Contrary to the image the Left portrays, it’s conservatives embracing science that will save millions of lives in the future, writes Katie Pavlich for Townhall Magazine.
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We’ve all heard the argument from the Left: conservatives are anti-science. But when it comes to the abortion debate, liberals are the ones who are the real science deniers.
Science tells us that life begins at conception and shows that the union of a male sperm and female egg results in a living zygote. This pairing includes DNA and everything necessary to produce a viable human being. With this fact, some liberals are willing to admit that a zygote is at least a “bundle living of cells” but don’t equate a zygote to a human life. The majority try to argue conception does not define life.
Parents are extremely invested in their children’s education, often emotionally and financially. Yet conservative parents can likely expect three things for their child in those four years: one, people that don’t share their beliefs, whether peers or professors; two, a school administration not terribly concerned with fostering debate; and three, classes that waste their kids’ time and their parents’ money on topics that range from the harebrained to the openly hostile.
When Roe v. Wade was upheld in 1973, abortion and prenatal science were far from what they are today. The first ultrasound was invented in 1957 and used on a pregnant woman for the first time in 1958 at a British hospital. Ultrasounds weren’t widely used in the United States until the late 1970s, years after the Roe v. Wade decision. Like most things, ultrasound technology has improved greatly since it was first introduced. At that time, ultrasounds could simply detect movement and shape. Fastforward to 2013, and ultrasounds can show a baby’s sex, hair, facial features, hands, toes and give us the ability to hear a baby’s heartbeat just 18 days after conception. At the same 18-day mark, a baby can hear sounds, including his or her mother’s voice. Ultrasounds also ensure a safe pregnancy by determining how far along a woman is and whether a woman is experiencing a tubal or ectopic pregnancy.
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In 2012, the Virginia Senate passed a law that would require women seeking abortions to receive an ultrasound before the procedure. Pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL strongly objected.
Why would they object? Ultrasounds are an amazing achievement in medical science. They allow a mother to see what’s going on inside of her and give her a regular look at the life she is providing to a new human being.
“They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn’t want to have an abortion,” former abortion provider Dr. Joseph Randall told the magazine New Dimensions.
Seventy-eight percent of women who receive an ultrasound before an abortion decide to forego the procedure. Proabortion groups like Planned Parenthood reject ultrasound science because it negatively affects their bottom line.
Conversely, Stanford University took a bold step forward with their “Moral Foundations of Capitalism” course, but it didn’t last long. In that case, the popular class was discontinued because, as the school claimed, they wanted to refocus resources elsewhere. However, the Stanford Review reported Brown University invited the course’s professor to give the same class at their school.
But rejecting the science has also cost women their lives.
“There have been a number of instances over the past several decades of women who have gone to abortion clinics, left thinking they were no longer pregnant, and then later died from a burst ectopic pregnancy,” LifeNews reports, adding that abortion clinics often avoid using ultrasounds. “Some victims of this type of tragedy include Gladyss Delanoche Estanislao, 28; Sherry Emry and Yvette Poteat, both 26, and Angela Satterfield, 23. These women all died when abortion providers failed to diagnose their ectopic pregnancies.”
In Texas, we recently saw massive protests of legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks, or, in other words, five months. Why five months? Science shows us that at 20 weeks, babies inside the womb can feel pain. In addition, science shows us babies at five months actually feel more pain than fullgrown adults do, so much so that babies in the womb are given anesthesia should they need surgery before birth.
...continue reading Pavlich's monthly column in Townhall's August issue.
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