Very recently I wrote an essay on ESG and the attempt to politicise the business community using investors funds as a weapon. (E.S.G.) In that essay I exhorted everyone to use common sense, with a dash of scepticism, when receiving information on important issues. My woke sensors were activated when I heard of an article entitled, What a pregnancy actually looks like before 10 weeks – in pictures and they were fully deployed when I heard it was sourced from The Guardian. I looked up the article and the first thing I noticed was a curiously worded subtitle. See if you can spot what caught my eye. “In 13 US states, abortion is banned even in the earliest stages of pregnancy. But we rarely see what such tissue really looks like.” (The Guardian 19/10/22) I will come back to that or, ‘circle back’ as the late Jen Psaki would often say. Reading on, I was struck by a number of photographs which showed a cotton wool like substance in Petrie dishes, an example and explanation below.
“This image shows the gestational sac of a nine-week pregnancy. This is everything that would be removed during an abortion and includes the nascent embryo, which is not easily discernible to the naked eye.” Dr. Joan Fleischman
For clarity, I should advise that Dr Joan Fleischman is part of a pro-abortion group called the MYA Network, ‘which is made up of a network of clinicians and activists, who show what tissue in the first nine weeks of pregnancy actually looks like.’ (The Guardian 19/10/22)
The thing that struck me about the subtitle and large parts of the MYA supplied data was the constant reference to ’tissue’ when we would normally be talking about the embryo or, the foetus. To be fair there is a reference to the aborted embryo in the above picture but it, ” … is not easily discernible to the naked eye” I don’t understand why that means it can’t be shown in the photograph by enlarging it to scale. This is important because the thrust of the article is to depersonalise and dehumanise the foetus. What we are shown is not, “everything that would be removed during an abortion” but some innocuous cotton wool like material that has no potential for life. There is no attempt to argue against the above chart which shows the development of a child but by using the artifice of showing only, the tissue, seeks to persuade people that there is no moral or, criminal argument to be made against them.
It might be argued by MYA that the pictures showing the foetal development and the one opposite are misleading but on the basis of the contrived Guardian article I would prefer to take my information from the National Health Service. (NHS)
Your baby at 10 weeks: The ears are starting to develop on the sides of your baby’s head, and the ear canals are forming inside the head. If you could look at your baby’s face, you’d be able to see an upper lip and 2 tiny nostrils in the nose. The jawbones are developing and already contain all the future milk teeth. The heart is now fully formed. It beats 180 times a minute – that’s 2 to 3 times faster than your own heart. The baby is making small, jerky movements that can be seen on an ultrasound scan. NHS
In addition to the words that are absent from the article we need to look at the ones that are used. In the picture that purports to show ‘everything that would be removed during an abortion’ the invisible embryo is described as ‘nascent’. I will leave you to look up your own definition but one that will serve for this article is as follows: nascent, coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential. Is Dr Fleischman arguing that there is no potential for life before nine weeks? If so, she seems to be in dispute with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists who, in their Seventh Edition of Your Pregnancy and Childbirth book, ACOG states that, “The first eight weeks of pregnancy are a time of rapid growth for your baby. Most of the organs have begun to form during these weeks. By the end of the eighth week, the baby – called an embryo at this stage – is about half an inch long.”
The main part of my criticism of this article is not that it is pro-abortion but that it is basically dishonest. There are arguments for both sides of the debate, but they should strive to be factual and honest. In this case, meanings are hidden, and facts distorted by slight of hand. If the intention was to reduce the stress of a mother seeking advice, she shouldn’t have to pick her way through this article like a lawyer vetting a contract. I had thought of entitling this piece ‘Lies, Dam Lies and the Guardian but I think that the title I chose reflects the modern trend of redefining direct language with obscure words, the meaning of which can be changed at will. With this in mind, I will leave you with the same sentence and sentiment with which I closed my essay on ESG. I am not saying that we should review the arguments promoted by the Flat Earth Society, but we should apply the same level of scepticism to those that make decisions, on our behalf, in the name of the experts.
Sources
Poppy Noor, 19/10/22, The Guardian, What a pregnancy actually looks like before 10 weeks – in pictures, .theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/18/pregnancy-weeks-abortion-tissue
nhs.uk/pregnancy/week-by-week/1-to-12/10-weeks/
American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Your Pregnancy and Childbirth book, 7th edition