[I]n a new study from the Netherlands, scientists have found fetal short-term memory in fetuses at 30 weeks…
Based on their research, the scientists found the presence of fetal short-term memory of 10 minutes at 30 weeks. They determined this because a significantly lower number of stimuli was needed to reach habituation in a second session, which was performed 10 minutes after the first session. They also found that 34-week-old fetuses can store information and retrieve it four weeks later.
Verum Serum comments:
None of the articles mentions abortion, but the significance of the study to that debate is obvious. With viability and fetal pain as early as 22 weeks, this study only confirms that late term abortion is not the removal of a blob of tissue but the killing of a human being able to feel, learn and think.
How about this: let us agree not to undertake any actions for our own pleasure that may result in the death of an innocent person. There are other things we can do for fun with the opposite sex, like talking to them, caring for them and helping them to grow in their knowledge of God.
Some pro-legalized abortions take the view that technically speaking the unborn are parasites and that they are fair game for destruction because they are dependent on the mother and consume some of her resources. As weird as that argument is I actually like when they present it. I think that middle grounders will immediately realize what a horribly wrong attempt it is to de-humanize the unborn.
The response:
By that line of reasoning, a woman would be totally justified in killing her baby a day before its due date.
That absurdity aside, their analysis fails (at least legally, if not morally). While you are never responsible for keeping someone else alive, you are responsible for doing so if you created the situation in which they are dependent upon you. The classic example is a person who is drowning in the ocean. You, as a boater with a life preserver, are under no obligation to help them out of the water. If, however, you were the one who chucked her overboard, then watched her drown, you can bet that a jury would convict your immoral butt for murder, not for ruining her clothes by getting her wet.
Likewise, you are under no obligation to give a dying person a kidney to save his life, but, if you ripped his kidneys out of his body, you would be charged with murder if he died from those injuries. If the only way to avoid his death is to give him your kidneys, you can bet that your options are to fork over an organ or be charged with murder.
I find it scary that people think of little babies as parasites in the first place!
January 23, 2009 – Forces taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. Decison to overturn Mexico City Policy sends part of $457 million to pro-abortion organizations.
February 27, 2009 – Starts the process of overturning pro-life conscience protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions.
March 9, 2009 – Obama signed an executive order forcing taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.
March 11, 2009 – Obama signed an executive order establishing a new agency within his administration known as the White House Council on Women and Girls. Obama’s director of public liaison at the White House, Tina Tchen, an abortion advocate, became director of it.
March 11, 2009 – Obama administration promotes an unlimited right to abortion at a United Nations meeting.
March 17, 2009 – Obama makes his first judicial appointment and names pro-abortion federal Judge David Hamilton to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
March 26 – President Obama announced $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that has been criticized for promoting abortion and working closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.
April 23 – Refused to appeal a ruling requiring the FDA to allow 17-year-old girls to purchase the morning after pill without either a doctor visit or parental involvement beforehand.
May 5 – Details emerge about a terrorism dictionary the administration of President Barack Obama put together in March. The Domestic Extremism Lexicon calls pro-life advocates violent and claims they employ racist overtones in engaging in criminal actions.
May 8 – President Obama releases a new budget that allows the Legal Services Corporation to use tax dollars to pay for pro-abortion litigation.
May 8 – President Obama’s new budget calls for taxpayer funded abortions in the nation’s capital, and eliminates all federal funding for abstinence-only education.
And we shouldn’t be surprised at his record on social issues in office, because those of us who can inform ourselves, using means other than television commercials during sports telecasts, knew about Obama’s record before he started to run for office:
Obama expressed support for legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions, and which has been credited with saving over a million lives.
Obama, unlike even many allegedly “pro-choice” legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice.
Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, did not and has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies.
Obama, as an Illinois state senator, opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist’s unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. The Obama campaign lied about his vote until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done. In fact, Obama continued to lie about his inhuman voting record in regard to the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, and even stooped so low as to run a disgusting television adattacking the disabled survivor of a botched abortion.
And don’t forget his plans to enact the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which denies Christian doctors and nurses the freedom to choose not to perform abortions, in violation of their consciences:
But Obama the presidential candidate also promised that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA),” which would create a federally guaranteed “fundamental right” to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including “a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined ‘health’ reasons”, and would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry.
A lot of pro-lifers say that abortion is the new slavery – you pick a group of people and dehumanize them because they are weaker than you are, for your own financial gain. At least the slave owners didn’t kill the slaves, though.
The full story of nurse Jill Stanek, who blew the whistle on infanticide in Illinois hospitals, in case you missed it.
UPDATE: Hot Air has video of John Piper speaking about what Obama’s pro-abortion stance really means: 1,000,000 dead babies every year. (H/T Gateway Pundit)
WINTERY KNIGHT 