God Bless!
Jason Jasper
Could technology make most abortions unthinkable?
ABORTION
>>>The old medical practice of bleeding sick people
was based on the ancient idea that the body contained four substances called
“humors.” The doctor withdrew blood from the patient to restore the body’s
balance. But advances in science and medicine have long since proven
bloodletting to be wrongheaded and harmful. Looking back, I wonder how
intelligent people could have thought that draining an already weak person’s
lifeblood would cure him of his ailment.
I have hope that advances in medicine could cause future
generations to view abortion in a way similar to bloodletting. For example, we
now know that an unborn baby isn't just a “blob of tissue.” What if technology
one day reveals that an unborn baby can feel pain much earlier than previously
thought?
Such states as Alabama, Indiana, and Louisiana ban abortions
after 20 weeks on the theory that an unborn child can feel pain at that stage
(with the elusive danger-to-mother exception). Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals struck down Arizona’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks. The
court contended that U.S. Supreme Court precedents allow women to kill unborn
babies if they can’t live outside the womb.
Some researchers say that babies in the womb can’t feel pain
until the 24th week. Others say 28 weeks. Mary Spaulding Balch, who keeps track
of state abortion legislation for National Right to Life, said a baby can feel
pain earlier.
“By 20 weeks after fertilization, unborn children have pain
receptors throughout their body, and nerves link these to the brain,” she said
after Nebraska passed an abortion ban. “These unborn children recoil from
painful stimulation, which also dramatically increases their release of stress
hormones. Doctors performing fetal surgery at and after 20 weeks now routinely
use fetal anesthesia.”
Can an unborn baby feel pain earlier than 20 weeks? In 1984,
the formerly pro-abortion Dr. Bernard Nathanson created a video called “SilentScream,” in which a 12-week unborn child appeared to scream in pain as he was
torn apart in the womb. Nonsense, critics said, pointing out that at that stage
an unborn child can’t move purposefully or perceive danger. Abby Johnson, a
former director of a Planned Parenthood facility, quit her job after watching
an abortion of a 13-week-old unborn baby via ultrasound “trying to get away
from the probe that the doctor was using.” Were his movements purposeful and
perceptive?
Imagine that a baby perceives and recoils from danger,
trapped, as it were, inside the womb with nowhere to go. He instinctively tries
to avoid the needle or the probe. He feels the pain as the instrument of death
enters his body. And there’s nothing he can do about it. What will future
generations think of us if research reveals that first-trimester babies feel
pain and we continued to allow their dismemberment simply because their mothers
don’t want them?
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