Out of the fullness of God the Father you have been blessed with large numbers and are predestined from eternity to enjoy forever continual and unfading glory. The source of your unity and election is genuine suffering, which you undergo by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ, our God. Hence, you deserve to be considered happy.
Ignatius

Baby In The Womb

Baby In The Womb

Baby In The Womb

The following is a transcript of the February 25, 1990 airing of The John Ankerberg Show. This transcript was taken from an audio tape, so some names might be misspelled. For this, I apologize.

JOHN: Ninety percent of the 1.5 million abortions that are committed in this country each year take place during the first three months of pregnancy. That is, the first week through the twelfth week. ProChoice people who argue that a woman has the “right” to have an abortion admit that there is no doubt that the child is alive, and that it is human. But because it is *small*, or not fully formed, they believe the child is not yet fully human. Or not a person. Therefore, they think they can kill it. Now, on this program you are going to see the scientific evidence that PROVES the ProChoice argument is wrong in asserting that the growing child is no more than a blob of tissues or the “product of conception.” You will see the marvelous stages of a child’s development in the womb. You are also going to see the abortion techniques used today to destroy human life. But I’d like to begin with a tragic story. A father walked into the delivery room of a hospital, and in a rage, threw his newborn son against the floor, and killed him. This man was charged with murder, and put in jail. Ironically, he was punished for an act — namely, killing his son — that could have been done by an abortionist the previous day, without any penalty. When I read this account, I thought, “There MUST be SOMETHING wrong with our laws!” Why is a child only protected twenty-four hours after it is born, and not twenty-four hours before? Did the child change in some significant way? No. Biologically, we know that there is no difference in the child. So then, why does the location of the infant inside or outside the womb make a crucial difference to its moral status? And let me ask you: Do you think there SHOULD be a difference in the moral status of say, a nine-month-old child in the womb as compared to a newborn baby? If you say “no,” then going back in time, when WOULD you judge that the baby has changed SO SIGNIFICANTLY that it doesn’t DESERVE the right to be protected as a living human being? Well, to help you answer this question, let’s look at the baby as it develops in the womb through the different stages of pregnancy. First, this is how the unborn child looks in the womb at month five. That’s right. Not the ninth, eighth, seventh, or sixth month, but the fifth month — just twenty short weeks after conception. I want you to notice that his body is fully formed. At twenty weeks, sounds provoke him. His mother must contend with his bouts of hiccups and repeated kicks and punches. Babies at this stage relate to the moods and emotions of their mother. This child’s heart now pumps THREE HUNDRED GALLONS of blood per day. Because of modern technology, twenty-week-old babies in the womb are now viable; that is, they can survive outside of their mother’s womb. Because of these scientific facts, the majority of Americans believe abortion is morally wrong, and should be LEGALLY PROHIBITED at this stage of pregnancy and after. In fact, the state of Pennsylvania has already enacted laws prohibiting abortion after viability — which they set at 24 weeks. But if you would not permit abortions to take place at this stage, what about earlier? Say, at four months? Well, here is a sixteen-week-old child in the womb. You can see that his face is taking on facial expressions. Fine hair is growing on his head. His eyebrows and eyelashes are apparent. His heart is regularly pumping the blood through his body. Do you think it is right that we permit children like this to be destroyed? But if not at *this* stage of pregnancy, how about at three months? Here you can see the development of this twelve-week-old baby’s arms … hands … fingers … and toes. His entire body is sensitive to touch. The brain is developed, and allows independent movement of limbs so that the tiny baby can turn its head … curl and fan his toes … and open and close his mouth. A twelve- week-old child’s genitals show a clear sexual differentiation, and already contain primitive egg or sperm cells. I’d like you to listen to Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s comments concerning a twelve-week-old unborn child in the womb.

NATHANSON: What we are looking at here is a depiction of the development of this child in its prenatal stage of life, from virtually the very beginnings, to the end of that stage. We have here, a child at four weeks … at eight weeks … at twelve weeks … at sixteen weeks … at eighteen weeks … at twenty weeks … and at twenty- eight weeks. As you can see, there is no revolutionary or dramatic change in the form or in the substance of this person throughout this developmental stage. Now this little person, at twelve weeks, is a fully formed, absolutely identifiable human being. He has had brain waves for AT LEAST six weeks; his heart has been functioning for perhaps eight weeks; and all the rest of his human functions are indistinguishable from any of ours.

JOHN: Let me ask you: Would you allow a child at twelve weeks to be killed in the womb? Well, if not at twelve weeks, would you allow children to be aborted at eight weeks? The science of fetology tells us that from eight weeks to twelve weeks, every organ in the baby’s body is already present. The heart beats similar to an adult’s. The stomach produces digestive juices. The liver makes blood cells. The kidneys begin to function. Taste buds are forming. Fingerprints have developed. The eyelids and palms of the baby’s hands are sensitive to touch. The baby can suck its thumb at nine weeks. Then science tells us, between the first and second month — actually only forty days from conception — the baby’s brainwaves can be detected, recorded, and read. The baby’s facial features, along with the ears, nose, lips and tongue, form with clarity. At eight weeks, the eyes form and darken. The pigment is first produced around the thirty-fifth day. Eyelids cover most of the eyeball by the forty-fourth day; and soon after will seal to protect the developing light-sensitive cells. From eight weeks on, the child can feel pain. Science tells us, from this time until adulthood, the changes in the child’s body will only be in dimension, and in the refinement of working parts. The boy or girl growing in the womb truly looks like a tiny, miniature baby at eight weeks. Do you think that it’s right that our society allows these innocent ones to be destroyed? But if not at eight weeks, or after four weeks, there’s only one other month that is not accounted for: that is the thirty days that reach from the moment of conception, to the fourth week of pregnancy. Concerning this time, we MUST remember that it is now an undisputed scientific FACT that life begins at conception. On what basis does science state this? It is on the basis that when 23 chromosomes from the father unite with 23 chromosomes from the mother, a unique, human, individual life — consisting of 46 chromosomes — comes into existence. No new genetic information will be added to this individual person from the moment of conception, until death. It is also a scientific fact that 23 chromosomes from the mother carry some 15,000 genes, that unite with the 15,000 genes carried by the chromosomes from the father. At the moment of conception, these genes — like letters of a Divine alphabet — mix and unite to spell out the UNIQUE characteristics of the new person. The genetic coding from the moment of conception is FIXED, and it determines the color of the eyes, hair, and skin. The facial features, the body type, and even certain qualities of personality and intelligence. All of this is why conception does not produce a POTENTIAL human being, but rather an actual HUMAN BEING with vast potential. Science tells us that within 6 to 12 hours after the nuclei have merged — and the chromosomes have exchanged genetic coding — the fertilized egg divides into two cells. After a time, the two divide into four; the four into eight, and so on, creating after some two hundred and sixty-six days a newborn baby, weighing approximately 7-1/2 pounds, and containing trillions upon trillions of cells. By the end of only the third week, the backbone, spinal column and nervous system of the child are already forming. Simple kidneys… a liver … and the digestive tract are already taking shape. The baby’s heart begins to beat at three weeks — just 21 days from conception, and sets the rhythm of life for the rest of the individual’s existence. The brain begins to form and soon will send out impulses through the child’s body. On the twenty-fourth day, the child has no arms or legs. Then suddenly, just two days later, tiny buds for arms appear; and in just another two days, legs begin to appear. Now what does science say about human life developing in the womb? Is it fully human? Or is there some stage of cell division before the body forms in which this life is NOT human and then BECOMES human? Well, Professor Roth of Harvard University Medical School has answered this question clearly. He says, quote: It is incorrect to say that the biological data cannot be decisive. It IS scientifically correct to say that an individual, human life begins at conception, when the egg and the sperm join to form the zygote. This developing human always is a member of our species in all stages of its life. Endquote. Dr. Bongiovanni, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School has written, quote: Standard medical texts have long taught that human life begins at conception. I am no more prepared to say that these early stages of development represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty is not a human being. This is human life at every stage. Endquote. World-famous geneticist Dr. Jerome Lejeune, professor of fundamental genetics at the University of Descarte, Paris, France, declared this, quote: Each individual has a very unique beginning the MOMENT of its conception. Endquote. The chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, Professor Hymie Gordan, testified before the congress of the United States, quote: By all the criteria of molecular biology, life is present from the MOMENT of conception. Now we can say UNEQUIVOCALLY that the question of when life begins is an established, scientific fact. Endquote….

DR. C. EVERETT KOOP: I think that, ah, we have a very interesting phenomenon in this country and that is the tremendous interest and enthusiasm about test-tube babies. And anybody who knows about the birth of the first one, Louise Brown, has to recognize that, ah, life begins at conception. If you could put a sperm and an egg in a petri dish, and get a human being nine months later — with nothing being added to it except to put that fertilized egg back in its mother’s uterus — you KNOW that life begins at conception.

DR. BERNARD NATHANSON: Life in the uterus, before birth, is a smooth continuum… and, ah, in that sense one cannot designate at some point when life begins. There is no barmitzvah in the uterus. It is merely life beginning when it really begins. Now we’ve created it in the test- tube; we’ve watched it start. We have seen the spark struck in invitro fertilization — when the sperm meets the egg — so that the question of when life begins is no longer metaphysical, theological, legal, moral, religious… it is absolutely scientific now and it has been established to begin at conception.

JOHN: What difference does it make that human life begins at conception and continues through all the stages of development? Well, the important difference is this: IF human life DOES begin at conception, then abortion — at ANY STAGE of the child’s development, from conception on — is the killing of innocent human life. To deny this fact is scientifically impossible. But in spite of the scientific evidence, abortions continue. Now, how ARE these human children destroyed in the womb? I’d like you to listen as Dr. John Willke, president of the National Right to Life organization in Washington, D.C., explains the different techniques abortionists use to kill these developing children. Also addressing this issue is the former Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. C. Everett Koop.

DR. JOHN C. WILLKE: Abortions are done with different techniques at different ages. The earliest method of abortion — that is when the baby is very small — is a menstrual extraction. That is an approach through the vagina, through the mouth of the womb — the cervix — and a small little tube is inserted and the developing baby is … “disrupted,” if you please, and, something like a miscarriage is precipitated. The most common type would be what we would call a suction aspiration abortion. Now this would be approximately two weeks late … three weeks late for her period, and up till, maybe about when the baby’s about 3 months old. This is a vaginal approach. The abortionist stretches open the mouth of the womb — the cervix — then inserts into the cavity of the uterus — the womb — a hollow plastic tube about this long [1 foot]. This he attaches to a powerful suction. It’s about 29 times more powerful than your vacuum cleaner. This rips the developing baby’s body apart, and pulls it out through that tube. Then the abortionist must cut and slice the deeply-rooted afterbirth from the inner wall of the womb. Now that is a “suction abortion.” At approximately the same age — or a little beyond, sometimes — a D & C is done. Dilatation and Curettage. Here the abortionist uses a loop-shaped steel knife, reaches into the womb from below, slices the body of the developing baby into pieces, drawing it out, and then cuts the afterbirth away from the wall. Now that’s up to about three months. Then there’s a D & E — Dilatation and Evacuation. This is done after twelve weeks and up to as late as … oh, maybe four months. Here, we see the abortionist stretching the cervix very wide open, but now he has a very technical problem. The bones of the baby are solidly calcified and the skull is very hard. What’s done here is that — without any anesthetic — the abortionist reaches up into the womb and seizes a part of the body of the baby, usually a leg or an arm, twisting and tearing … tears it off and away from the body of the baby. The baby, feeling pain, does not have any anesthetic. Bleeding is extreme. The abortionist returns in there with this grasping, pliers-like instrument, tearing more parts of the body away, snapping the spine, and finally, the mechanical problem is to get the skull out and so he usually has to crush the skull in order to bring it out. That is a D & E. Four months and above, another method is salt poisoning. Here, the abortionist injects a needle through the woman’s abdomen and into the fluid sac — the bag of waters around the baby — injects a poisonous solution of concentrated salt. Now, recall the baby was breathing and swallowing as early as three months. This is done at four, four-and-a-half, five, six months. So the baby breathes and swallows in this poison, and is slowly poisoned by it. It takes two … three hours usually to kill this baby, sometimes convulsing as she dies, which the mother feels. Then the mother’s body gets the message, goes into labor, and delivers vaginally a dead baby about 24 hours later. Well, mostly dead. Sometimes these little tykes are still alive. They have even been known to survive to be adopted out.

INTERVIEWER: Is there growing concern over late term abortions?

DR. C. EVERETT KOOP: No question about that. Ah, people are easily led into thinking that abortions is unimportant. If you use a semantic-kind of smoke-screen and refer to the unborn baby as a fetus, or an embryo, or some tissues, or the “product of conception” — very hard to use those terms to refer to a late abortion that looks just like the baby next door.

DR. WILLKE: There’s another type, a “prostaglandin” type. Prostaglandin given at any stage of pregnancy causes INTENSE labor. VIOLENT contractions of the uterus, and vaginal delivery of the baby at whatever age the baby is. Now, in the literature put out by the Upjohn Company — we doctors always have “complications” and “precautions” — one of the complications: LIVE BIRTH [from the use of prostalandin as an aborticide]. Complication. Okay, the final type of abortion is a mini-cesarean section, or a hysterotomy. Now this is just like any other cesarean section: the mother’s abdomen is opened, the womb is opened surgically, pulled apart, the baby is extracted and taken out. Now, cesarean sections are very common. After this, the baby is handed to the nurse who sucks out the phlem, gets the little kid going, puts her in the warming bed — the incubator — gives the baby all that tender loving care … Not now. This little kid has a contract on her head and so the abortionist takes the baby out, cuts the cord, throws the baby in the basin, and lets her die. And if she doesn’t die, it may be a head under water, or the placenta on her face, and choke her to death. You see, the baby, according to the abortionist, must not survive, EVEN THOUGH SEPARATED FROM THE MOTHER.

DR. KOOP: And therefore late abortions are … are rather an embarrassment to people … and remember that, ah, late abortions are very commonly viable. And, ah, one of the saddest things to me about the whole abortion business is that what was a few years ago a womans RIGHT to an abortion has now become a womans RIGHT to a dead baby FOLLOWING abortion. And I think that’s almost criminal.

JOHN: Now the Feminist Majority in their film, “Abortion for Survival” have shown a suction aspiration abortion that takes place in under two minutes. In their film, they quickly show the audience the contents of the uterus: what they call the “product of conception.” And then they say, “You see. This doesn’t LOOK like a real baby.” So you may see for yourself what goes on, here’s a film clip and the testimony of some ladies that experienced a similar aspiration abortion:

MONICA: …um … actually started to do the abortion, it was at THAT moment, that for the first time, I realized that was my BABY that was being aborted. That this whole thing was NOT just a sickness — as they tried to make it seem — but a child, my OWN child that was being destroyed in that abortion. It was EXTREMELY painful, physically. And, of course, I was going through a lot emotionally, too. And, I, as soon as it was over I just thought, “Thank God I’m alive.” That was my first thought.

INTERVIEWER OR THERAPIST: Yes, and you, Cindy, how did you feel?

CINDY: Well, physically it was painful. Not, um, it was VERY painful and they did NOT tell you it would be this painful … you know … and I was scared. I was scared to death. I just lay on this table — and I couldn’t really think of anything. I just — all this physical pain — and I heard the vacuum, aspirator, whatever the term is, it was on the floor, like next to me. And I heard this humming noise, and I’m thinking, “Oh, my God, Cindy, what are you doing? Now your baby — it’s — and they’re taking it from you, and it … it … just like Monica had said, at that point I’m thinking … I’m hearing this noise, I’m laying there thinking, “My baby … they’re taking it from me!” and it was too late.

JOHN: What the Feminist Majority did NOT show in their film was a close-up view of the “product of conception.” If they HAD shown you a close-up view of the remains of ANY abortion done just 42 days after conception, you would have seen small hands … small feet … arms and legs. You would have seen twisted bodies, and crushed heads. Yes, these babies are small, but is that any excuse to kill them? Even the first 30 days after conception when a human life is developing through the early stages of cell division and multiplication, there is no doubt SCIENTIFICALLY that it is ALIVE, and it is FULLY HUMAN. The scientific facts lead us to conclude that even at THIS stage, abortion is the premeditated killing of human life. What reasons can be given for allowing abortion at any stage? Science has shown us that the growing child is NOT just a blob of tissues; it’s NOT part of the mother’s body in any way. Rather, science has shown us that the child in the womb is an INDEPENDENT human being. Therefore, wouldn’t you agree that these innocent human beings — these children in the womb — they MUST be protected? If we value human life at all, how can we allow abortions to continue…? THE JOHN ANKERBERG SHOW P.O. BOX 8977 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37411 -30- þ EZ-Reader 1.14 þ Abortion is a woman’s WRONG!