The pro-life movement needs us to speak out—with our votes, and with our voices. In a culture that spreads lies — that abortion helps the mother, that an “unwanted” child wouldn’t want to be born, anyway, and that the mother only carries a “blob of tissue” in her womb — we are needed to help spread the truth about abortion. And we can start with the most obvious truth: that what the pro-abortion side conveniently calls “the product of conception”, an embryo, or a fetus is really a baby.
At conception, this person inside the mother’s womb is already set to be either a tiny boy or a tiny girl. By five weeks, its heart is beating beneath its mother’s. It’s a baby.[1]
By nine weeks, he has fingers that he can curl around something placed in his palm. Later, that “something” will be a mother’s or father’s finger. He’s a baby.
By ten weeks, she will begin to develop Mother’s deep brown eyes — or Daddy’s hazel ones — or great-great grandma’s gray-blues. By fourteen weeks, she can move her hands and might even suck her thumb. She’s a baby.
By fifteen weeks, the mother might feel flutters and wiggles inside her womb. The mother doesn’t choose when the baby will move. It’s not her choice. The little human being growing inside her has a mind of his own. He’s a baby.
By sixteen weeks, this tiny person can get a case of the hiccups. By nineteen weeks, she sleeps in her favorite position, wakes, and sleeps again. She’s a baby.
By twenty-three weeks, he can hear his mother’s and father’s voices reading, singing, and talking to him lovingly. He’s a baby.
By twenty-four weeks, the baby is considered viable. But even before that, when she is still within the protection of her mother’s womb, she begins to learn the sound of her mother’s voice. She sucks her thumb. Her heart beats steadily. She wakes and sleeps. She moves on her own. She needs nutrition.
She’s a baby. And giving her another name in an attempt to make her sound less cute, cuddly, and dependent on our love, care, and protection will not change that.
To women considering abortion — there are better options. There are crisis pregnancy centers and ministries and churches full of people who want to help you and your baby. And there are families everywhere who would love nothing more than to give your baby a loving home should you choose not to raise him or her. Don’t be afraid of embarrassment. Nine months of open embarrassment in front of peers — or even intense pressure from beloved family members for a time — is nothing compared to a lifetime of guilt forcing you to hide and hurt. The way your friends and family treat you because of the baby is their choice, and they will be held accountable for their treatment of you in the end. You will be held accountable for the choices you make regarding the safety and care of the baby in your womb.
To any woman who is already hurting from an abortion…you are a victim of abortion, too. There is healing for you. There is Project Rachel, a Catholic ministry created to help women who have suffered abortions to heal. You can find it at www.hopeafterabortion.com . There is also the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing; they can be contacted for help at www.noparh.org . God is merciful, and He loves you deeply. Forgiveness and healing are there for the asking.
For anyone who considers voting for pro-choice politicians in the future: if pro-choice politicians are elected to office, more women will be lied to — told the tiny, growing people inside their wombs are not really babies — when those babies and their mothers are at their most vulnerable point. More babies will be lost, and more mothers will be wounded because of the actions of elected pro-choice politicians. We hold the lives of those babies — and the well-being of their mothers — in our hands every time we go to the polls.
[1] All developmental timelines are taken from www.pregnancy.org, accessed 1/27/08.
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