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Overview - Abortion

  • By Week 8 “every organ is in place” and “the baby can begin to hear.”
  • By Week 17 “the baby can have dream (REM) sleep.”
  • By Week 20 “the baby recognizes its' mothers voice.”
  • In 1984 a documentary called The Silent Scream was released which became a rallying point for the Pro-Life movement, and to this day still is. The film, directed and narrated by Pro-Life doctor Bernard Nathanson, features live footage of an abortion at 12 weeks gestation (10 weeks development) filmed via ultrasound. According to Nathanson,

    “…this little person at twelve weeks is a fully formed absolutely identifiable human being. He has had brain waves for at least six weeks..."

    The movie depicts the fetus as responding to the procedure with significant signs of stress and panic, and even an attempted scream… hence the title. At 12 weeks we’re assured, the “baby” (not fetus) sucks its thumb, squints, swallows, makes fists, and has brain waves.

    Every word of this is either false or misleading. At 8 weeks development a fetus will have its kidneys, pancreas, and lungs, but only in a primitive state. Not until 13-16 weeks will the kidney and pancreas will begin producing their respective secretions, and alveoli (air sacs) begin forming in the lungs. There will be a diaphragm and something resembling “breathing” motions may take place, but these will be purely reflexive. Rhythmic breathing in any sense resembling actual lung function won’t begin until 23-26 weeks. The heart is beating, but only to assist in pumping the mother’s blood. The fetus’ liver will not begin producing its own red blood cells until 9-12 weeks, and not until 23-26 weeks will its nervous system will begin controlling any of its organs (Wikipedia, 2007).

    The 8 week old fetus does have a nervous system and a brain that has begun to develop all of the main structures it will have at birth. It also shows reflexive motions of various kinds and has the beginnings of pain sensory structures. But the claim that it “feels” the mother or suffers in any meaningful sense stretches the limits of reason to the breaking point. At 8 weeks development the fetal nervous system is rudimentary at best and its brain will be functioning only at the lower “reptilian” level. The cerebral cortex will be in its earliest stages of growth, and though it will be actively forming brain cells, these will all be “stand-alone”. It won’t be until around week 20 that noticeable neural network formation has taken place. Even at this stage “brain waves” will consist of no more than intermittent bursts of activity detectable by electroencephalograph (EEG). These won’t even be stable until 22 weeks or bilaterally synchronous until 26 to 27 weeks (Anand & Hickey, 1987).

    Genuine fetal awareness of noxious stimuli—the sort possessed by sentient creatures—requires functioning thalamocortical connections. These do not appear until 21-28 weeks. A relatively small number of abortions are performed during this period (1-2% as noted above) putting them within the range where pain awareness is a possibility. To date, most EEG studies have concluded that there will not be enough thalamocortical development to make pain awareness a clear possibility until 24-26 weeks, and it will not be likely until 29-30 weeks (Glover & Fisk, 1999; Lee et al., 2005).

    An 8 week old fetus does respond to touch… but so does a caterpillar.




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