Seventh-grade winner, archdiocese’s annual pro-life student essay contest

Pro-Life, the Scientific Argument

Roe of the infamous case, Roe V. Wade died this year.  What people may not know is that Norma McCorvey realized the error of her ways and fought for the rest of her life to overturn this detrimental decision of abortion.  She became Christian and later was baptized a Catholic.  Norma never did have an abortion and one could argue that her faith influenced her decision.  Perhaps it did, but she states it was a fetal development chart that made her aware.  “I looked at a chart at the Operation Rescue Office in Dallas.  That’s when I decided that it was wrong in any stage of pregnancy,” Norma McCorvey.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary even defines abortion as termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.

Unborn babies can feel pain; several researchers have documented this fact.  Through ultrasound, babies at 20 weeks react to outside stimuli such as light, sound, and touch.

“At 20 weeks, the fetal brain has the full complement of brain cells,” Dr. Paul Ranalli neurologist.

The heartbeat is detected at 18 days.  All abortions occur after a woman discovers she is pregnant, yet pregnancy is detected after a woman’s menstrual cycle does not begin.  A heartbeat and brain waves are detected by six weeks; therefore all abortions stop a beating heart and a functioning brain.

Not realizing that life begins at conception is like saying you didn’t know the sky was blue.  All of the baby’s major organs start forming at 3 weeks after conception and are formed by 10 weeks, such as the heart, lungs, intestines, and brain.  Babies respond to touch at 10 weeks.  At 13 weeks, they have their own fingerprints.  At 27 weeks, a baby will start practicing breathing and at 28 weeks can smell what we smell.

With all of the science readily available at our fingertips, it is easy to find the vast scientific knowledge that surrounds fetal development.  The child in a mother’s womb is in fact a separate being and therefore abortion (death) is taking of a human life.  Religion aside, science has proven the unborn child is in fact a child.  We are all just grown up embryos and the “choice” is life or death.