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The Pain of the Unborn and
"The Cultural and Family Experience of Post-abortion Syndrome" Part One of Three By Dave Andrusko Good evening. Part Two examines the Obama Administration's determination to shape the face of American medicine in a way that guarantees rationing. Part Three talks about the exciting victories in the state legislatures. In National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), we talk about "The New Abortion Providers" and remind you of the opportunity to buy CDs from NRLC 2010. Please send all of your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are now following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. Friday's editions of "Today's News & Views" and "National Right to Life News Today" are the last before my family goes on vacation. Today will be chock-full of items, and over the next week or two I'll run new stories/columns and a selection of some of the pieces you liked best (based on the email).
Part One today begins as a follow-up to two of yesterday's articles. Olivia Gans' account of a deeply moving workshop at NRLC 2010 deserves widespread distribution. If you missed "AVA Examines Generations Lost at NRLC 2010!" you can read it at www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/July10/nv071510part2.html and then distribute it through your social networks. I've now attended 30 (yes, thirty) NRLC conventions, beginning in Omaha, Nebraska in 1981. But the workshop titled, "What has Abortion Done to Us? The Cultural and Family Experience of Post-abortion Syndrome" was the first time I'd ever heard a parent talk about his (or, this case, her) role in the death of their grandchild. Making an already powerful setting even more memorable was that her daughter was also part of the panel. Abortion--"a decision between a woman and her doctor"? This mindless drivel would be almost laughable if the stakes weren't so enormously high. Be sure to order a copy of the CD at http://www.nrlc.org/convention/NRLC2010CDOrderForm.pdf. Equally important to distribute far and wide is Dr. Paul Ranalli's immensely detailed but equally readable rebuttal of the Royal College of Obstetricians Gynecologists' contention that the unborn cannot feel pain until at least the 24th week. (See http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/July10/nv071510.html.) We can never hope to match the gazillions of dollars of free publicity the report garnered from the "mainstream" press, but we can--and must--spread the truth through our own channels.
No one, to the best of my knowledge, except Dr. Ranalli has acknowledged that for all its inadequacies, RCOG's report obliterates the conclusion of a 2005 pro-abortion "study" in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which purported to show that the unborn could not feel pain until the 29th week. Truth be told there is an overwhelming amount of research that everything is in place for the unborn child to experience pain not at 29 weeks or 24 weeks but at 20 weeks. I've read dozens and dozens of stories and opinion pieces about RCOG's report. With virtually no exceptions, they uncritically take on faith everything RCOG says, even such absurdities as the notion (draw from bogus analogies with fetal lambs) that the unborn is asleep ("the fetus never enters a state of wakefulness in utero"). Best of all, Dr. Ranalli offers highlights of the weaknesses of RCOG's report. The CD can be ordered at http://www.nrlc.org/convention/NRLC2010CDOrderForm.pdf. Please be sure to read Parts Two and Three of TN&V and National Right to Life News Today. |
