SPROUL: First of all, when we look at nature and we’re trying to make a scientific designation
as when a person is a person; we're trying to discover discernible clear lines of demarcation.
One of the most obvious simple and easy lines of demarcation that we can ever find is birth,
and many people say “There's no question about that.
Once the umbilical cord is cut and that infant now is breathing on his own, is no longer
dependent upon the nourishment system of his mother and is an individuated human being,
then they’re clearly alive.”
Now, there are again as I say some who will not grant that even then the person is human,
that takes a while beyond it, but the overwhelming majority of people and scientists would agree
that after birth, at least, a person is human.
But now the question is “Is there another point before birth?” and that's what the
question is in the abortion issue.
The issue isn’t over whether or not – this is not an issue of infanticide.
It is an issue of whether or not it is appropriate to kill unborn fetuses.
Now, if we're going to look for significant points of departure between birth and however
far you want to go back in history of the development of this potential human being,
the next clearest line of demarcation is conception.
There are other points along the way: implantation, what some called ‘quickening’ or when
the heart starts beating or when brain waves are discernible and so on.
But as I say the most obvious point of demarcation where the process of the production of a child
begins is at conception.
What has been important to the medical decision on this is a relatively recent discovery – by
recent, I don't mean last week but I mean twentieth century – and that is that we
understand in modern science that the entire genetic code that generates the individual
particular characteristics, size, shape and development, all of that, of a personal human
being that entire genetic code is established at conception.
Not six weeks after or twelve weeks after or three months or six months but at the point
of conception the entire genetic code is there.
Within 18 to 25 days after conception, there is a discernible heartbeat, and the beating
of the heart, though in and of itself does not usually constitute the – the cessation
of the beating of the heart doesn't immediately constitute a cessation of life in the judgment
in the medical community.
The beating of the heart is a very significant consideration when we’re talking about human
life.
I think we all understand that particularly if our heart should stop this night.
Within eight weeks, which is still very early in the first trimester, brain waves and fingerprints
are present in this fetus.
Between twelve and thirteen weeks, this fetus sucks its thumb and recoils from pain.
Two occasions, I've heard people use statements to describe the nature of fetus.
One person described a fetus as an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm and I think that’s an
intemperate statement, but not only is it intemperate, it is simply biologically incorrect.
It is not an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm.
It is a mass that is already genetically differentiated and one that has a heartbeat and brain waves
and so on.
Heard another person described an unborn baby that was aborted as simply so much domestic
sewage.
Now again, that is an intemperate, emotive statement that adds little to any sober discussion
of when life begins.
But if we're going to call an aborted fetus ‘sewage’ then this demeans the process
that involves a beating heart.
I've never seen sewage with a beating heart or with brain waves.
This reflects to me not just a question of a low view of the fetus but a low view of
life altogether.
That’s why I labored in the second discussion the significance of understanding the sanctity
of life in general.
It's an amazing thing that this embryo has the genetic code intact, that in a few weeks
– a few days has a heartbeat, brain waves, all of those things that are critical to discerning
the presence of human life.
I once read a book entitled ‘Window on the Womb.’
Some of you perhaps have seen that book.
And the thing that attracted my attention to that is the same type of thing that grabbed
my attention in seeing the movie entitled ‘The Silent Scream’ with those who are
opposed to the pro-life movement feel it’s just a piece of propaganda.
If you remember ‘The Silent Scream,’ it was really a video camera shot – record
of an actual abortion where one could see very clearly in the film the reaction of the
fetus to the invasion of its body of a knife and clamps that crushed its skull and cut
its limbs.
And you could see this fetus’ face literally contorting in horror as an adult human being
would if they were subjected to the same kinds of pain.
And that's why the movie was called ‘A Silent Scream,’ you couldn't hear the scream and
the point of the book the Window on the Womb is that we don't see what's going on inside
the womb in the midst of an abortion but now we have the advanced sophisticated technology
by which we can actually film what is happening in abortions as they're taking place.
And what astonishes me more than anything else is how somebody can watch the drama of
what is taking place here, see it visually, not just theorize about it abstractly, but
see it visually and not be persuaded that what we're dealing with here is a human being
because the response is essentially the same as that would be of a two-year-old child to
this kind of pain.
But you see, we’re voting and deciding on ethical issues and civil matters that are
beyond our vision.
It’s been said that the most dangerous place in the United States of America right now
is a woman's womb.
It's the place where most people die, but it’s invisible.
And since we can’t see – women go through an emotional experience when they can feel
their developing child.
We called it ‘quickening.’
But if you can’t feel it, you can’t hear it, and you can’t see it, you don't think
it’s real.
But with the instrumentation we have of perceiving what is actually there from conception, what
is actually there from conception exhibits all of the necessary characteristics of human
life.
We know this much for sure that at conception the natural development of a living human
being begins.
I was on the train a few weeks ago and I was discussing this matter with a man, and he
said to me “What's the difference between an unfertilized egg and a male sperm that
have never met and the fertilized egg?
What’s the difference?”
I said “The obvious difference is conception.”
That is a difference.
Now the egg is fertilized, the genetic code is placed intact and it’s all the difference
in the world because you can have, as I say, 59 million sperms swimming as hard as they
can and an egg over here defending itself as long as it can, you can have that forever,
and never have a human being.
But once we have conception, the process begins that is moving and driving towards a human
child.
And so conception is a crucial point.