EDITOR'S NOTE: For most of this author's life, I have heard that a "woman's right is to choose when it comes to having a baby." For nearly all my life I have wondered at the illogic in this belief. Oddly enough, the pro-choice movement bases its entire legal stance on the Constitution, which is what the Supreme Court used in 1973 when they made the fateful decision that a woman has the right to terminate her yet-to-be-born child within the first 6 months of pregnancy. And yet, the Consitution, if anything, protects that unborn baby by charging government with the job of protecting all citizens--but a yet-to-be-born baby holds no citizen rights at that point. Of course, how could our founding fathers have anticipated such a blood bath two hundred years ago when they penned these protective documents? The following are common, but rarely considered facts regarding abortion. --Al Colombo

During the first 8 weeks the yet-to-be-born is commonly referred to as an "embryo." After the first 8 weeks, it is called the "fetus."

Within the second month of development, the yet-to-be-born begins to develop in ways that we would commonly recognize as human. For example, the head becomes disproportionately large compared to the rest of the body, which indicates the development of the human brain. During the same period, the genitals appear and the limbs of the yet-to-be-born become more discernable as human.

During the third month, the yet-to-be-born's toes and fingers form and the genitals begin to favor either male or female, as up until then the fetus often displays both. By the end of the fourth month, the face of the yet-to-be-born is easily identifiable as that of human. At this time the baby begins to move about.

It is during the fifth and sixth months that the body begins to grow rapidly in proportion to the skull. By the seventh month the body has developed its organs, enough so that survival outside the mother's body is quite possible. The body develops further during the 8th month, taking on more fat. Full term is then realized in or about the 9th month of the mother's pregnancy.

Abortion

Spontaneous abortion is that which takes place unnaturally, usually by a doctor that removes the yet-to-be-born human infant. If before the 12th week, removal of the unborn infant is performed by suction. This procedure usually takes place within 5 to 10 minutes.

Another method used when ridding the mother of the yet-to-be-born infant involves the use of a pill, commonly called RU-486, which essentially blocks the hormone called progesterone, which would then prompt the uterus to receive the fetus, preparing the mother in a variety of ways for her on-coming pregnancy. Within 48 hours, contractions are then induced in the mother to be using prostaglandin. This causes the mother's body to expel the fetus, as if the yet-to-be-born baby has come to term.

"Pregnancies in the second trimester may be terminated by a special suction scraping, sometimes with use of forceps, in a procedure called dilation and evacuation (D&E). After the 15th week of gestation, a saline infusion may be injected to induce uterine contractions that expel the fetus. Late abortions are accomplished by hysterectomy, a major surgical procedure similar to a cesarean section but requiring a much smaller incision lower in the abdomen" (Source: Encarta® 98 Desk Encyclopedia © & 1996-97 Microsoft Corporation).

The "special suction scraping" spoken of above involve the ripping apart of the yet-to-be-born baby, limb by limb, suctioning the brain out of the skull, and slowly but surely suctioning the remainder of the body while scraping the wall of the uterus. The injection of a "saline" solution is another way that the baby's body is killed and prepared for expulsion outside the mother's body.

Legal

For much of the 20th century, abortion has been deemed illegal. It was in 1803 that Britain ruled abortion a statutory crime. In 1810, France passed a law that made the act of abortion a criminal offense. Four years later, 1814, a law was passed in France that prohibited abortion for more than 160 years. The only provision for an exception known at the time was to preserve the mother who's very life could be lost if she carried her infant, yet-to-be-born baby to term.

It was in 1830 that the U.S. Congress passed law that made abortion a statutory crime. In 1869, it was Pope Pius IX of the Roman Catholic Church that declared abortion a sin, subject to excommunication from the Catholic Church.

The first law to be passed by the U.S. Congress in 1872 that dealt with the importation, transportation, or mailing of any medication designed to interfere with conception as illegal. This law was commonly referred to as the Comstock Law, named after Anthony Comstock, age 28, who headed up the Society for the Suppression of Vice, at that time based in New York.

Not all of the laws passed during the late 1800s and early 1900s were created for religious morality sake. In 1920, France passed a law regarding abortion that made it illegal and the reason was to preserve the population of their country, since population had been dropping for some time.

Proponents of the 1920 law have stated on record that by 1970, there were 500,000 illegal abortions taking place each year with approximately 500 deaths per year attributed to back-door abortion procedures. [Editor's Note: One must question where they derived these figures. I have never heard of the specific methodology used.]

The Legalization of Abortion

It was in 1920 that the Soviet Union's Lenin government legalized abortion. Along with the law, however, Russian doctors were mandated to discourage women from doing so. The order also mandated that abortions were only to take place with women up to 2 1/2 months pregnant.

This law was revoked in 1936, restricting abortion to only those cases where carrying the new born to term would threaten the life of the new mother. Another exemption created at that time involved that when a yet-to-be-born infant is likely to have inherited a known disease. It wasn't until 1955 that legalized abortion on demand is legislated in Russia, although doctors were to discourage the use of abortion.

In 1948, the population of Japan had reached 80 million, an increase of more than 15 million within the span of 18 years. The "Eugenic Protection" law, as it was referred to, authorized abortion on demand in an effort to control the growth of population within the country.

In 1966, a bill was introduced in New York State that would act to reform the state's past anti-abortion stance. It wasn't until 1970 that what was to be the most liberal abortion law in the U.S. came into being. More than 1,200 new mothers petitioned for abortions that year in the state of New York.

A new law enacted in Great Britain derailed the anti-abortion stance that had been enacted by law in 1861. The original law made abortion of any kind, under any conditions, a punishable offense. The only provision in the new law was that abortion take place only after two physicians have stated that taking a yet-to-be-born infant to full term would be detrimental physically or mentally to the mother, the new yet-to-be-born infant, herself or her present children.

When this new British law was passed, it was predicted that it would result in more than 400,000 abortions each year. In actuality, within the first 10 months of the laws passage, there were 28,859 abortions. By mid 1969, that number had reached 1,000 a week. As statistics now show, within the United States alone, more than 1.5 Million yet-to-be-born infants are aborted (killed/murdered) each year, which is far in advance of the 1968 prediction.

The abortion effort received another push in 1969 when California's supreme court ruled that the prior anti-abortion law was unconstitutional. The underlying decision was made on the merit that it infringed on the would-be mother's right to decide whether she wanted to risk having a baby.

It was in 1974 that the infamous Roe vs. Wade decision took place by the United States Supreme Court. On a 7 to 2 vote, the justices upheld the right of a woman to decide on whether she wanted to have her baby or not, up to 6 months into the pregnancy. The decision was built on a woman's right to privacy in this regard.

Today, more than a million babies are aborted from the warmth and safety of their mother's womb. According to statistics, however, the number of abortions are on the decrease. For example, in 1996, there were 1,365,730 abortions performed, whereas in 1992, there were 1,528,930 abortions. In 1996, the top baby abortion state was that of California, of course, with a whopping 237,830! (Source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003).

Al Colombo, publisher
Giant Killers Organization

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