Word: screamings
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...begins the film Silent Scream, a 28-minute, shock-the-viewer indictment of abortion. The movie, distributed by American Portrait Films of Anaheim, Calif., depicts through ultrasound imaging what happens in the womb during the abortion of a twelve-week-old fetus. The images are grainy and vague, but Narrator Nathanson provides explanation. "The child," he says, "senses aggression in its sanctuary" and moves in an "agitated" manner away from the surgical instruments in a "pathetic attempt to escape." Its heart rate $ increases as it "senses mortal danger," and, he notes, pointing to a fuzzy image, it opens its mouth...
Finally, experts in fetal development argue that at twelve weeks a fetus cannot move "purposefully," as Nathanson asserts, nor can it perceive danger; the cerebral cortex, which coordinates perception and thought, is not yet developed. As for the silent scream, says Johns Hopkins Neurobiologist David Bodian, doctors have no evidence that a twelve-week-old fetus can feel pain, though "there is a possibility of a reflex movement" in response to stimuli like surgical instruments. Hobbins suggests that the dramatic scream may have been a fetal yawn, because "the fetus spends lots of time with its mouth open." Indeed...
...crux of "The Silent Scream" (is its implied contention that the fetus can sense pain. The Crimson reporter seems to buy this line when she writes that "presumably, the fetus reacts to perceived or potential pain." The film very carefully builds up this impression through visual tricks and manipulative narration. What it lacks, however, is a basis in fact...
...ultrasound are thus not reactions to perceptions of pain, aggression, or "imminent destruction," as the film's-narrator asserts. They are simple avoidance reactions, like the reflex of a knee when the doctor taps it. Contrary to the intentionally misleading implications of the film, there is no "silent scream...
...Silent Scream," far from contributing to the abortion debate, relies on medical non-facts and deliberate manipulation to obscure the real issues. How we decide the abortion issue ultimately comes down to how much we respect women as independent and free human beings. The film shows astonishingly litle respect for the lives of grown women. A uterus is not a "sanctuary" for a fetus, just a bunch of muscles surrounding a fetus, as the narrator suggests; it is part of a woman's body and of her person. To subordinate her to the interests of a fetus is to turn...