The window into the womb now opens even earlier [Abortion=Affirmative Action]

New Zealand Herald | 7/28/03 | Barbara Sumner Burstyn

[madprof98]

It was bound to happen. Now even the womb has succumbed to the marketplace. In Canada, the first entertainment ultrasound business has opened. 4-D ultrasound provides a realistic picture of your baby before it is born.

No more blurry images of the traditional ultrasound. The stills and live-action video generated are often clear enough to evaluate subtle facial features and to judge who the baby resembles.

4-D ultrasound was used sparingly for diagnostic purposes in high-risk pregnancies. It hasn't taken long for it to metamorphose into a business opportunity. If nothing else, its promotion is an example of how medicine is increasingly at the service of sales and marketing departments.

The American makers, General Electric, are marketing it not just to doctors but directly to the consumer. In the United States it runs prime-time commercials featuring well-dressed, teary-eyed parents gazing at their nearly full-term baby floating in the womb accompanied by the ballad The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

Obstetricians, keen to maximise their revenue streams, have been advertising "Come See Your Baby for $150".

Meanwhile, new software designed to accompany the 4-D ultrasound allows expectant parents a simulated, virtual feel of their foetus while watching the monitor.

In Canada, the technician who has set up the first private clinic calls her service "bonding" ultrasound. She offers gift certificates and says it would make a great baby shower present.

"It's amazing," she said in a recent interview, "until you get the baby, you can't believe it's real."

Pardon? In my time, the morning sickness, protruding belly and kicking baby were enough to alert parents to the reality of their child. And as for bonding, that was traditionally the process that happened after your child was born.

It was part of an initiation that enabled you to realise the inescapable reality of a child and the end to your previous please-yourself life. Obviously parenting has changed greatly. Now that bonding process is often cut short - by the quick return to the workforce and the arrival of caregivers.

So rather than pushing back the tide of encroachment into a new mother's bonding time with her infant, technology has instead encroached on a baby's final weeks of blissful privacy. Aside from the remarkable thought that today's instant-gratification generation may be better able to bond with their children via predigested technology, turning their pregnancy into little more than the latest reality TV show, the real issue is the ultrasound's usefulness to anti-abortionists.

In North Carolina, a Christian-run crisis pregnancy centre has bought a 4-D ultrasound machine as a "window to the womb", offering to scan "abortion-vulnerable" women in their first trimester.

Supporters of the technology say the US$120,000 ($205,000) machines should be in every pregnancy help centre, and some are pushing for a law that requires every pregnant woman seeking an abortion to view this image of her baby.

This despite the fact that the ultrasound images that are proving so emotive are of almost full-term babies, while nine out of 10 abortions are within the first trimester, many months before the foetus is recognisable, let alone viable.

In the hands of anti-abortionists, the 4-D technology is a cynical and manipulative tool that reduces the abortion quandary to a strip of black-and-white footage, while further distorting the reasons many women seek abortion.

There is no doubt this latest piece of technology will be at the forefront of the anti-abortion crusade, a key tool for neo-conservatives intent on overturning 30 years of reproductive rights.

Carol Moseley Braun, a former ambassador to New Zealand, says that if George W. Bush is re-elected, within six years all affirmative action will be gone, including the hard-won right to safe, legal, controlled abortion.

And certainly proponents of foetal rights are on a roll. Last month the US passed the misleading and emotively named Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Countless commentators have noted that the bill was fuelled by misinformation and inaccurate and inflammatory rhetoric. The measure callously disregards women's health, removing their needs entirely in favour of a radical anti-choice agenda.

In one extreme case, anti-abortionists are seeking to appoint a guardian for a 5-month-old foetus of a mentally retarded Florida woman, made pregnant by rape.

A group of pro-choice organisations say that if a third party is allowed to represent the foetus under these circumstances, there would be no logical reason they would not seek to do so in the case of a competent pregnant woman considering an abortion or treatment detrimental to her foetus.

Ultimately, the most effective way to reduce abortion is to reduce unintended pregnancies. But that would entail the type of reality check and a complex mix of education and access to contraception that is anathema to President Bush, with his antichoice policy initiatives, such as the bid to scrap health insurance coverage for contraceptives for federal employees.

Whichever way you look at it, the womb has become deeply political. And somewhere in the middle of the battle between the warm fuzzy commercialisation and the narrow anti-abortion zealots, there will always be a woman struggling to make a choice, while she still can, with or without the machiavellian use of technology.

* Barbara Sumner Burstyn is a New Zealand writer living in Canada.

[madprof98]

This evidently is what passes for thought in Canada and much of the Commonwealth today.

[madprof98]

Forgot to post the link: here--just in case you don't believe this could have been printed somewhere.

[petuniasevan]

antichoice policy initiatives, such as the bid to scrap health insurance coverage for contraceptives for federal employees

Such utter stupidity on the writer's part ought to be extremely debilitating. Yup. All these helpless women will have no choice but to become pregnant unless someone else pays for their pills.

"Safe, legal abortion"? It's always FATAL for the unborn child. Nothing safe about it. But you go ahead, Mrs. Burstyn-at-the-Mouth, and worship your own lack of value on human life and peddle convenience disguised as "choice".

Roaches like this woman HATE the 4-d ultrasound as it shines a light on their nefarious deeds and shakes their lack of ethics. Thus they must ATTACK those who would DEFEND human beings who have done nothing wrong except INCONVENIENCE someone with their presence.

What defense will these people give at the Judgement?

[petuniasevan]

Another babykiller hates ultrasound PING!

[Atchafalaya]

This is good. Once you put a face onto a developing fetus the patient will have to acknowledge that it is a living human being, not a mass of amorphohous protoplasm. I'm sure the abortion lobby is having major bowel spasms over this technology. This "image"should be part of the informed consent process that every individual must be appraised of by law by the vendor providing the medical procedure. Informed consent mandates that the patient receive the most up to date information (pro and con) concerning any procedure they are going to undergo. This technology should be required before any abortion. I can already hear the but, but, buts, by the usual suspects!

[xm177e2]

There is no doubt this latest piece of technology will be at the forefront of the anti-abortion crusade, a key tool for neo-conservatives intent on overturning 30 years of reproductive rights.

What airhead wrote this? Neo-conservatives are not particularly anti-abortion. Neoconservatives are actually a bunch of former liberals who got sick of the limp, communist-appeasing foreign policy of the rest of the liberals. Neocons are more likely to support abortion rights than traditionalist conservatives.

But these idiot leftists think they can make "conservative" sound so much more menacing if they just stick the word "neo" in front of it. This lady has no clue as to what neoconservatives are or what we stand for (hint: we want to kill bad people abroad, but we don't have any coherent platform on the whole killing-innocent-babies domestically issue).

[baseballmom]

Informed consent mandates that the patient receive the most up to date information (pro and con) concerning any procedure they are going to undergo

Excellent point. This could be a real eye opener for those who prefer to bury their heads in the sand.

[hellinahandcart]

This despite the fact that the ultrasound images that are proving so emotive are of almost full-term babies, while nine out of 10 abortions are within the first trimester, many months before the foetus is recognisable, let alone viable.

I saw one of a twelve-weeker and it was certainly recognizable to me.

In the hands of anti-abortionists, the 4-D technology is a cynical and manipulative tool that reduces the abortion quandary to a strip of black-and-white footage, while further distorting the reasons many women seek abortion.

This ditz has apparently gone to a lot of trouble NOT to see one of these things.

[MHGinTN]

Yeah, I'd say this female 'journalist' cannot bring herself to accept the truth of the individuals being slaughtered in women's wombs. Or worse, knows the truth but chooses to promote the continued slaughter.

From the article: "So rather than pushing back the tide of encroachment into a new mother's bonding time with her infant, technology has instead encroached on a baby's final weeks of blissful privacy." How this ghoul can make this comment, when she's defending the hire of a serial killer to end the baby's privacy is astonishing! "Aside from the remarkable thought that today's instant-gratification generation may be better able to bond with their children via predigested technology, turning their pregnancy into little more than the latest reality TV show, the real issue is the ultrasound's usefulness to anti-abortionists." It is amazing to behold the nihilistic mental gyrations people like this female go through in order to support killing alive, innocent, individual fellow human beings!

"In North Carolina, a Christian-run crisis pregnancy centre has bought a 4-D ultrasound machine as a "window to the womb", offering to scan "abortion-vulnerable" women in their first trimester.
Supporters of the technology say the US$120,000 ($205,000) machines should be in every pregnancy help centre, and some are pushing for a law that requires every pregnant woman seeking an abortion to view this image of her baby." And the ghoul writing this article sees that humanizing of what her ilk have spent the better part of thirty years dehumanizing as a 'bad thing'! Females like this author actually want more women recruited into the serial killing, as if that will make it a right thing, somehow washing the blood from the hands of ghouls like this 'journalist'!
"This despite the fact that the ultrasound images that are proving so emotive are of almost full-term babies, while nine out of 10 abortions are within the first trimester, many months before the foetus is recognisable, let alone viable." The earliest age of the individual conceived human being (the earliest embryonic age!) is hallmarked, in truth, by the newly conceived individual building its own placental barrier to protect and gather nourishment and oxygen for its individual survival. By the end of eight weeks from being conceived (unless slaughtered by a hired serial killer), the little one is already in motion and on 4D ultrasound is clearly shaped human, not goat or pig or turtle or gator, HUMAN, a human being, alive and perfectly viable for the liquid world in which she is living and preparing for the exit into the air world. The defenders of serial killing for the prenatal humans are still doing everything they can to dehumanize these human little ones. That's why they hate the truth that the 4D imaging video brings to light.

If I had the funds to do it, I'd put a DVD in every pregnancy center, with discs showing the little ones at evey age following its conception, right up to birthday exiting into the air world! The lying female 'journalist' failed to realize that the GE commercials tell the viewer that the images are of a 24 or 26 week baby, not one on the verge of being born! Even in spewing her dehumanization, she exposes her association with the father of lies, a murderer from the start. Looking at the image below, it is clear that this baby has much more room than a little one about to be born ...

[MHGinTN]

bttt

[Yaelle]

By five weeks the baby looks quite human down to the heart beat and fingernails.

Heartbeat is seen around 6 1/2 to 7 weeks past LMP (last menstrual period, the normal counting start for the 40 weeks of pregnancy). Fingernails are significantly later; I think at 8 or so weeks armbuds may be seen. I know that the anti-nausea drug of the past, thalidomide, was taken during the high nausea period of 8-12 weeks, which also was the period of limb development; hence the birth defects caused were often hands with no or shortened arms, etc.

[MHGinTN]

You might want to check your facts re. 'high nausea period'.

It is generally accepted that the embryo age ends and the fetal age begins at approximately eight weeks post conception. The fetal age is hallmarked by 'everything being there, just getting bigger and more intricately developed from the eighth week onward, right into neonatal age and toddlerhood.

[MHGinTN]

HERE'S a link to a great illustarted site for more on the developing human being at all her different ages.

[MHGinTN]

From the site, for the beginning of week nine:

Stage 23

(approximately 56 - 57 postovular days)

Essential External and Internal Structures Complete

By the last stage of embryonic development, all essential external and internal structures are present. [I like to use the word 'age' as opposed to 'stage' since age is more appropriate as part of a lifetime already up and running, whereas 'stage' sounds like there is yet to be a human being there, as if a lifetime has yet to start ... which is of course patently wrong since at least one individual lifetime begins at conception.]

Head

Head is erect and rounded. External ear is completely developed.

The eyes are closed, but the retina of the eye is fully pigmented. The eyelids begin to unite and are only half closed.

Taste buds begin to form on the surface of the tongue. The primary teeth are at cap stage. Bones of the palate begin to fuse. Scalp plexus reaches head vertex.

Abdomen

Intestines begin to migrate from the umbilical cord into the body cavity.

Pelvis

External genitals still difficult to recognize. Limbs

Upper and lower limbs are well formed. Fingers get longer and toes no longer webbed and all digits are separate and distinct.

Spine, Skeleton, Muscles, Skin

Layer of rather flattened cells, the precursor of the surface layer of the skin, replaces the thin ectoderm of the embryo. Tail has disappeared.

[backhoe]

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921369/posts

Bringing Good Things to Life (ULTRASOUND)
Citizen magazine ^ | June 2003 | Karla Dial

Ever since I heard of this new technology, I've maintained that it is the Stealth Bomber that is going to zoom in under the pro-death crowd's radar and nuke them... once a woman sees what is really in her womb, it ceases to be a "tissue mass" and becomes... a baby. Her baby.

Silent Scream made an impact on those few who saw it.

Fetal Psychology wasn't even a blip.

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921349/posts

The War Over Fetal Rights
MSNBC.COM ^ | 6/1/03 | Debra Rosenberg

Is this a person?

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921231/posts

Treating the Tiniest (pro-life issue benefits from advances in fetal surgery)
NEWSWEEK ^ | June 9 issue | Claudia Kalb

 

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921551/posts

Gynomythology: Vox Day examines feminism's favorite fairy tales
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Monday, June 2, 2003 | Vox Day

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/921592/posts?page=2#2

POLL: FETUSES ARE PEOPLE, TOO
New York Post ^ | 6/02/03 | Cynthia R. Fagen

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/930870/posts

Hometown Heroes: Stirring the Pot (Pro-life moms take on The Pampered Chef)
Citizen Magazine ^ | June 2003 | Candi Cushman

Pro-Life 'Chefs' Exiting the Pampered Life
The Billionaire Bomb [Just look who's funding anti-population programs.]

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/931219/posts

The Fully Informed Mother's Act
Self | 6/18/03 | Blood of Tyrants

[farmfriend]

ping

[MHGinTN]

Great links, cowboy, er, I mean backhoe.

[backhoe]

Thank you, neighbor... one thing I never did too well was ride a horse- I've done it and stayed on, but that's about the best you could say about it...

[Pan_Yans Wife]

"It's amazing," she said in a recent interview, "until you get the baby, you can't believe it's real."

When I had my first ultrasound, I was thrilled, because the baby became "more real". I think this was partly because of learning the sex, and being able to plan for his arrival. But, I never once doubted I was pregnant before the ultrasound. The ultrasound was primarily to rule out birth defects, and learning that my baby was healthy. Technology can be a blessing, and I hope ultrasound will become more widely available.