Category: Fetal Development

Pro-abortion authors Harold J Morowitz and James S Trefil wrote about an embryo’s brain:

“… All three regions of the brain develop together, and the cells that will give rise to all of them are clearly visible in the four-week embryo…

The development of the brain is a smooth continuum, with no place where sharp distinctions can be drawn.”

Harold J Morowitz and James S Trefil The Facts of Life: Science in the Abortion Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) 100, 101

Nevertheless, these authors support abortion.

 

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Pro-choice authors Harold J Morowitz and James S Trefil describe brain development in pre-born babies. They are counting from a woman’s last menstrual period, so when they say seven weeks, they mean five weeks from conception (embryonic age):

“At seven weeks, the eye bud is easy to see, and the various bumps and wiggles in the embryo mark places where divisions between different parts of the brain will occur later… At 11 weeks the broad outlines of the familiar human brain are already in place, although a great deal of elaboration is still to come…

All three regions of the brain develop together, and the cells that will give rise to all of them are clearly visible in the four-week embryo… The development of the brain is a smooth continuum, with no place where sharp distinctions can be drawn…

The cells that will eventually be part of the cerebral cortex begin forming in the seven-week embryo… Even at this early stage of development…the brain cannot be thought of as something that is simply a collection of nerve cells. It has a highly complex structure, and it would not function if that structure were not present.”

Harold J Morowitz and James S Trefil The Facts of Life: Science in the Abortion Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) 91 – 92, 100, 101, 117

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In an essay about fetal development, a doctor and scientist wrote:

“The pulsating heart is at first most of all in the service of the rapidly growing brain… With its own growth, the heart acquires a central significance in the vascular system.

At the beginning of the 4th week, the young embryo is about three millimeters in size. Now even a layman has no difficulty in recognizing it as a human being, because brain, spinal cord, heart, viscera with stomach, intestines and liver, as well as the first layouts of upper and lower extremities are discernible. All these organs are already functioning, that is, corresponding to their respective properties that have developed at this stage. We do not find any single functionless organ. All organs as part of the whole exercise formative functions, and in this process, the brain functions as the center of growth.”

E Blechschmidt, MD “Human Being from the Very First” in Thomas W Hilgers, Dennis J Horan, David Mall New Perspectives on Human Abortion (Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, Inc., 1981) 18

These facts about fetal development are not newly discovered. Fetal development information has been around for a long time, just ignored and denied by pro-choice activists.

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A book for expectant mothers says the following about preborn babies in the third month of pregnancy:

“You cannot feel these movements, but it is kicking, curling its toes up and down, rotating its feet and wrists, clenching and unclenching its fists, pressing its lips together, frowning, and making other facial expressions…There is still plenty of room in the uterus, so the fetus can swoop and undulate in its own enclosed sea.”

Sheila Kitzinger The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth (New York: Knopf, 1982) 65

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Dr. Frederic Frigoletto, “a pioneer on the frontier of fetal therapy” describes observing a fetus in utero as:

“almost like going to a nursery school to watch the behavior of 3-year-olds.”

Frederic Frigoletto, quoted in Lucy H Labson “Today’s View in Maternal and Fetal Medicine” Patient Care 1983, 105

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On fetal development:

“By the time a woman confirms that she is pregnant, at five weeks, the baby is already 1/3 inch tall, with a steadily beating heart, a developing brain and nervous system. The first brain waves can be detected during the 6th week of pregnancy. “

“What They Never Told You About the Facts of Life” brochure, published by the Human Development Resource Council, Inc., Norcross, GA. 2001.

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From an article in the Milwaukee –Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:

“Science has learned that a developing fetus receives messages from the mother, everything from hearing mom’s heartbeat to the music she might direct toward her belly. But a new study in the journal Psychological Science suggests that the fetus can pick up on signals and respond to a mother experiencing depression….

“We believe the human fetus is an active participant in its own development and is collecting information for life after birth,” said Curt A. Sandman, one of the authors and an emeritus professor of psychiatry and human behavior at UC-Irvine. “It’s preparing for life based on messages the mom is providing.”

 Mark Johnson “Fetus can sense how Mom’s doing psychologically” Milwaukee – Wisconsin Journal Sentinel November 11, 2011

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William M Connolly, who has studied embryology, says:

“Time–Life estimates the mature human body has 100 trillion cells. Scientists tell us each cell performs more than 1 trillion biochemical reactions per second. Before birth, the fetus has, perhaps, 10 trillion cells, plus it’s 10 to 100 billion nerve cells, each cell performing a trillion biochemical processes per second.”

William M Connolly One Life: How the US Supreme Court Deliberately Distorted the History, Science and Law of Abortion (Xlibris, 2002) 128

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Dr. Hymie Gordon, chief geneticist at the Mayo Clinic, said that the complexity of the zygote (the human right after conception) “is so great that it is beyond our comprehension.”

Thomas W Hilgers, Dennis J Horan Abortion and Social Justice (Thaxton, Virginia: Sun Life, 1980) 5

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