Photo by Michael Clancy
The above picture is a powerful image which was taken in August 19th, 1999 during an open fetal surgery for spina bifida. The unborn baby was little over 5 months in the womb when the surgical procedure was performed.
You will notice the small little hands that grasped for the surgeon’s hand.
It is pretty breathtaking.
This is not only another reminder of God’s miracle of life, but it also reinforces what King David said in Ps 139:13-16, “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. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
I am fully aware that whenever the topic of abortion comes up some people do not feel comfortable with it; whether it is because it is too politically charged or it is because of past guilt with having an abortion. But I think it is important for us to at least acknowledge how science is now affirming what pro-life advocates have been saying all along about the life of the unborn child.
There are new ultrasound equipments that are in 4D, which helps to see the unborn child in a new and powerful way. There are other research that are being done to show the responsiveness of the unborn child.
I read an article by Chuck Colson, titled, “The Smiling Unborn Child” and it really caused me to be in awe.
Colson writes,
A recent bit of footage has similar potential, only it couldn’t be more different from The Silent Scream. The footage was part of a recent PBS special, The Music Instinct: Science & Song. The program was an exploration of, among other things, music’s ‘biological, emotional and psychological impact on humans.
Part of this ‘exploration’ included how music affects babies. If we are, as some scientists believe, ‘wired for music,’ then babies are ideal test subjects since their reactions are, by definition, instinctual. Part of this research involved the effect of music on fetuses. While we knew that mothers often sing to their unborn children, we weren’t sure that the unborn child could hear them.
We are now. A segment of The Music Instinct featured Sheila C. Woodward of the University of Southern California, who has studied fetal responses to music. A camera and a microphone designed for underwater use were inserted into the uterus of a pregnant woman. And then Woodward sang.
The hydrophone picked up two sounds: the ‘whooshing’ of the uterine artery and the unmistakable sound of a woman singing a lullaby. Then something extraordinary happened. Upon hearing the woman’s voice, the unborn child smiled. It was one of those moments that makes you catch your breath. The full humanity of the fetus could not have been clearer if he had turned to the camera and winked.
Apparently, fetal responses to music aren’t limited to smiling. They have been observed moving their hands in response to music, almost as if conducting. They have been soothed by Vivaldi and disturbed by loud tracks from Beethoven. They have even responded ‘rhythmically to rhythms tapped on [their] mother’s belly.’
Perhaps understandably, the connection between fetal responses to music and abortion weren’t mentioned in the show. Abortion on demand is only possible if people minimize the similarities between the fetus and us.
That kind of denial is hard work because what we have learned in the past 25 years makes any denial of the fetus’ humanity absurd. Humans, we are told, are a ‘musical species’ whose brain devotes more to the appreciation of music than even the processing of language. That makes someone who smiles and moves his hands in response to music undeniably human, whether we notice it or not.”