Posted on 01/24/2007 10:29:08 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
Warning: The following commentary includes graphic descriptions that may not be suitable for children or sensitive readers.
Undoubtedly many of the great evils of our times have been committed because the cries of the victims were not heard—not heard by those who sat by, comfortably ignorant of the horrors around them. In early nineteenth-century England, few citizens had any real understanding that the lump of sugar they dropped in their afternoon tea was made at the high price of human bondage. The screams of men and women branded or whipped on West Indies sugar plantations were not heard in the fashionable parlors of England. Not until, that is, the great Christian statesman William Wilberforce launched his crusade against the slave trade.
Today, some two hundred years later, there are victims whose agony our ears will never hear. These are the unborn victims of abortion.
While the unborn do not have a voice to scream, science tells us that by twenty weeks a child in the womb is capable of feeling pain. Dr. Sunny Anand, director of the Pain Neurobiology Laboratory at Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute, testified before Congress and said: “The pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children . . . the highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero from twenty to thirty weeks gestation.” Sobering testimony.
To make matters worse, the biological mechanisms that inhibit the experience of pain do not begin to develop until weeks thirty to thirty-two.
Yet ironically, an unborn child has less legal protection from feeling pain than commercial livestock. In a slaughterhouse, a method of slaughter is deemed legally humane only if, as the hundred-year-old law states, “all animals are rendered insensible to pain . . . ” By contrast, D&E abortions, performed as late as twenty-four weeks, involve the dismemberment of the unborn child by a pair of sharp metal forceps. Instillation methods of abortion replace up to one cup of amniotic fluid with concentrated salt solution, which the unborn child inhales as the salt burns his or her skin. The child lives in this condition up to an hour.
These things are uncomfortable to hear and to speak about. That is precisely the point. We should not be comfortable in a society where such things exist and where we have the power to influence change. The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is scheduled to be re-introduced into this Congress. This legislation would require that women seeking abortions are fully informed of the pain that their unborn baby feels when he or she is aborted twenty weeks or more after fertilization. If that knowledge does not deter the mother in what has come to be reduced to a mere “choice,” she must be offered the opportunity to give the unborn child drugs to ease his or her pain.
Pro-abortion advocates dreadfully fear this legislation. It brings to light the difficult questions they do not want to confront, like why livestock have more rights than an unborn child. Questions like these, like the cries of victims, are hard to forget once they have shaken us from the comfort of our parlor chairs.
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It really is heartbraking ... it reduces me to tears.
Mr. S. You and I both know that people just don't want to be faced with the truth. That's why they get all freaked out when people show pictures of aborted fetuses on signs. I have mixed feelings about that but that's another topic.
We had a gal talk in our church years ago - the woman who was a nurse and saw the fetus "screaming" during. That story changed my life as much as anything. I was horrified. It is a wretched, wretched business and a big moneymaker for many.
Note how the left is all worried, really concerned about the pain felt by a criminal when he is executed.
Note how the left tried to make us think that the poor woman Terri Schiavo who they let starve and dehydrate to death was in a wonderful, peaceful, euphoric state.
Note how the left is trying to suppress any information about how a baby can feel pain.
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Disgusting! Any person who would perform this is nothing short of evil.
Excellent. Thanks for posting.
I respectfully request that each of you read this commentary by Mark Earley (especially paragraph 5) and explain to me again why I'm a hypocrite for caring about this issue.
We were truly amazed at the show he put on for us. He was aware of the intrusion, located it precisely, and examined it with his hand. I don't know how to reconcile this with a newborn's inability to find its feet with its hands, but his actions were very purposeful and precise. Hardly just a "lump of tissue".
This little fellow is now nearly 14, and making plans for high school next year. I can't imagine life without him.
As upsetting as this is, it really should be required reading for any woman contemplating abortion and ALL senators and congressmen.
We're going to need it. I know what Jefferson meant when he said "I tremble for my nation when I reflect that God is just."
Not trying to start a fight, but you need to read this.
okay.....? If you want me to defend 20+ week abortions, I can't really help you on that.
Severe preemies are acutely sensitive to tactile stimulation, as in very painful to even be touched in motion if removed from the water world of their comfort at 24 weeks from conception. Ask any nurse who works a Neonatal intensive care unit ... but there are freepers posting every day who will deny these little ones are even human beings prior to being born. Disgusting doltish servants to evil ...
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