Womb - or tomb? (Part 2).

This is the second of the brief series of posts that I published in Aug. 2014 and that I am now repeating in the light of the current controversy in the USA. Once again, I have not changed anything.

For a number of years I gave the opportunity, to my senior pupils, to choose a major topic for discussion.  One of the most popular was that of abortion!   However, one day I was summoned to the office of the head teacher.  He had received a telephone call from a parent, complaining about my having told his 16-year-old daughter what happened at an abortion (almost as if he thought that the rest of the class had not been present!).  I cannot now recall his exact words - as related to me by the head teacher - but the gist of them was that he didn't want his daughter, already able to legally engage in sexual intercourse, to know what happened, "in case she ever needed to have an abortion"!

That, I believe, is a major part of the problem about the procedure.  So many do not know - and do not wish to know - what actually happens.  They are content to believe that all that is removed from the female is a homogeneous bundle of cells, no more 'human' than an appendix or than tonsils.  That is why, I suspect, so many talk of the woman's body, as if that was all that was involved.

I'll explain a little about procedure in a subsequent post but, for now, let's determine exactly what it is that is being aborted.

It is safe to say that the female - girl or woman - does not know, for certain, that she is indeed pregnant until approximately seven to eight weeks after conception.  By that time, the embryonic heart is already beating!  I would suggest that it is also safe to say that, by the time a decision is made to seek an abortion, and arrangements made for the procedure to take place, another four to six weeks will have passed.  This means that the earliest stage at which an abortion would normally be carried out would about twelve to fourteen weeks after conception or, to put in another way, approximately one-third of the way through the pregnancy.

With the benefit of scans, we now have a clear picture of what the unborn child is like at that stage in its pre-natal life.  At twelve weeks, the foetus measures about 60 mm from crown to rump and weighs between 9 and 14 grams. It is fully formed, from tooth buds to toenails, and the baby's job now is simply to continue getting larger and stronger for the rest of the pregnancy. With the most critical development behind the foetus, the chance of miscarriage drops considerably after this week.  However, it is only at this stage that the possibility of an abortion becomes a reality!  This, it must be clear to any normal person, is no 'lump of cells'.  This is, unmistakably, a baby - a human being at an early stage of its development, but a human being nevertheless.

This little life is, of course, dependent upon its mother - but it is a totally separate being.   A unique individual, just waiting to be born.

Next time, we'll look at some of the methods used to kill this little life - and to turn the womb into, temporarily, a tomb.

Womb - or tomb? (Part 2).

For a number of years I gave the opportunity, to my senior pupils, to choose a major topic for discussion.  One of the most popular was that of abortion!   However, one day I was summoned to the office of the head teacher.  He had received a telephone call from a parent, complaining about my having told his 16-year-old daughter what happened at an abortion (almost as if he thought that the rest of the class had not been present!).  I cannot now recall his exact words - as related to me by the head teacher - but the gist of them was that he didn't want his daughter, already able to legally engage in sexual intercourse, to know what happened, "in case she ever needed to have an abortion"!

That, I believe, is a major part of the problem about the procedure.  So many do not know - and do not wish to know - what actually happens.  They are content to believe that all that is removed from the female is a homogenous bundle of cells, no more 'human' than an appendix or than tonsils.  That is why, I suspect, so many talk of the woman's body, as if that was all that was involved.

I'll explain a little about procedure in a subsequent post but, for now, let's determine exactly what it is that is being aborted.

It is safe to say that the female - girl or woman - does not know, for certain, that she is indeed pregnant until approximately seven to eight weeks after conception.  By that time, the embryonic heart is already beating!  I would suggest that it is also safe to say that, by the time a decision is made to seek an abortion, and arrangements made for the procedure to take place, another four to six weeks will have passed.  This means that the earliest stage at which an abortion would normally be carried out would about twelve to fourteen weeks after conception or, to put in another way, approximately one-third of the way through the pregnancy.

With the benefit of scans, we now have a clear picture of what the unborn child is like at that stage in its pre-natal life.  At twelve weeks, the foetus measures about 60 mm from crown to rump and weighs between 9 and 14 grams. It is fully formed, from tooth buds to toenails, and the baby's job now is simply to continue getting larger and stronger for the rest of the pregnancy. With the most critical development behind the foetus, the chance of miscarriage drops considerably after this week.  However, it is only at this stage that the possibility of an abortion becomes a reality!  This, it must be clear to any normal person, is no 'lump of cells'.  This is, unmistakeably, a baby - a human being at an early stage of its development, but a human being nevertheless.

This little life is, of course, dependent upon its mother - but it is a totally separate being.   A unique individual, just waiting to be born.

Next time, we'll look at some of the methods used to kill this little life - and to turn the womb into, temporarily, a tomb.

Murder most foul!

If my memory serves me well, the heading to this post is the title of an Agatha Christie Poirot novel.  Of course, I may be wrong.  Either way, it surely sums up the reaction of the vast majority of decent people to the murder of three-year-old Mikaeel Kular.  Of course, what makes the situation even worse is that it is his own mother who has now been charged with that murder.  She is, in British law, innocent until proven guilty, but many ask the question: "How could a mother murder her own child?"

Sadly, this is not a unique case.  There are many records of children having been murdered by their own mother.  Within their own homes, where they might expect to have been safe, they died.

There is, nevertheless, an element of hypocrisy in the furore that inevitably accompanies any such conviction.  This is because murder is committed on defenceless children every working day - and in the place in which they should be safest of all!  I refer to the approximately 600 abortions that take place on a daily basis in the UK alone.  The figure may not be quite accurate, as up-to-date statistics are not easy to obtain.  But in spite of the euphemism of "termination of a pregnancy" abortion of nothing more, or less, than the murder of a living human being - albeit at an early stage of its development - with, in all but a few rare cases, the co-operation of its mother.

If I had my way, every woman/girl who sought an abortion would be obliged to have a full pre-natal scan.  At four to five months - apparently the most common stage for an abortion - the rubbery cartilage that composed the foetus’ skeleton is turning into hard bone.  The baby is now large enough that when it kicks or moves around in the womb, the mother will most likely feel it. Blood vessels are becoming visible through the skin. Hair is starting to appear on the baby’s scalp, and eyebrows and eyelashes are present. Soft hair called lanugo covers the body and head of the foetus. This fuzz will disappear before birth.  Reflexes such as chewing, sucking, and swallowing are developing. The baby may begin his or her habit of sucking its thumb during this month. The foetus may be only about six inches long at the end of the fourth month of pregnancy; but there is no doubt that this is a small human being!

So, let us be angry when a mother murders her child.  But let us also be angry at the wholesale slaughter that goes on, day after day, week after week, for reasons that are, in over 90% of cases, nothing more than social inconvenience.

Our unborn children surely deserve no less!