Science can be inconvenient, even troubling, to those who prefer living by mythology. We find an example of this in the reaction of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) over a thirty second commercial that showed a mother getting an ultrasound at nine months. In the commercial, the OB/GYN tells the mother that the baby is due any day. Meanwhile, the expectant father is waving a single nacho cheese Dorito over the child’s belly. The monitor shows that the baby is moving with the motion of the chip. This was enough to outrage the so-called “pro-choice” group that perceived the advertisement to exemplify “anti-choice tactics of humanizing fetuses”.
NARAL would prefer to live in a world of its own creation. The commercial does not humanize the fetus; it acknowledge what science reports, namely that the unborn child is already part of the human family. Through ultrasound, science has opened a window into the life of the unborn and has some extraordinary things to report. If there is one area in which we can say that there is progress, it is the area of our vastly improved knowledge of the unborn child.
Boris Brott is one of the most internationally recognize Canadian symphony conductor. He holds major positions as music director in both Canada and the United States. Presently, he enjoys an international career as guest conductor, educator, motivational speaker, and cultural ambassador. He has something quite fascinating to tell us about life in the womb.
In a radio interview, he was once asked how he became interested in music. It seemed to be a typical question and the interviewer probably expected a typical answer. Brott’s response, however, was both unexpected and illuminating. “You know, this may sound strange,” he said, “but music has been a part of me since before birth.” He went on to explain. Somehow, I knew the cello line of scores I was conducting before I had ever seen them. He mentioned this to his mother who was a professional cellist and enumerated all the pieces he seemed to know before he had ever seen them. His mother had an answer for this apparent mystery. She had played all these pieces while she was pregnant with him. Brott had a head start as a musician even before he was born.
Examples of pre-natal learning are numerous. An American mother who had lived in Toronto during her pregnancy overheard her two-year-old daughter chanting, “Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.” The mother recognized the words as part of her Lamaze exercise. But the child could not have picked them up from watching television since she was now living in Oklahoma City, and the words she was uttering were unique to the Canadian version of the Lamaze exercise.
Tom Verny, is a distinguished psychiatrist who has taught at several universities including Harvard, and the University of Toronto. His book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, has become a bestseller, published in 27 languages. His contribution to scientific literature is most impressive. As a result of several years of research, Verny concludes that “The fetus can see, hear, experience, taste and, on a primitive level, even learn in utero (that is, in the uterus—before birth). Most importantly, he can feel—not with an adult’s sophistication, but feel nonetheless.” Therefore, as a corollary, Verny maintains, while a mother is carrying her child, life-enhancing emotions, such as joy, elation and the anticipation of delivering her child, can contribute significantly to the emotional development of the child.
NARAL, by allowing itself to be “outraged” by the ultrasound image of an unborn child as depicted in a television commercial, is showing itself to be more anti-science than pro-choice. Surely a scientist should be pro-science without having to make apologies to anyone. Such outrage, of course, is used to protect a rather feeble ideology, one that begins with the indefensible assumption that the unborn child is not an unborn child. The scientific evidence for the humanity of the unborn child, however, is conclusive. If we want to live in reality, we cannot ignore hard facts and continue to hide in a mythological world of our own invention.
Dr. Donald DeMarco is a Senior Fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, CT, and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That is Going Mad and Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart are available through Amazon.com.
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