Word: ultrasounds
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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...
...when the abortion instruments are introduced, the film is speeded up, creating the illusion that the fetus is thrashing about in alarm. Actually, says Hobbins, "the fetus appears to be acting in a perfectly normal fashion. It's just technical flimflam." Also misleading is the size of the ultrasound image and the doll- like model used in some scenes to represent the fetus. It gives the impression that the twelve-week-old fetus is as big as a full-term baby, when in fact it is less than 2 in. long...
...centerpiece of "The Silent Scream" is an ultrasound film of an abortion, which is purported to depict the fetus opening its mouth "in a silent scream" of pain and fear, proving that the fetus is "just another person, like you and me." In a panel discussion at the University of Washington School of Medicine, obstetricians with extensive experience in ultrasound reported that they could not make out the fetal features and gestures--including the "silent scream" which the narrator described. The type of camera, doctors and technicians agreed, is switched during the procedure to one that provides less resolution...
While the fuzzy ultrasound is being shown, the narrator holds up a plastic doll which is many times larger and more developed than the fetus in the film, deceptively implying that the fetus looks just like the doll. He also says that the fetus is 12 weeks old, while in conventionally used terms (measured by last menstrual period rather than gestation) it is actually 14 weeks old. In the U.S. about 93 percent of all abortions are performed by the 12th week, when the fetus is extremely small and undeveloped. To further confuse the viewer, the film occasionally shows dramatic...
...fetal movements shown on the 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...