By Dave Andrusko

Editor’s note. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com

The title for this edition is lifted from a phenomenal edition of Chuck Colson’s “Breakpoint” series. Apparently they are having some problems on their site (you can’t find this particular commentary at breakpoint.org], but you can read Chuck’s observations in their entirety at http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11605346.

Chuck Colson

I have ordered the PBS program that is at the heart of Chuck’s trenchant observations, which will allow me to make some first-hand observations later on. Here I will borrow directly from “Music in Utero: The Smile of the Unborn.”

Last month PBS ran what certainly sounds like a fascinating program, titled “The Music Instinct: Science & Song.” As Chuck explains, “The program was an exploration of, among other things, music’s ‘biological, emotional and psychological impact on humans,” including how music affects babies.

It’s not uncommon for moms to sing to their unborn babies. Question is, safely tucked away, can the little ones hear them? The program provides the answer.

”A segment of The Music Instinct featured Sheila C. Woodward of the University of Southern California, who has studied fetal responses to music,” Colson writes. ”A camera and a microphone designed for underwater use were inserted into the uterus of a pregnant woman. And then Woodward sang.”

”The hydrophone picked up two sounds: the ‘whooshing’ of the uterine artery and the unmistakable sound of a woman singing a lullaby.

”Then something extraordinary happened,” Colson explains. “Upon hearing the woman’s voice, the unborn child smiled. It was one of those moments that makes you catch your breath. The full humanity of the fetus could not have been clearer if he had turned to the camera and winked.”

There is a lot more to Chuck’s commentary. “Apparently, fetal responses to music aren’t limited to smiling. They have been observed moving their hands in response to music, almost as if conducting. They have been soothed by Vivaldi and disturbed by loud tracks from Beethoven. They have even responded ‘rhythmically to rhythms tapped on [their] mother’s belly.’”

He points out “perhaps understandably,” nobody mentions the “A” word—abortion. Chuck doesn’t think it’s “some kind of conspiracy afoot. I just think that the PBS people’s worldview won’t allow them to make the obvious connection. Abortion on demand is only possible if people minimize the similarities between the fetus and us,” something that is getting increasingly difficult to do.

As he does so well, Chuck places this latest demonstration that little ones are “one of us” in the larger context of an ever-growing number of illustrations over the past 25 years of the common humanity the unborn shares with the rest of us. It’s hard to deny the evidence, “So instead of looking at the evidence, many people don’t see it. Call it ‘worldview-induced blindness.’”

Or, as Chuck puts it, “In other words, they have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear.”

As I say, I will write a fuller account after I have a chance to watch “The Music Instinct: Science & Song.” Meanwhile be sure to read Chuck’s brilliant commentary at http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11605346.

Part One