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Tuesday, October 03, 2006

3-D Foetal Scans Show Very Active Kids In 12th Week Of Development

But pro-abortion doctors, of course, say that we should completely ignore the footage.

Ultrasound images which show 12-week-old foetuses sucking their thumbs and walking in the womb are dangerously misleading, a group of scientists warned today.

The 3D images of unborn babies apparently behaving in a similar way to newborns raised questions over whether the upper limit for abortions should be reduced form 24 weeks.

However, a group of scientists has now warned the scans could be dangerously misleading as they do not reflect the true nature of an unborn baby’s brain.

Dr Donald Peebles, a consultant in foetal medicine at University College London, said the temptation to associate foetal movements with adult movements was “incredibly dangerous” and said they contributed nothing to the debate over whether the legal time limit for abortion should be lowered.

Dr Huseyin Mehmet, a reader in developmental neurobiology at Imperial College London, said that a foetal brain at 23 and 24 weeks was “extremely immature” and described it as being like an orange that has been sliced in half.

You can see the video by clicking here.  It’s pretty amazing stuff.

What I’ve never understood in the abortion debate is the argument put forth here by these scientists.  Why is it ethical and moral to abort an unborn child simply because it is not yet a fully-developed infant?  What criteria should an unborn child have to meet in order for its life to be protected?  Does it have to suck its thumb?  Have a certain level of brain activity?  Have grown all of its fingers and toes?  Those seem rather arbitrary to me.

Once a child is conceived in the mother’s womb it develops for decades right up into adulthood.  It goes from growing arms, lets, fingers, toes and a brain to emerging from the mother’s womb to crawling, walking and talking.  Why is a child any less of a child before one of those steps than after?

I think what some of us have done with abortion is fool ourselves into thinking that an unborn child, before some arbitrary level of development, is not a human life worth protecting because doing so is easier than dealing with the reality of unwanted pregnancies.

(via reader Steve Cates)

Comments

Avatar for J.R.

Yes, these images could be misleading. 

To pro-abortion activists!! 

It’s images like these that are killing (pun intended) their cause.  These images completely trump their whole nonsensical argument that you are not killing a human being when you have an abortion.

J.R. on October 3, 2006 at 11:09 am
Avatar for DBdowner

These scientists do not know enough about a fully developed adult brain to saying anything definitive about little moving fetuses and their brains. They want people to negate their empathetic response because they want people to continue to abort their unwanted offspring. I would like them to explain how it is all just reflex in the moving fetus. The fact of the matter is these “scientists” arguments can be boiled down to one silly matrix of ethical behavior. The more something varies from that of a fully developed adult the more that something becomes something that can be destroyed or killed. A mentally handicapped child resembles a fully developed adult so you can’t kill the handicapped child. However, if s society tightens the standards the society can decide that it is ethical and moral to kill the defective child. But with really lose standards, anything ca give a something likeness to a fully developed adult. Chimps are similar so you have to treat them different than you treat a mouse. Human consciousness is the main attribute used to define a worthy/similar entity. A fetus is lacks consciousness similar to that of a fully developed adult. Ergo, it is disposable. Yet does a newborn have a mind that is in operation? Where do we draw the lines? Society obviously draws the lines based on its own utility. Utility that is not ironically directed towards societies own good but societies own convenience. This is afterall the highest good. We wouldn’t want anything infringing on our precious lives and time.

DBdowner on October 3, 2006 at 11:14 am
Avatar for DBdowner

Wow… I apologize for not correcting my previous post. Please add in grammatical corrections as you go. It might make sense then. Doh!

DBdowner on October 3, 2006 at 11:17 am

However, if s society tightens the standards the society can decide that it is ethical and moral to kill the defective child.

This is characteristic of a movement once known as “Eugenics”, and quite popular with one Adolf Hitler, as well as Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the US.  Birds of a feather.


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robert108 on October 3, 2006 at 11:33 am
Avatar for Dave

I’ve been saying for years that there are no meaningful differences between a fetus and an infant. wink

Dave on October 3, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Avatar for Robert Perry

The doctor misses the point--or probably suppresses it.  Having worked in a crisis pregnancy center (pro-life), one thing I’ve learned is that abortion advocates have long used false arguments that the baby in utero is simply a fish, or a lump of flesh, or anything else than a baby.  So this method makes it aboundantly clear what is really going on--pro-abortion advocates have been flat out lying about this for decades.

Robert Perry on October 3, 2006 at 01:39 pm

The quick response from doctors on the left is typical. They use some vague standard as a yardstick to determine just when the fetus is a human being. It’s a shame we can’t ask the fetus. I suspect the answer would be enlightening.


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Pilgrim on October 3, 2006 at 03:57 pm
Avatar for Dave

The fetus and the infant are remarkably similar--these type of studies merely confirm it. I wish more supporters of abortion would acknowledge this. It’s the only way we could make any progress vis-a-vis legalizing infanticide.

Dave on October 3, 2006 at 05:16 pm
Avatar for Paulie B

The infant and the college student are remarkably similar…

Paulie B on October 3, 2006 at 06:38 pm
Avatar for Dbdowner

Dave,

There is no meaningful difference between you and an infant. I prefer brand new blank hard drives to virus corrupted hard drives. You think your brain has value because it has memories and what you think is a mind? If everything you find yourself in is a bold face lie, illusion, fraud, worthless, etc; so are you. To a mother an infant can have tremendous value or be something to snuff out. The mother who snuffs her newborn out has a mind full of values that are worth nothing. You could say,” Who are you to measure the value and worth of anothers mind?” And I would say,"Who am I not to recognize that a mother who values killing her newborn in order to save face, avoid inconvenience, cope with her life, etc is a person who denies all those same highest “goods” to her newborn as she trashes it, smothers it, etc.” A person’s own judgments/value/mind determines the person’s worth in terms of its value in relation to others. Dave, your mind is worthless and so are your thoughts. I would recommend pull a dumpster up to the back of your brain and start cleaning house. I am sure glad you weren’t an inconvenience to your mother. From your own judgments, I couldn’t blame her if she ended you (before you developed a consciousness of course).

Dbdowner on October 3, 2006 at 07:08 pm
Avatar for Dave

From your own judgments, I couldn’t blame her if she ended you (before you developed a consciousness of course).


Neither could I. There’d be no difference if she euthenized me as an infant or aborted me as a fetus.
Dave on October 4, 2006 at 03:35 am
Avatar for Robert Perry

Or as an adult, Dave.  Do be careful about arguing that certain stages of life are Lebensunwertes Leben.

Robert Perry on October 4, 2006 at 05:23 am
Avatar for Dave

Robert Perry “writes”

Do be careful about arguing that certain stages of life are Lebensunwertes Leben.

Why? You do it ALL THE TIME!!!

You haven’t offered any reasons why such views are wrong, and you live your life in direct accordance to them.

Dave on October 4, 2006 at 06:16 am
Avatar for Robert Perry

Genesis 1:27 pretty much does it for me, Dave.  And yes, I have presented views about why your PETA-expired worldview is wrong and barbaric.

Never mind that even a pig’s life is worth living--Hush Puppies shoes and bacon!  Mmmmm......

Robert Perry on October 4, 2006 at 07:39 am
Avatar for DBdowner

"You haven’t offered any reasons why such views are wrong, and you live your life in direct accordance to them. “

I assume you are talking about all the animals we humans kill. Animals that are not humans do not go through life stages leading towards becoming a human adult. In my previous poorly written response to your assertion that killing an infant and killing a fetus lacks a meaningful difference, I gave the reason for why it is immoral. The reason you did not accept this concept of morality is due to the fact that this morality finds itself in the person carrying out just and earnest action as opposed to some external moral maxim. I believe in external moral maxims but it is not necessary to appeal to them to determine that morality of a matter. The mother who serves her own good and denies another (here you would protest) that same good, will find that if the balance of justice is applied to her she is morally suspect. Her own judgments determine her lack of morality. The reason you find nothing morally suspect in killing an infant is due to your use of the concept of mind as the sole measure of worth. If someone does not accept this measure, they will have a completely different moral system than you. On a side note, maybe you believe humans must not depend on their environment (womb, covering, food, atmosphere, temperature, etc) in order to be considered a real person. Every time I hear someone make this argument, I find myself wishing they could be separated from the environment on which they depend; jettison them into space and see how long they survive outside their required environment.

The irony here is that you would despise the God of the Old Testament if he were real. Do you think that God would consider what you have between your ears a mind? And if the mental processes in your mind are so small and so insignificant to him, how could you ever claim that God is immoral by euthanizing it. I think it would be safe to assume that the difference between an adult human brain and the brain of a fetus are less than the difference between the human brain and the mind of God. Now I have not read any remarks you have made about the concept of God, so I am assuming that you take the standard arguments on this subject. Please forgive me if you have more developed ideas on this subject.

DBdowner on October 4, 2006 at 08:13 am
Avatar for Dave

DBDowner writes the single most absurd statement ever written in the history of the internet:

There is no meaningful difference between you and an infant.

Quick question: Why do you hate Man?

Dave on October 4, 2006 at 06:21 pm

Dave: He’s right.  The only difference between you and an infant is that the infant isn’t a dietary extremist and doesn’t think infanticide is OK.  Otherwise, it’s just detail differences in certain areas of your respective DNA strands.


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robert108 on October 4, 2006 at 06:28 pm
Avatar for DBdowner

Dave,

The play on equivocation is done with the idea of meaning. If your brain is full of nothing (activity signifying nothing) and an infant’s is full of nearly the same, what is the meaningful difference between you and the infant? The reality is an infant with next to no experience and next to no mind is ahead of you in terms of not being 20 steps behind the meaning curve. I had a driving instructor in driver’s ed who said that he hated it when he had student who already “knew” how to drive. This is an imperfect analogy but it still applies. You are further from having a mind than a fetus in terms of probability. I mean it is clear that you have a mind, it is just hopelessly flawed and tangled illusory language games. I give an infant better odds than you at ever developing a mind that has meaning that actually pertains to something meaningful… So my statement that you and an infant have no meaningful difference was overly generous.

I find Man to be an overstated and assuming animal.. Don’t you?

DBdowner on October 4, 2006 at 06:34 pm

DB: In Dave’s case, that is certainly true.


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robert108 on October 4, 2006 at 06:37 pm
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