Science support sanctity of unborn
The woman who recently wrote and said she has yet to find an argument that substantiates banning choice on abortion other than for religious beliefs is obviously unaware of the wealth of scientific evidence available.
To be sure, those of us who are religious find great strength and further resolve in our views on life because of irrefutable scientific evidence. All the following substantiated information can be accessed at the National Right to Life Web site:
Day 1 - All human chromosomes are present.
Day 22 - Heart begins to beat.
Week 3 - Spinal column, nervous system are forming. Liver, kidney and intestines begin to take shape.
Week 5 - Eyes, legs, hands begin to develop.
Week 6 - Brain waves are detectible. Mouth and lips are present, fingernails forming.
Week 8 - Every organ is in place, fingerprints are forming. Baby can hear.
Week 12 - Baby has all the parts necessary to experience pain, including nerves, spinal cord and thalamus. Vocal cords are complete. Baby can suck its thumb.
The last fact (week 12) is particularly crucial, in that it exposes a disturbing truth. Not only do babies in utero experience pain, studies show their pain level is more excruciating than that experienced by a person out of the womb.
Mechanisms that inhibit or moderate the experience of pain do not begin to develop until weeks 30-32.
Scientists know that species naturally protect and carefully watch over their young. In championing abortion, our species is going against our very nature and one of the things that makes us human - protecting our babies, the most helpless among us.
Many studies show women who have had abortions experience not only physical trauma, but emotional and psychological problems.
The pro-choice view brings a mother to a place of torment - urging her to sacrifice and uproot that which she is made biologically to nurture and love. Not only is this view illogical, it has no scientific basis on which to stand.
Babies can routinely be saved at 21-22 weeks after fertilization, and some even younger. This gestational age will only be pushed back further as medical technology advances. To those of us who are religious, it is affirming that science, logic and our rational human minds agree with what God teaches about the sanctity of life.
Dana Albers
Arlington Heights