03.05.05
See the development of a baby in the womb on the National Geographic Channel tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. EST. From the web site:
From a single cell to a complex, self-sustaining organism. With ground-breaking photography, computer graphics, and 4-D imaging, In the Womb reveals this amazing process as the first heart cells begin to beat, the nerve cells flicker to life, and the senses develop.
I encourage pro-choicers and the “clump of cells” crowd to watch this program. Nobody should have the “choice” to snuff out life, human life, growing in the womb.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. — King David
27 Comments
As the saying goes:
Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?
These pictures and films clearly show that pregnant women carry human beings, not just undifferentiated clumps of cells that can be “terminated.”
Keep up the good work, La Shawn.
Comment by maria horvath — 03.05.05 @ 7:42 pm
Thanks La Shawn for announcing this. I am reminded of Matt 13:15:
“For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” - Matthew 13:15
Comment by Renee — 03.05.05 @ 8:17 pm
Looking back, I think that the “clump of cells” argument was a convenient use of words that even those who used it didn’t believe. The very same people are now defending partial birth abortion which everyone admits could result in the birth of a viable child but for that ghastly procedure.
Comment by Evon Bachaus — 03.05.05 @ 8:53 pm
In the Womb
I had also seen the advertisment for the development of babies on National Geographic tomorrow night at 8:00 pm EST. I saw this story on LaShawn Barber’s blog and had to share it here. I can’t wait to watch and…
Trackback by The Narrow — 03.05.05 @ 10:20 pm
It is amazing how technological advancements can free us from heartless barbarism.
That said, I am forever grateful my mother chose not to exercise her right to abort me.
Comment by susan — 03.06.05 @ 7:35 am
Bravo. This should be shown in every high school health class in America. Better yet, at every Women’s Resource Center during every Women’s Herstory Month on every college campus in America. If the college is public, they should be taken to court for refusing to host it.
Mike S. Adams
Comment by Mike Adams — 03.06.05 @ 11:07 am
“That said, I am forever grateful my mother chose not to exercise her right to abort me.”
100% agree with you Susan.
How many of us (pro-life or pro-murder) were “unplanned”, “unintended” and “unwanted” at the time of our conception? Thank the Lord my mother rose above the me, me, me selfish mentality that made her an un-wed mother and chose to take responsibility for her actions.
Comment by Renee — 03.06.05 @ 12:17 pm
I would like to take this video, and this post, and send it to the people who were involved in this conversation that I was part of at Reason magazine’s blog back in October:
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2004/10/new_at_reason_235.shtml
Start reading at “joe”’s comments. Here’s a choice quote:
“ecular governments protect the lives of “people,” not just any human entities. If it happened recently enough, a severed limb is both human (it has human DNA, just like an embryo) and alive (on the cellular level, it continues to carry out life functions for minutes or hours). But it has no rights to be reattached or saved, because it is not a person. The Church asserts the personhood of an embryo, but this is a matter of faith…”
My attempts (I’m “brightMystery”) to question the validity of comparing a human embyro and a severed limb (!!!) were met with complete derision. I have never been so upset in my life, especially seeing as how my wife and I had just returned from China with our precious, newly adopted daughter Lucy — and so we had a heightened sense of the preciousness of human life and the pathetic degree to which these supposed “intellectuals” can be deluded by their own arguments.
One day, we will be held accountable for how we respond to this genocide. LaShawn, thanks for helping to bring this to the forefront of the cultural consciousness where it belongs.
Comment by Robert Talbert — 03.06.05 @ 12:22 pm
National Geographic Goes In The Womb
Thanks to LaShawn Barber for the head’s up about a National Geographic channel special, In The Womb. It\s set to air tonight, SUNDAY, March 6, 8P et/9P pt
Before it takes its first breath,
a human baby has been through an incredible transformation…
Trackback by Secure Liberty — 03.06.05 @ 1:22 pm
These pictures don’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, and they don’t answer the harsh, hard questions some people have to face.
Some people would like to use these pictures to grant the government to intrude on the decision of whether to have a child. The problem is, we have a secular government, and giving our government the power to intervene in that kind of decision will inherently grant the power to intervene in both directions. That is, the concurrent power to corece abortions will inherently pass to the government if it gets the power to force women to have children. There have been a lot of attempts to get around that sticking point, but none that have been convincing.
The US Supreme Court did better by us than most people know. It confined the positive decision to have an abortion to a singular, case-by-case decision made only by the person most affected. Nobody ever can force a woman to have an abortion. It means that there will never be massive numbers of deaths by government fiat.
Read Roe v. Wade. There’s a reason why that decision is still the law.
That said, I’d support measures to help pregnant, poor women have access to good medical care and social services designed to help them become self-sufficient, to remove the economic reasons for abortions.
Comment by Valerie — 03.06.05 @ 4:28 pm
Spiffyness
Comment by Chase — 03.06.05 @ 5:10 pm
Valerie,
I don’t think anybody who is pro-life is wanting the government to have power over family planning. I mentioned in a previous comment that I have an daughter from China. In China you have the perfect case-in-point of how horribly things can go awry if government assumes the right to dictate those kinds of decisions. (Read Kay Ann Johnson’s book “Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son” for an in-depth look.) And in this sense, you’re right, any law that interposes itself between governmental control and personal decisions is good.
However, I don’t see why it’s necessarily the case that granting the unborn protection under the law will open the door for the government to issue forced abortion orders. Why is one “inherently” tied to the other? We have a law against murder, which effectively grants adults and children protection from being killed; does having this law on the books mean that the government also has the right to issue execution orders to these same adults and children? If it were, then going by this logic, if the murder laws were repealed, I guess I should sleep a lot better at night because at least I know that there would not be mass murder of adults and children “by government fiat”. But something tells me I wouldn’t.
Granting the unborn protection from being killed does not mean that the government is “forcing women to have children”. This would be the case if, for instance, the government kidnapped women and made them procreate and THEN force them to carry babies to term. But the thing your argument is missing is the individual choice that a woman and a man make in the first place to conceive the child. At some point, regardless of the economic or social factors at work, people make individual choices to have sex, and if this results in conception, then they are now responsible not only for themselves but for the baby they carry. Their rights are now constrained by the rights of the baby they have who is unable to defend him/herself. As difficult as the situation may be for someone in this setting, they did not get there by accident, and so nobody is “forcing” anything upon them which they didn’t initiate. There are those who speak of being “pro-choice” when it comes to having the right to abort a baby, but don’t think that a woman has any power to choose how they got into the situation in the first place.
You write of the woman as being the one who is “the person most affected” by abortion. I ask you to consider the one being aborted as the one most affected.
As for your last paragraph, there are many good programs offering alternatives to abortion that you can support. Crisis Pregnancy Center is one such program, and a Google search will reveal others. Women and men can get into these situations through bad judgment but thankfully there are non-lethal ways to get out of it. These deserve support from all of us.
Comment by Robert Talbert — 03.06.05 @ 5:14 pm
Valerie,
Shouldn’t a woman think about that PRIOR to having sex? Last time I took a basic biology class that is what cause preganancy. Oh wait, I forgot, they don’t teach that in school anymore. The time to worry about can you support a child is BEFORE the sex act, not after.
(Waiting for the typical what about rape and incest response that those who support abortion always come up with).
Comment by Renee — 03.06.05 @ 5:15 pm
Life In The Womb
Thanks to La Shawn Barber for spreading the word about National Geographic’s Presentaion of “In The Womb”.
Check Out the preview.
Trackback by The Other Point Of View — 03.06.05 @ 5:32 pm
Valerie,
As much as I understand your position (I was in your position not so long ago), I feel as though you don’t understand a few things.
I, personally, don’t see abortion as a soley religious issue–I think it is based on reason that a person can conclude a fetus is alive and has rights. The mere possibility that the fetus is alive should keep people wary. But as the fetus is, I believe, a living thing, the woman’s rights end.
Where my rights begin, yours end. A woman has, essentially, no more of a right to have an abortion than you have to kill an annoying neighbor. This argument isn’t to deny women have rights to make choices–all it says is that the child has a right not to be destroyed.
The government cannot force women to have sex… I strongly feel that the abortion issue is as much a responsibility issue as it is a life issue. And so, to argue that the government will extend the power into forcing women to have children is absurd. Abortion is about saving the life that already exists and should be protected, not ‘controlling’ the women’s bodies.
Comment by Ashtony Sanders — 03.06.05 @ 5:45 pm
Bravo, Ashtony. And to all the pro-lifers!
Comment by La Shawn — 03.06.05 @ 5:53 pm
Robert and Ashtony,
Very thoughtful comments. The responsibility part (regardless of if you take a religious stance or not) seems to always be conveniently left out of the equation. So much so, that many I feel really don’t know what that term “responsibility” (and choice) really means. When I hear “unwanted” and “unplanned” preganancy thrown around I just cringe. There is no man-made birth control that can promise 100% effectiveness in stopping conception (men who have had vasectomies have created children and women who have had tubal ligation have gotten pregnant), so in making that decision to have sex, making that choice there is always the possibility that a life will be created. To think otherwise is plain ignorant.
Normally this is countered with the rape and incest argument (which account for less than 2% of all abortions… which are in the millions). Rape and incest are criminal acts and yes, they are pretty detrimental for the woman who must face them however does aborting the child STOP the criminal behavior or change the mindset or the heart of either (the victim or the criminal)? No, it does not.
Either way, in watching the preview, it is about the BEAUTY of the created life (regardless of how the circumstances that made it possible…i.e. rape).
Comment by Renee — 03.06.05 @ 5:59 pm
Valerie..
I strongly suggest you read the following:
The Constitution
Bill of Rights..then
Bio: John Adams ..McCullough
Bio: James Madison….Ketchum
Bio: T. Jefferson..Bernstein
Wall of Seperation.. Dreisbach
Bio: Ben Franklin… Isaacson
Now when your done..read what even pro-choice scholars call a poor written and poorly justified piece of legislation.. Roe v. Wade wherein their underlying premise for the invalidity of abortion laws was were their “newness”..stop and think about the stupidity..and yes it is plainly there for the layman…….
Now when you are finished Roe v. Wade I then suggest you reread..The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and Driesbach’s “Wall fo Seperation”
By then you will have learned s tremendous amount much of which will blow your “secular wall of seperation myth, it’s my uterus, it’s only religion dogma right out the window…”..that is if you have an open mind.
After I read all that I listed I came to realize prolife has NOTHING to do with religion because I’m not religous, abortion is merely reprehensible , we aren’t a theocracy nor completely secular(see Franklin)and after 20 years as a democrat re registered as a republican..
TahoeJoe
Comment by tahoejoe — 03.06.05 @ 7:43 pm
since Roe v. Wade, abortion has been the leading cause of death in Black America…OUCH…not being a physician I can’t honestly say how often it is medically necessary to terminate a pregnancy, but I wish it NEVER had to be…elective abortion is MURDER, plain and simple…i actually know 2 women who suffered RAPE and still CARRIED THE BABIES TO TERM…one gave the child up for adoption, the other kept the child, at the cost of her marriage…but both of those women showed a strength that I don’t know if men have…a woman may have a legal right to choose, and while that choice is between her and God (whether she believes in Him or not), and I SURELY am not trying to regulate anyone’s uterus, my personal desire would be for elective abortions to disappear…
Comment by Rafael Daniel — 03.06.05 @ 8:04 pm
I’m watchng the replay now.
Positively amazing.
Comment by jmflynny — 03.06.05 @ 10:59 pm
Celebrating Life
When does life begin? LaShawn reminds us of a National Geographic special called “In the Womb” that will take us through a childs growth stages till it’s birth. I saw a TV ad on this a few days ago and…
Trackback by The Blue State Conservatives — 03.07.05 @ 12:10 am
Renee-
I agree with you with regards to responsibility being left out of the equation. It is systemic of a larger crisis, which is the greater abdication of personal responsibilities by many individuals in this country. It is currently being legislated or handed down by judicial fiat at tremendous consequences to our nation. As long as the government sees its responsibility as to ensure a safety net for all Americans in all circumstances, we will continue to face a multitude of poor choices which are rewarded by a government subsidy or by the ability to abort a human life form.
Comment by Chris Roberts — 03.07.05 @ 12:36 am
what i dont understand about the “pro murderers” is this non existent right to privacy in teh constitution. and they always say “conservatives used to not want to legislate what goes on in teh bedroom” this is utter nonsense. we have all kinds of laws about what you can and cant do in your own house and BEDROOM we have laws against polygamy, rape, sex with a child, ect. I get sick of these people. what possible reason would there be to kill a poor innocent child. waht i dont get is if a woman “wants” the baby then its a baby if she doesnt want him its a “choice” sickening and all the media is complicit. when that womans that was murdered baby was taken out of her teh media kept calling it fetus and when one of the juros from scott peterson gave an interview she said she didnt understand it because Connor was his baby and he was supposed to protect him, then the reporter said “the juror didnt understand how he could do that to his fetus” they cant deny it now and they look down right stupid calling a baby a fetus. my husbands best friend was born at twenty weeks and his is healthy now. there are babies at that age being murdered, it breaks my heart to think about it. i get sick of that talk about choice what about the choice not to lay up and be responsible for the consequences. when i went off to college i came back home five months pregnant, I was aksed by a peer adn teh childs father if i would abort it and i was so shocked that someone would actually kill a baby. My first instinct as a woman was to got to the doctor and get ready to be a mother. I made the CHOICE to lay up instead of study.
poor innocent babies. everyone pray that the hearts of these people will soften to the pain these babies feel.
(hey was the mike adams from townhall i read his stuff all the time, hes so funny im going to buy his book)
Comment by shari — 03.07.05 @ 3:33 am
The picture is a great one, LaShawn!
Comment by Rose — 03.07.05 @ 6:56 pm
In the Womb.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the preview of National Geographic’s In The Womb.
National Geographic image of a seven month old baby in the womb.
Via LaShawn
…
Trackback by Myopic Zeal — 03.09.05 @ 2:10 pm
Well, I’ve read the responsive comments. Too bad nobody bothered to read Roe v. Wade. The arguments in these posts existed before the opinon was issued. In fact, some of them had, in earlier cases, been used to keep the cases from going to the Supreme Court.
Comment by Valerie — 03.11.05 @ 1:49 pm
Why do you assume that nobody’s read Roe v. Wade? Because we disagree with you?
Never mind.
Comment by La Shawn — 03.11.05 @ 1:52 pm