by 
Something interesting is happening in England. Abortion was legalized in England through the legislature instead of by judicial fiat. The problem for these legislatures is that new scientific and medical advances are showing us things that we didn’t know before when the original laws were crafted.
Fetal Pain
In early abortions, before 12 weeks, the abortionist is able to use suction to completely remove the baby from the uterus. After 12 weeks, the action turns grisly.
Dr Spencer opens a fresh pack of shiny instruments. He’s an extremely calm, softly spoken man, which somehow makes his words all the more devastating. “The foetus can’t come out in one go. We haven’t dilated sufficiently for that. The foetal parts are soft enough to break apart as they are being removed…”
In other words, he has to dismember the foetus inside the uterus and pull it out, bit by bit. He uses an ultrasound scan to guide him. Even then, some body parts are too large to come out intact.
To illustrate what happens, Dr Spencer grips his thumb between the surgical forceps and squeezes gently. “Those parts are the skull and then the spine and pelvis, and in fact they are crushed…”
It used to be that doctors believed that pain receptors did not develop in the baby until after 26 weeks. However, the 1984 film called The Silent Scream challenged this concept because it showed a baby in the womb being killed and seeming to scream.
American doctors are now confirming they hypothesis of this film– that babies can feel pain before 26 weeks. Dr. Sunny Anand has been studying this topic, and believes that babies at 20 weeks may be able to feel pain due to abortion.
Viability
As science progresses we are able to keep babies alive at younger ages.
Forty years ago, when the abortion law was first passed, babies under 28 weeks rarely survived. Things have changed dramatically since then.
— snip —
At a specialist unit in Arkansas, we filmed Dr Whit Hall checking on his tiny patients. “The survival is as high as 75 to 80 per cent for 24-weekers and about 50 per cent for 23-weekers,” he explained.
So, you have weird situations where on one floor a patient that is 23 weeks old is being kept alive and nurtured by machines and on another floor one is being dismembered and killed. This causes ethical and moral concern.
It’s not banning abortions all together, but it is bringing to light just what is in the womb and what we are doing to them.
Hat Tip: Jill Stanek
I always admire the disparity between the views of those that are pro-abortion and anti-capital punishment.
A baby may feel pain in the womb at 20 weeks, but abortion is a legal “right” because it is a woman’s body.
And yet, in the States, we are having the Supreme Court review executions by lethal injection because they might be a “cruel and unusual punishment”.
Hmm, one life is guilty of premeditated murder and one life is guilty of existing, yet which case does the Supreme Court review? At some point, we will have to come to terms with the fact that life begins before birth, no matter the legal definitions.
Well said, Point of Order! Nice to see you make an appearance here at the Gap! 😉
Great post, MIn. I actually got to see the Silent Scream in the late eighties at my private school. Very eye-opening.
I saw that movie “The Silent Scream” in public school biology class (of all places)and I can still see that sweet little baby screaming and moving away from the instruments! The procedure for partial birth is just as gruesome!
It is interesting how life seems to be determined only my the will of the mother, if she want it is a life if she doesn’t it is not a life. When was new life ever an issue of human will?
Birth is the creative act of God and is marvelousely shown in the psalmic description of how the Lord Himself fashions us in all our parts. There can be no interruption of this divine procedure. But, alas, man decides that it is convenient to remove what God designs.Now we longer recognize that infanticide is indeed the murdering of the unborn child.We are approaching more than sixty million deaths by the hand and whims of man. But God is not forgetful. He will, through His beloved Son, give judgement to this senseless slaughter of the innocent. A day of reckoning is at hand! It has never been the realm of man to decide whether one should live or die in this manner.No excuse can rectify the wrong! For those sixty or more million will shout in defiance: We wanted life!This great and grievous holocaust of the womb is the one tragedy that surpasses all others in scope and comparison! Pray for justice. Pray for deliverance for those who cannot defend themseves!