While the world’s attention was focused on the late-term abortion technique of partial-birth abortion in 1997, abortion advocates were quietly developing a new early-term abortion technique. The New York Times reported in December that a new abortion method allows women to end their pregnancy just days after conception. The new method is being practiced at 23 Planned Parenthood Federation abortion clinics across the U.S.. including San Diego.
Traditionally, abortionists have waited until six or seven weeks of gestation, because of the inaccuracy problems of early pregnancy tests. But improved ultrasound imaging has made it easier to see the gestational sac in its earliest stages.
Dr. Michael Burnhill, vice president for medical affairs at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told the New York Times that improved ultrasound imaging, along with more sensitive pregnancy tests and a new surgical technique, have made it possible to abort an unborn child in a gestational sac “the size of a matchstick head.” Burnhill added, “It’s nobody’s picture of a little baby sucking its thumb.”
Burnhill may have been referring to the famous photo, widely used by pro-life organizations, which shows an unborn child in the womb sucking its thumb. Ironically, the technological improvements that have made it easier to demonstrate the humanity of the unborn child in the womb have also made it easier for abortionists to hunt it down and kill it.
Pro-life activists say that any abortion – even very early in a pregnancy – is murder. “As soon as an egg is fertilized, it starts growing into a human being with its own individual DNA, different from its parents,” said Laura Echevarria, director of media relations for the National Right to Life Committee. “Scientifically speaking, there’s no difference between a fertilized egg and what you have three weeks later. Saying it’s OK to kill it in the early stages because you’re more comfortable with that is completely arbitrary.”
– E.P. News
