Author: Tech

Trauma From Rape Often More Problematic Than The Pregnancy

Sandra Mahkorn, who has studied women who have become pregnant as a result of rape says the following in New Perspectives on Human Abortion:

“Perhaps as a result of their own biases or an unwillingness to deal with the more emotionally difficult and demanding complications of a pregnant victim, many physicians curtly dismiss the issue by prescribing abortion in these cases as one would prescribe aspirin, fluids, and bed rest for a cold. Ironically, those purporting to promote respect for the sexual assault victim too often propose a paternalistic attitude when the question of pregnancy arises. A sensitive awareness of the individual is abandoned with many of the so-called quick and easy solutions… In the majority of these cases, it appears that the pregnant victim’s problems stem more from the trauma of rape rather than from the pregnancy itself.”

Stephen Currie. Opposing Viewpoints Digests: Abortion (San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 2000) 106

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Pregnancy Measurement System is Arbitrary, Development Occurs Long After Birth

“The practice of separating embryonic development from fetal periods is clearly somewhat arbitrary, as most biologic events are not timed precisely…Indeed, many of these processes are not confined to fetal life but extend well into the postnatal period [infancy] Examples include glomerulopoieses in the kidney, alveolar, multiplication in the lung, and myelination of the nervous system.”

Gynecology & Obstetrics: A Longitudinal Approach. Thomas R. Moore, Robert C. Reiter, Robert W., M.D. Rebar, and Vicki V. Baker New York W.B. Saunders Company (October 1993) p 37

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Birth Is Not the Start of Human Development

“It should always be remembered that many organs are still not completely developed by full term and birth should be regarded only as an incident in the whole developmental process.”

Human Embryology and Genetics. F. Beck Blackwell Scientific Publications

sonogram of baby in the first trimester
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Rape Counselor Says These Mothers Do Not Welcome Generalizations About Their Children

Incidentally,another rape counselor, Joan Kemp, was quoted saying:

“After sexual assault there is, for varying lengths of time, a natural revulsion toward anything associated with the rape. That may include the location, or characteristics of the rapist such as clothing, race, mustache, etc. It is normal for this feeling to attach to the unborn child conceived in rape. However, these feelings normally fade with time. When this does not happen spontaneously, counseling with someone qualified to treat rape victims is highly effective. Rape victims I have worked with were quite aware and distressed by the inappropriateness of these feelings. They would not, for instace, have welcomed anyone telling them that men of their attacker’s race are natural criminals. Nor do women welcome being told that their children conceived in rape are unworthy of life, genetically prone to crime, and bound to feel unwanted and bitter. A person in crisis is seeking positive solutions, not a counsel of despair.”

21. Joan Kemp “Abortion: The Second Rape” SisterLife, Winter 1990 Feminists for Life of America, 811 E. 47th St. Kansas City, MO 64100

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How the Unborn Baby Develops

“After 28 weeks in utero, the fetus can hear… by four months in a female fetus, all 5 million ova are formed. At 4 1/2 months the fetus response to a brush it’s lips by sucking. By six weeks the brain is visible and electrically active; by eight, it has convoluted folds and the shape of an adult brain.”

“Do you Hear What I Hear?” Newsweek special issue summer 1991

nine weeks
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Doctor Sees Tiny Baby after Operation

6 to 7 weeks

Statement by Paul E. Rockwell, M.D.:

“Eleven years ago while giving an anesthetic for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy (at 8 weeks gestation), I was handed what I believe was the smallest living human ever seen. The embryonic sac was intact and transparent. Within the sac was a tiny human male swimming extremely vigorously in the amniotic fluid, while attached to the wall by the umbilical cord. This tiny human was perfectly developed, with long, tapering fingers, feet and toes. It was almost transparent, as regards the skin, and the delicate arteries and veins were prominent to the ends of the fingers.”

Dr. Rockwell continues, “The baby was extremely alive and swam about the sac approximately one time per second, with a natural swimmer’s stroke. This tiny human did not look at all like the photos and drawings and models of ’embryos’ which I had seen, nor did it look like a few embryos I have been able to observe since then, obviously because this one was alive! When the sac was opened, the tiny human immediately lost his life and took on the appearance of what is accepted as the appearance of an embryo at this stage of life (with blunt extremities etc.).”

The statement by Paul E. Rockwell, M.D., an anesthesiologist, was quoted by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke in their Handbook on Abortion

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Unborn Babies Respond to Touch at Six Weeks

seven week unborn baby

“In the sixth to seventh weeks…If the area of the lips is generally stroked, the child responds by bending the upper body to one side and making quick backward motion with his arms. This is called total pattern response because it involves most of the body rather than a local part.”

LB Arey Developmental Anatomy sixth edition, Philadelphia: WB Sanders and Company 1954

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Lennart Nilsson On Fetal Development

Lennart Nilsson is an intrauterine photographer who took pictures of unborn babies in the womb for Life magazine and the best-selling book “A Child Is Born”

hands of an unborn baby at seven weeks

He says of the unborn at 45 days after conception:

“Though the embryo now weighs only 1/30 of an ounce, it has all the internal organs of the adult in various stages of development. It already has a little mouth with lips, an early tongue and buds for 20 milk teeth. Its sex and reproductive organs have begun to sprout.”

Lennart Nilsson “Drama of Life before Birth” Life, April 30, 1965

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Majority Of Women Pregnant By Rape Keep Their Babies, According To A Study

It should also be noted that there have been only two studies of those who became pregnant after sexual assault. Reardon’s and one other, which was conducted by Dr. Sandra Mahkorn, who is an experienced rape counselor. Her study indicated that of women who become pregnant due to rape, a large number (70%) rejected abortion as an option and instead had their babies. Based on her research, Dr. Mahkorn concluded that:

“[This study indicates] that pregnancy need not impede the victim’s resolution of the trauma; rather, with loving support, nonjudgemental attitudes, and empathic communication, healthy emotional and psychological responses are possible despite the added burden or pregnancy.”

Sandra Kathleen Mahkorn, M.D. and William V. Dolan, M.D. “Sexual Assault and Pregnancy” in Thomas Hulgers, Dennis Horan and David Mall, “New Perspectives on Human Abortion” (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America) 1981, 194

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Unborn Baby at 2 Months (8 Weeks) Has Fingerprints

“At two months of age, the human being is less than one thumb’s length from the head to the rump. He would fit at ease in a nutshell, but everything is there: hands, feet, head, organs, brain, all are in place. His heart has been beating for a month already . . . . With a good magnifier the fingerprints could be detected.”

8 weeks

Jerome Lejeune, testimony on The Human Life Bill, S. 158: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. 7-10 (1981).

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