate. These are the same responses that an 8-hour-old infant will have.
From about 14 to 18 weeks’ gestation, the abortion procedure most often used is Dilation & Evacuation (D & E). Although the brain is fully developed by weeks 13 to 16 and the baby can feel pain and opens his or her mouth as if crying, an abortionist inserts forceps with sharp metal jaws into the womb to twist and tear the bones of the larger pre-born child. This process is repeated until the child is totally dismembered and removed. Typically the “doctor” must snap the spine and crush the skull in order to remove them.
To see factual medical diagrams of these abortion procedures, as well as the photograph of the tiny hands and feet of an aborted 9-week-old fetus, go to nucleusinc.com and search for abortion.
Saline injection (salt poisoning) is also used after 14 weeks. The salt acts as a corrosive, burning off the outer layer of the baby’s skin. It normally takes somewhat over an hour for the baby to die from ingesting the salt. Within 24 hours, labor will usually set in and the mother will give birth to a dead or dying baby.
Sometimes these babies have been born alive. They are usually left unattended to die; however, a few have survived and later been adopted.
Used mainly in the last trimester, a hysterotomy abortion is performed like a Caesarean delivery except that the umbilical cord is usually cut while the baby is still in the womb, thus cutting off his or her oxygen supply and causing the baby to suffocate. Sometimes the baby is removed alive and simply left to die of neglect or exposure (often in the Soiled Utility Room) or drowned in a bucket of water.
A more widely used procedure known as partial birth abortion is used mostly in the 20-to-26-week range (when viability is now possible).
The abortionist grabs the baby’s legs with forceps to pull them, one-by-one, through the birth canal. Then the baby’s entire body, except for the head, is delivered. Then the abortionist forcefully plunges scissors into the baby’s skull and enlarges the hole so that he can suction the baby’s brains out. Collapsing the skull makes it easier to deliver the baby’s head. The dead baby is then fully removed and discarded.
This gruesome “medical procedure” is legal and routinely performed through the ninth month because some courts have overruled the laws passed by our elected representatives to prohibit this ghoulish method of ending a baby’s life.
To see the photographic evidence that abortion is a brutal act that kills a real baby, not just a “blob of tissue,” go to abort73.com or priestsforlife.org. Be warned: these photos of aborted babies (from 7 weeks’ gestation through the third trimester) are graphic. Are you open-minded enough to face the real truth?
Women who have had abortions are speaking out about the pain and the sadness that the only “choice” that seems to be available is the one to have an abortion.
Gayla Conley
Peachtree City, Ga.