Throughout the AMA's Today's Health Guide are photos and drawings of the unborn child, something noticeably absent from recent texts, to disguise the obvious: It looks like a baby, it moves like a baby, it grows like a baby, it has a separate bloodstream, brainwaves, fingerprints....
Medical Texts Prove Life before Birth
DIANE DEW
© 1992 in The
Standard
Can legislation
alter science?
Medical books prior to the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade consistently referred to the unborn as a baby. "The life of ever person begins with the union of two special sex cells -- the sperm cell... of the father, and the egg cell... of the mother," said the American Medical Association in Today's Health Guide, published by the AMA in 1965 (pp. 47, 48).
In fact, when one examines closely the above text, it becomes obvious that, even before the child's birth, the terms "father" and "mother" are used. The title of one section is "Health and the Expectant mother."
Mother? Is she already a mother, because she is pregnant? God thinks so.
"The baby begins to move within the uterus ..." we read on page 18 (cp .page 1, "the baby's movements ..."). The baby? moves? (He/she made movements, independent of the mother? So it's not part of her body? Sounds like a parallel of Luke 1:41, "the babe leaped in her womb ...")
On page 18, the AMA tells us that "the baby grows at a regular rate..." (p. 18; cp. p. 51) Baby? grows? (If it grows, it must be alive! Rocks don't grow. Living things grow.
Personal pronouns were used throughout the text: the baby was a "him" or "her," never "it."
The same text clearly defines the fact that the baby's body is separate from that of the mother: "...the mother and of the baby ... his body... his bloodstream.. the baby's bloodstream... the mother's blood and her body... for the unborn baby... the baby..." (p. 52)
In a photo caption on page 19, we read that a fetus in the picture is "holding" something "in his hand." In "his" hand!
Throughout Today's Health Guide are photos and drawings of the unborn child, something noticeably absent from recent texts, to disguise the obvious: It looks like a baby, it moves like a baby, it grows like a baby, it has a separate bloodstream, brainwaves, fingerprints ... fingers, toes, and a cute little nose -- it must be a baby!
"Provid[ing] for the welfare of the baby during prenatal development" is not something the AMA would address in current medical books, because the mother's interests are of paramount interest. But on page 48 of Today's Health Guide, it does just that.
"The developing baby lives in the uterus during the nine months of its life before birth," we read. (p. 48) Throughout the text, the fetus is referred to as "the unborn child," "the developing baby," "the child." And the woman is always "the mother." (p. 50)
These are only some of the many examples one could cite from this single medical text. Such phraseology will not be found in today's books, because our laws have changed -- and with our laws, apparently, we are expected to believe science has changed, as well.
But changing the terms doesn't alter the facts. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," Shakespeare wrote. In other words, calling sin a "mistake"; telling a "little white lie" rather than an untruth -- affects neither the outcome nor the motive: sin. Murder is still murder, in God's eyes.
Dictionaries prior to 1973 define abortion as a crime. Medical books prior to 1973 teach the unborn child is a distinct person, apart from the mother's body. Scripture, thousands of years old, says that life begins at conception.
But one dark day, some judges decided it would no longer be a crime to kill your own kid. That the unborn have no right to life. That a woman's desire for independence and convenience surpasses the right to life of another human being.
But no judge, and no opinion poll, can alter the eternal Word of God.
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© Copyright 1998 Diane S. Dew All Rights Reserved Diane Dew o PO Box 340945 o Milw WI 53234