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A Visual Apologetic for Life: "In the Womb"
Breakpoint with Chuck Colson ^ | 1/22/2007 | Mark Earley

Posted on 01/22/2007 10:17:27 AM PST by Mr. Silverback

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.

When Michelangelo carved the beauty of the human form in marble, he knew that true art is “but a shadow of the divine perfection.” As true art shadows God, so too, the beauty and complexity of the human form is an unrivaled masterpiece that proclaims its Creator. A new DVD and accompanying book from National Geographic called In the Womb highlight this masterpiece of life in its earliest stages. Despite National Geographic’s evolutionary language, these images are one of the best visual apologetics for the Creator and for choosing life that we have seen in a long time.

Today, thirty-four years after Roe v. Wade, we can see into the womb with detail that was unimaginable in 1973. Now, 3-D and 4-D scans—scans that literally piece together images to show a baby in motion in the womb—have brought the miracle of life into new focus. In the Womb author, Peter Tallack, calls this new technology the medical equivalent of the Hubble Space Telescope. And the images it zooms in on during the odyssey of pregnancy may change the minds of women contemplating abortion and ordinary men and women who have not reflected deeply on abortion’s horrors.

Statistics tell us that 88 percent of clinical abortions happen before the twelfth week of pregnancy. In the Womb shows us a heart cell jolting to life on day twenty-two, arm buds developing in week four, glassy eyes forming in week six, taste buds, purposeful movement, and separate digits on hands and feet by week eight.

As Tallack writes, “The next four weeks [weeks nine through twelve] will see her kick, turn her feet, and curl her toes. She will bend her arms at the wrist and elbow, form partial fists with her tiny hands, and reach up to cover her face with her hands. Her face, with its sealed-shut eyes, will squint, frown, purse its lips, and open its mouth. She will respond to touch.”

Tallack has vividly portrayed the miracle that, tragically, four out of ten women who discover an unplanned pregnancy will choose to abort.

The book also runs its readers headlong into mysteries still not fully understood by science, such as why the mother’s body does not reject this foreign life growing within her. The author continues, “The immune system always tries to reject foreign material. Indeed, after the baby is born, if a piece of her skin is transplanted to the mother, the mother does reject it. . . .Yet the mother tolerates this entire foreign tissue in her system for nine whole months. Exactly what protects the placenta from rejection by the mother’s immune system is one of the greatest enigmas of modern biology,” concludes Tallack.

If only humans could learn from the body’s own life-protection reflex. Perhaps you could help open a mother’s eyes. On this anniversary of Roe v. Wade, maybe you’d consider purchasing a copy of In the Womb, the book or DVD, for your local crisis pregnancy center. If pictures are worth a thousand words, perhaps the stunning images of In the Womb will be better than our best-conceived arguments.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: breakpoint; inthewomb; prolife
I watched the TV show and it was quite remarkable. Everybody get one of these books for your local crisis pregnancy center.

There are links to further information at the source document.

If anyone wants on or off my Chuck Colson/BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

1 posted on 01/22/2007 10:17:29 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
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To: 05 Mustang GT Rocks; 351 Cleveland; AFPhys; agenda_express; almcbean; ambrose; Amos the Prophet; ...

BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my Chuck Colson/BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

2 posted on 01/22/2007 10:17:50 AM PST by Mr. Silverback ("Safe sex? Not until they develop a condom for the heart."--Freeper All the Best)
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To: 2nd amendment mama; A2J; Agitate; AliVeritas; Alouette; Annie03; aposiopetic; attagirl; Augie76; ...

ProLife Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

3 posted on 01/22/2007 10:18:21 AM PST by Mr. Silverback ("Safe sex? Not until they develop a condom for the heart."--Freeper All the Best)
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To: Mr. Silverback

The biggest enemy of liberalism is not conservatism. The biggest enemy of liberalism is OBJECTIVE TRUTH.


4 posted on 01/22/2007 10:33:11 AM PST by TimeLord (A whale fetus is a whale; a human fetus is a blob.)
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To: TimeLord

Nicely put.


5 posted on 01/22/2007 10:38:16 AM PST by Mr. Silverback ("Safe sex? Not until they develop a condom for the heart."--Freeper All the Best)
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To: TimeLord
The biggest enemy of liberalism is OBJECTIVE TRUTH.

The 'people of the lie' have never met a moral truth they could live with. . .

. . .and it takes them only a few moments to translate such into something more Liberally accomodating. . .

6 posted on 01/22/2007 10:54:29 AM PST by cricket (Save a Terrorist - join the Democrats/Live Liberal Free; or suffer their consequences)
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To: Mr. Silverback

"The images have also allowed scientists to create life-size silicone models and astonishing computer-generated images of the multiple foetuses, some of which are seen in the pictures shown here:

In other words, what you saw on TV were not actual images of the babies, just silicone models. Many were fooled into thinking that this was real.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=429098&in_page_id=1799&in_a_source=&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=picbox&ct=5


7 posted on 01/22/2007 10:54:47 AM PST by panaxanax
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To: panaxanax

No different from using silicon models at the crisis pregnancy center, or using a torso with models of organs to teach anatomy.


8 posted on 01/22/2007 11:01:45 AM PST by Mr. Silverback ("Safe sex? Not until they develop a condom for the heart."--Freeper All the Best)
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To: Mr. Silverback
Do not continue to read if your doing lunch (like me 8^).

I think I heard or read somewhere that a women's body also does not see sperm as a "foreign" entity. If anyone can please correct or enlighten me...
9 posted on 01/22/2007 11:05:19 AM PST by jonno (...it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming...)
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To: Mr. Silverback
I agree with you on the subject, but the sponsors of the TV show falsely portrayed these images to be real pictures from the "Womb". There was no way that they could get the back-lighting/side-lighting so perfect, especially in such a hostile photo environment.

I must admit that at first I thought they were real, and was astonished, but as an amateur photographer, I soon questioned the excellent lighting and picture quality. There's only so much 'room in the womb' and having a full camera crew would be impossible and/or very painful. I'm only saying that they should have stated that the images were computer generated and the models were fake.
10 posted on 01/22/2007 2:06:39 PM PST by panaxanax
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To: jonno

"I think I heard or read somewhere that a women's body also does not see sperm as a "foreign" entity. If anyone can please correct or enlighten me..."

Actually, a woman's body does see sperm as a "foreign" entity, and she develops antibodies for it. So, for a husband or regular partner, her body, in essence, develops compatibility with his sperm over time. But, in the case of a woman with multiple partners, her body can't develop those antibodies fast enough, and, it is believed, this puts her at greater risk for disease. It also seems to me that it would put a continual drag on her immune system as it works to protect her, although I have not read that.


11 posted on 01/22/2007 7:02:32 PM PST by walden
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To: Mr. Silverback

There are torrents out there of this too.


12 posted on 01/23/2007 8:01:39 PM PST by Grig
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To: Grig
There are torrents out there of this too.

Come again?

13 posted on 01/23/2007 9:10:57 PM PST by Mr. Silverback ("Safe sex? Not until they develop a condom for the heart."--Freeper All the Best)
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To: Mr. Silverback

google the word 'bittorent'


14 posted on 01/24/2007 11:32:12 AM PST by Grig
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To: panaxanax

One person there said,

At some point clumps of cells turn into human life. This technology will help us better define when that moment is. Hopefully it will help us better define the abortion argument instead of pointing fingers at "those liberals" and "those conservatives."

Meaning, it's only a human life if it LOOKS like a human life! Nevermind science saying human life starts at conception...


15 posted on 01/24/2007 12:36:15 PM PST by Nevernow ("No one has the right to choose to do what is wrong." Abraham Lincoln)
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