There was an interesting article in the National Post this week by Michelle Hauser. Hauser explored medical advances that will make it difficult to blindly accept our abortion status quo. Here’s a taste:
And perhaps the most fundamental question of all: when common medical practice establishes that a 13-week-old fetus is worth saving through surgery, will it not also be worth protecting through the law?
It’s a fantastic piece and I tip my hat to Hauser for all the research she did to pull together such an informative piece. I plan to circulate it to the Physicians for Life’s membership this week.
While I try to remain hopeful, I’m not sure that these advances will change Canadians’ behaviour when it comes to abortion, and I don’t think they’ll influence our legislative stance on the issue. Rather, I think these advances will lead to the “designer babies”(eugenics) that the WHO is concerned about and greater rates of abortion.
We already have a consumer mindset about most things, including life, why would this be any different?
What we need is a change in our conception of human life – and a belief that it is unique and valuable.
We’ve dehumanized the unborn or flat out stated that our lifestyles/circumstances are more important than the actual life of our unborn children – I don’t think medical advances will change this.
We have graphic images, incredible ultrasound technology, life-size medical models of the fetus, and prenatal information from every imaginable source (from National Geographic to Pampers). And yet we continue to abort. And American research shows that the vast majority of abortions are for “lifestyle” (such a “bad timing”) reasons. We’re not talking about cases where the mother’s life is at risk, for example. And we’re not talking about the humanity and the human rights of the unborn child. Science has long established that (of course) a human fetus is, in fact, human.
Perhaps if this information is folded into existing and successful apologetics programs and educational resources – perhaps then it’ll play a role in changing hearts and minds.
But right now I think many hearts are hard or afraid, and many minds choose to be willfully closed.
by 
It’s strange. On the one hand, I agree with you, Faye. On the other, I know from reading the story of a former abortion clinic worker, that in one instance, they had a woman who was in for an abortion, not her first. For some reason, she asked to see remains and when they showed her, she flipped out. The clinic had a rule in place to never show remains again after that. So, on the one hand, we have a woman aborting, and not for the first time, which would suggest she knows what she is doing. On the other hand, we have an emotional response to seeing remains, which would signify the humanity in the form of little hands, feet, head, etc. So. I think people see and know what they want to, and they choose to prioritize that information also as they would like to and that we as society allow them to be very deluded for a long time. That said, there are instances where the humanity of the unborn in the form of scientific development can help. How’s that for sitting on the fence?