Posted on 09/23/2003 2:19:56 AM PDT by sarcasm
ALL OF BRITAIN was buzzing last week after a tabloid published highly controversial photos — not of a topless supermodel or two female pop singers kissing or Prince William in a grass skirt, but of angelic babies smiling in the womb.
The ultrasound images, taken between 26 and 34 weeks after conception, were released by Professor Stuart Campbell and widely circulated on the Internet via the Drudge Report. Campbell’s an obstetrician at the privately run Create Health Centre in London. For the past two years, the medical facility has offered state-of-the-art 3-D/4-D scanning equipment services to expectant parents. Campbell performs an average of 30 scans a week. His outspoken enthusiasm for this blessed technology is refreshing. “Parents love them,” he told the Mirror. “I hear so many couples laughing when they see the pictures — it’s wonderful.”
Campbell’s high-tech window to the womb also shows the babies moving their limbs at 8 weeks, leaping and turning by 12 weeks, curling their toes and fingers at 15 weeks, and yawning at 20 weeks. The clients’ reactions are overwhelming, Campbell said, “especially with fathers, who rarely get involved. Before, they sat in the corner. Now, they really show emotion. I enjoy scanning and looking at babies. It is so informative about babies and behavior. Every scan is an adventure.”
How have pro-abortion activists abroad reacted after seeing the happy, grinning photos of these unborn babies? With reflexive scowls and dour grimaces, naturally.
Anne Karpf, a commentator for the British-based Guardian who bills herself as a “medical sociologist,” says the photos are “deeply disquieting” and ridicules the anti-abortion lobby for being “intoxicated with evidence of a fetus’ humanity.” (God forbid this cold woman ever be exposed to a pregnant mommy experiencing the undiluted joy of a baby kicking inside her for the first time.) Australian Birth Control Services medical director Geoff Brodie complained that the photos “will be picked up by those groups that use anything and everything to stop terminations but ignore the fact that women have a right to choice.”
Here in America, the pro-abortion lobby is having the same toxic reaction. It was bad enough when conventional, 2-D sonograms revealed unborn hearts beating and blurry hands waving, but the abortionists are absolutely aghast over rapidly spreading access to 3-D/4-D ultrasound technology. When General Electric began running incredibly moving ads last year celebrating the company’s new innovations in sonography, a writer for the liberal American Prospect complained the commercials were “a milieu of clever illusion” that “blur(red) the distinction between a fetus and a newborn infant.”
This from the masters of deception who gave us the infamous euphemisms “fetal matter” and “uterine tissue,” which have successfully blurred the distinction between human life and disposable Kleenex for more than three decades.
Similarly, pro-abortion advocates have attacked legislation in Congress, introduced by Florida Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns, which would guarantee free ultrasound screenings to any woman who visits a non-profit crisis pregnancy center that receives subsidies for sonogram equipment. Kathryn Allen, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, griped, “With all the problems going on in our world, I can’t imagine that Congress would spend its time and energy on ultrasound for anyone.”
Allison Herwitt, director of government relations for NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington, also attacked pro-life supporters of the bill. “They don’t want women to go to Planned Parenthood, where they’ll get their full range of options,” said Alison Herwitt. “They just want them to go to crisis pregnancy centers, where women will be exposed to this weapon at taxpayers’ expense.”
Liberals in America are all for the government giving away any health services for free — except if it’s a service that has the ability to persuade a wavering patient to preserve a life instead of end it.
These amazing advances in golden-hued ultrasound have illuminated an insurmountable truth: No amount of NARAL money or National Organization for Women screeching can overcome the persuasive power of an unborn child’s beaming face.
Michelle Malkin is author of “Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores” (Regnery).
Infanticide? The term is too sanitary. "Mass murder" is better terminology. "Slaughter of the innocents" is a more accurate description. Massacre... butchery... there are many terms more descritive than infanticide.
Abortion on demand is murder for convenience.
Wow, some weapon.
Yes, a very powerful weapon. And these people, led and taught by their demon-masters, recognize truth as a weapon. A weapon against deceit and destruction. That is why they fear it so much.
Well, yeah. That's the reason for every crime I can think of... because people want to do it or at least want the perceived benefits of doing it. But society looks at the costs and makes certain activities illegal. In this case, the cost is a human life and abortion should be illegal unless another life (the mother's) is in extreme jeopardy.
Should we prosecute the mother? No. But the abortionist should be prosecuted for murder in the first, and all who assist him, even down to office staff should be charged and prosecuted as accessories.
I don't know so many posters are criticizing what you said, I agree with you. Most mainstream people know perfectly well that a baby at 26 weeks is human- nearly everyone knows of a family member, coworker, or friend who gave birth to a premature baby, sometimes at early 24 weeks, that has survived and even thrived. The "blob of cells" argument is primarily used to justify early abortions (first trimester). The article mentions that these ultrasounds show the humanity of young babies as early as 8-12 weeks; we should show those as well. Not to say that the smiling pictures are not very valuable, but a full education in the growth of a baby from zygote to newborn should be shown and celebrated.
It is indeed a weapon...a flamethrower aimed right at the fat wallet of Planned Parenthood.
27,963 infants died (NOT abortions)
51,788 died from diabetes
67,024 from Influenza
In other words, more BABIES were MURDERED in 2002 than the victims of diabetes and the flu.
Did I mention the estimated number of breast cancer deaths in 2002 is 39,600 women and 400 men? We're murdering more preborn than are dying of breast cancer.
Sadly ironic.
These numbers are for people of ALL ages, from children to adult. I needed to clarify.
These numbers are for people of ALL ages, from children to adult. I needed to clarify.
These numbers are for people of ALL ages, from children to adult. I needed to clarify.
(*#&(&^@#$ AOL.
God forbid that we let so many airheaded women actually understand that those are BABIES they're threatening to have ripped apart inside their own mommy's body.
Such people are beneath contempt. God have mercy on their souls.
I'm afraid I myst disagree regarding the following: "Roe also gives the states the option of banning all abortions (w/ a life of the mother exception) after viability, a line which is blurry at best (depends how you define "viable"), but begins at around 24 weeks." The subsequent rulings such as Doe v Bolton and Casey v Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania accomplished the broad spectrum sanctioned serial killing. With the Stenberg v Carhardt ruling we had reached the insane state of legalizing infanticide as I characterized it in my post to you. The right to a dead baby was realized in all its demonic glory as embraced by the likes of Boxer, Harkin, Murray, Kennedy, et al.
As to the value of realtime video of smiling babies in the womb from even as early as 18 weeks (I'll post a vid of a 26 week old at the end of this screed), the visualizations serve to cancel some of the dehumanization achieved by the forces aligned for legal serial killing, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to then make the connections so many of us at FR offer regarding the earlier ages of these little ones. If you've not read it, I have an essay on my profile page that addresses the individual humanity of the earliest ages of these newly conceived little ones (it's the second one posted there).
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