Having witnessed varying responses from Christians after the Dobbs Supreme Court decision that overruled Roe V. Wade, Dr. Kurt Jaros felt compelled to offer his own insight.
In order to show the fault and misrepresentations in many of the Pro-Choice positions, Dr. Jaros first walks us through the medical procedure known as abortion. Watch this video and the ones to follow before you take a stance on abortion rights.
0:00 Vulnerability-Virtuoso Spectrum
0:00 Reasons Christians Give for Being Pro-Choice
2:32 What is an Abortion?
3:57 How are Abortions Performed?
7:08 What is Happening to the Baby?
7:40 Abortion Stats and Late Term Procedures
9:23 What Abortion Isn’t
11:30 Summarizing the Basic Facts
Kurt: Recently a colleague was telling me about a social media discussion she was a part of after the reversal of Roe v. Wade. A 30 something mother of two posted that she was, “so terribly sad and worried” about the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs V. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. In the internet discussion that ensued, many of the common talking points of the pro choice position were raised, such as the right of women to determine what happens with their bodies has been taken away. Women have no choice anymore. What about the men they’re responsible for pregnancy to? What about cases of rape and incest or the newly widowed mom who just lost her husband only to find out she’s expecting and can’t feed the children she already has? What happens to all those unwanted babies, the foster system is a mess. And adoptions are so expensive that the children languish and suffer. If the pro life cause was really about babies, there would be free maternal care, daycare, preschool formula, etc. Pregnancy is so dangerous for women, that now many more lives are at risk. If you think having a baby is not a death sentence to many, then you are a very privileged person to believe that. Again, here I’ll quote if you think having a baby is not a death sentence to many than you are very privileged to believe that and quote, These comments were from a college educated woman who stated, I am a Christian woman and I don’t like abortions. Hearing the above from non believers is sad because they demonstrate values quite different from my own. And it also demonstrates poor logical thinking. But it is just heartbreaking to hear these remarks coming from those who follow Jesus. If educated church attending adults can be so misled. By these rhetorical statements. Can we be confident that the next generation is equipped to stand for life? Can young students evaluate these claims? The claim that abortion should be legal because legal or not, women are going to have abortions anyway, in the following series I hope to help disentangle complex theology about life in the womb. Abortion is a hot button issue, but I hope to address the issues in a factual, logical and biblical way. Whether you’re a parent, young adult or youth pastor, you’ll benefit from this series. Today we will begin by carefully defining what we are talking about what is an abortion. According to Harvard health publishing from the Harvard Medical School, abortion is the removal of pregnancy tissue, products of conception, or the fetus and placenta after birth from the uterus.
Kurt: In general, the terms fetus and placenta are used after eight weeks of pregnancy, pregnancy tissue and products of conception refer to tissue produced by the union of an egg and sperm before eight weeks. Other terms for an abortion include elective abortion, induced abortion, termination of pregnancy, and therapeutic abortion. Again, that’s all from Harvard. Legally, the definition according to us, legal.com is the termination of pregnancy by various methods, including medical surgery, before the fetus is able to sustain independent life. I’ve got more to say on that later, but right now we’re just defining our terms. Finally, the CDC is definition of a legally induced abortion is an intervention performed by a licensed clinician, ergo a physician, nurse, midwife, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, within the limits of state regulations that is intended to terminate a suspected or known ongoing intra uterine pregnancy and that does not result in a live birth. That term will be key a little later on intra uterine pregnancy. So how do termination and removal occur? There are a few different ways abortion abortions are performed based on how far along a pregnancy is, according to Planned Parenthood. In the first 11 weeks of pregnancy, medication can be given, which stops the embryo from growing and then later causes the body to expel it. This is called medical abortion, or the abortion pill as soon as fertilization takes place. The zygote as the baby is clinically termed at this point, possesses all the DNA a human will ever have and need within the cell structure needed for it to develop. By four weeks after conception labeled the sixth week of pregnancy, the embryo is starting to form its head, other organs and the buds that will be become its arms. In the next two weeks. The brain face nose, upper lip, retinas, leg buds and fingers have begun to or finished forming nine weeks after conception, the 11th week of pregnancy and Planned Parenthood’s stated endpoint For safely using this medical abortion, the fetus ad as it is now called has elbows can bend, fingers and toes and its external genitalia is beginning to develop.
Kurt: Another method of abortion used during this time and continuing up through 12 to 14 weeks after conception is a surgical abortion called vacuum aspiration, or suction DNC, much of the various terms used for a baby in utero minimize its humanity. The clinical names for abortion procedures can sanitize this concept for people often lacking knowledge in this area about how these things happen. How does an abortion actually happen? In Section DNC, a suctioning instrument vacuums the fetus out of the uterus, the baby depending on its size is often torn apart in the process into pieces that fit through the to the uterus may also be scraped afterward to make sure all of the fetus and products of the pregnancy are removed. Finally, the removed materials must be examined to make sure all parts are accounted for as any left within the woman may lead to health complications.
Kurt: In addition to all the characteristics of the baby listed above, this procedure may be performed on babies who have developed intestines and begun to swallow. That’s 10 weeks after conception can be recognized as boys or girls 12 weeks after conception, move their eyes and have coordinated limb movements. 14 weeks after conception 14 to 22 weeks after conception that is roughly 16 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. A different type of surgical abortion called dilation and evacuation is the procedure used in this method. A suction device removes the amniotic fluid from around the baby. And then the abortion provider grasps the fetus with a clamp and pulls it out. Usually piece by piece by piece as in the previous procedure, the uterus is scraped to remove any remaining material and the parts of the fetus are reassembled to make sure all parts are accounted for. So what is happening to a baby at this stage of development by 15 weeks after conception. He or she has toenails and can roll and flip hearing begins around 16 weeks after conception and the digestive system begins to work. 18 weeks post conception the fetus is sleeping and waking and may be awakened by noise or movement. thumb sucking starts in the 19th week in the 21st week, foot and fingerprints are visible and the baby may hiccup CDC data indicates that 629,898 abortions were voluntarily reported by abortion providers in 2019 voluntarily reported of these 92.7% or 583,915 occurred between conception and 13 weeks 6.2% occurred 14 to 20 weeks after conception 6.2% here means that the lives of 39,053 identifiable boys and girls who couldn’t swallow move their limbs roll flip suck their thumbs and hiccup were ending 39,053 less than 1% 6298 abortions took place 21 weeks after conception or later. The type of procedure used at this time called an induced abortion involves giving the pregnant woman medication to stop the growth of the fetus by blocking it from receiving oxygen and nutrients as this doesn’t always lead to fetal demise. A technical term, often an injection into the amniotic fluid umbilical cord or fetus itself is given that will lead to fetal cardiac arrest the human is given a heart attack in order to die in the womb. A day or two later, when fetal death is confirmed via ultrasound. The woman is given medication to induce labor and expel the fetus. This procedure can be performed up to 39 weeks of pregnancy. In other words, full term this procedure some people think should be allowed in our nation today. So if that is what abortion is, what is abortion not. Abortion is not a treatment for miscarriage, sometimes called spontaneous abortion. According to Medline Plus medical encyclopedia, a miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy. Pregnancy losses after the 20th week are called stillbirths. Miscarriage is a naturally occurring event, unlike medical or surgical abortions. A miscarriage may also be called a spontaneous abortion. Now, given our Three types of definitions stated earlier, abortion is a choice a medical decision. miscarriage, on the other hand is a naturally occurring phenomenon, thus calling it a spontaneous abortion is an oxymoron. There is nothing spontaneous about a medical choice. While treatment for a miscarriage may involve a procedure that is also used for an abortion, like a DNC, the death of the baby has already occurred on its own, it is not caused by the procedure.
Kurt: Abortion is also not a treatment of an ectopic pregnancy for two reasons. First, an ectopic pregnancy would result in the inevitable natural loss of the embryo, as stated by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. an ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg grows outside of the uterine cavity in ectopic pregnancy will never be viable, it cannot move or be moved to a place in the uterus, where it can safely grow to delivery. Second, given the definitions of abortion I previously observed in abortion occurs from within the uterus. And since an ectopic pregnancy occurs outside of the uterus, it falls outside of the scope of how abortion is defined by the medical and legal communities. So those are the basic medical facts and definitions needed to evaluate abortion. A straightforward consideration of the information just presented leads to the conclusion that a living being something growing, maturing moving responding to outside stimuli, a human being having the required DNA and same developing body parts as fully developed humans is killed, terminated blocked from receiving oxygen and nutrition. given medication to cause fetal demise. Check out abortionprocedures.com For more information on today’s topic from former abortion providers themselves, it’s where I received a lot of this information and I want to encourage you to check out their website abortionprocedures.com
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