Animal Cruelty and Abortion

@ MTGandP

While I respect your opinions, I do have to disagree with you. To the majority of Americans it actually is very obvious that killing a toddler is absolutely wrong. Killing a newborn infant is wrong as well.

Also I suggest you do some more research as to the child’s experience in the womb as you seem to be a little misinformed about that sector.

1. Just before 8 weeks gestational age (g.a.), the first sensitivity to touch manifests in a set of protective movements
skin sensitivity quickly extends to the genital area (10 weeks), palms (11 weeks), and soles (12 weeks)
2. Between week six and ten, fetal bodies burst into motion, achieving graceful, stretching, and rotational movements of the head, arms and legs. Hand to head, hand to face, hand to mouth movements, mouth opening, closing, and swallowing are all present at 10 weeks (Tajani and Ianniruberto, 1990). By 14 weeks, the complete repertoire of fetal movements seen throughout gestation are already in evidence (deVries, Visser, and Prechtl, 1985). Movement is spontaneous, endogenous, and typically cycles between activity and rest. Breathing movements and jaw movements have begun. Hands are busy interacting with other parts of the body and with the umbilical cord.

From this early stage onward, movement is a primary activity, sometimes begun spontaneously, sometimes provoked by events. Spontaneous movement occurs earliest, probably expressing purely individual interests and needs. Evoked movement reflects sensitivity to the environment. For example, between 10 and 15 weeks g.a., when a mother laughs or coughs, her fetus moves within seconds.

3.The structures for tasting are available at about 14 weeks g.a. and experts believe that tasting begins at that time. Tests show that swallowing increases with sweet tastes and decreases with bitter and sour tastes. In the liquid womb space, a range of tastes are presented including lactic, pyruvic, and citric acids, creatinine, urea, amino acids, proteins and salts. Tests made at birth reveal exquisite taste discrimination and definite preferences.

Until recently, no serious consideration was given to the possibilities for olfaction in utero, since researchers assumed smelling depended on air and breathing. However, the latest research has opened up a new world of possibilities. The nasal chemoreceptive system is more complex than previously understood, and is made up of no less than four subsystems: the main olfactory, the trigeminal, the vomeronasal, and the terminal system, which provide complex olfactory input to the fetus.

The nose develops between 11 and 15 weeks. Many chemical compounds can cross the placenta to join the amniotic fluid, providing the fetus with tastes and odors. The amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus bathes the oral, nasal, and pharyngeal cavities, and babies breathe it and swallow it, permitting direct access to receptors of several chemosensory systems: taste buds in three locations, olfactory epithelia, vomeronasal system, and trigeminal system (Smotherman and Robinson, 1995).

4. Many studies now confirm that voices reach the womb, rather than being overwhelmed by the background noise created by the mother and placenta. Intonation patterns of pitch, stress, and rhythm, as well as music, reach the fetus without significant distortion. A mother’s voice is particularly powerful because it is transmitted to the womb through her own body reaching the fetus in a stronger form than outside sounds. For a comprehensive review of fetal audition, see Busnel, Granier-Deferre, and Lecanuet 1992.

Sounds have a surprising impact upon the fetal heart rate: a five second stimulus can cause changes in heart rate and movement which last up to an hour. Some musical sounds can cause changes in metabolism. “Brahm’s Lullabye,” for example, played six times a day for five minutes in a premature baby nursery produced faster weight gain than voice sounds played on the same schedule (Chapman, 1975).

Researchers in Belfast have demonstrated that reactive listening begins at 16 weeks g.a., two months sooner than other types of measurements indicated. Working with 400 fetuses, researchers in Belfast beamed a pure pulse sound at 250-500 Hz and found behavioral responses at 16 weeks g.a.–clearly seen via ultrasound (Shahidullah and Hepper, 1992). This is especially significant because reactive listening begins eight weeks before the ear is structurally complete at about 24 weeks.

These findings indicate the complexity of hearing, lending support to the idea that receptive hearing begins with the skin and skeletal framework, skin being a multireceptor organ integrating input from vibrations, thermo receptors, and pain receptors. This primal listening system is then amplified with vestibular and cochlear information as it becomes available. With responsive listening proven at 16 weeks, hearing is clearly a major information channel operating for about 24 weeks before birth.

5. In utero, eyelids remain closed until about the 26th week. However, the fetus is sensitive to light, responding to light with heart rate accelerations to projections of light on the abdomen. This can even serve as a test of well-being before birth. Although it cannot be explained easily, prenates with their eyelids still fused seem to be using some aspect of “vision” to detect the location of needles entering the womb, either shrinking away from them or turning to attack the needle barrel with a fist (Birnholz, Stephens, and Faria, 1978). Similarly, at 20 weeks g.a., twins in utero have no trouble locating each other and touching faces or holding hands

SOURCE: http://www.birthpsychology.com.....sense.html

Applicable references internally cited and listed at the bottom of the web page.

Zenit: Does the fetus have memory?

Bellieni: Research was published in Pediatrics in 2001 which showed that at the moment of weaning the child prefers tastes that it perceived in the uterus in a certain period, although these tastes were not given to it during lactation. Therefore the fetus has memory.

This, which seemed to be only the prerogative of psychiatrists, today is the patrimony of the pediatrician to explain several phenomena.

We recently carried out a study on what happened to the children of ballerinas who during pregnancy did not stop dancing: They needed to be rocked to sleep more energetically than the others!

Moreover, what is it to rock the newborn to sleep if not to reconstruct that serene environment he had in the uterus: rhythmic movements, the mother’s perfume, an indistinct voice but present and humming, darkness — but the presence of walls and limits that he would not find if left abruptly in a bed?

Zenit: Have you carried out other studies on the fetus’ memory?

Bellieni: Yes, for example on short-term memory, demonstrating that the fetus gets used to external stimuli as a child that is already born.

We have used sonorous stimuli sent through the wall of the uterus and have measured echo-graphically how the fetus reacts, ill-at-ease, blinking his eyes and then how it gets used to the noise.

Zenit: Is it true that the fetus dreams?

Bellieni: Studies on the premature newborn give increasing data on the characteristics of sleep in the uterus.

In 2000, professor Rivkees of Yale University showed the presence of a day-night rhythm from the midpoint of gestation. Today we know that from the 28th week of gestation the phases of sleep can be differentiated. From the 30th week, active sleep is present, which is equivalent to an adult’s REM sleep, when most dreams take place.

Therefore nothing prevents us from saying that in the uterus the fetus has all the “instruments” to dream: an appropriate cerebral electrical activity and the presence of stimuli that will make their contents.

Sleep is also most important in the uterus because the greatest proliferation of nervous cells occurs there, and the preferential production of certain hormones.

SOURCE: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/.....llieni.php

I really don’t think I did misunderstood your point at all (Also, the information is extremely relevant to your conjecture that a baby has absolutely no experience inside the womb as opposed to outside.) Perhaps you should read the information I posted as it shows that an infants experience inside of the womb is as valid as its experience outside the womb.

What I posted clearly shows how infants inside the womb have long term memory, recognize the mother’s voice and scents, touch, feel, move, dream, taste, smell, see light. If those are not “real thoughts and life experiences” then I would love an explanation of what “real thoughts and life experiences” actually are.

The experiences inside the womb have little to no difference than the experiences outside of the womb, rendering birth as a merely symbolic meaning and no basis for judging humanity.

“Ad populum”
Absolutely, thats generally what the word “obvious” means it is indicative of the phrase “It is obvious that the population believes ______” In this case “It is obvious that the population believes that killing a newborn infant or toddler is morally wrong”

If you believe that the majority of the public believe otherwise, than give me a valid statistic showing so. Don’t cite logical fallacies in order to support your position. Morals can not be explained or supported by logic. To the murderer, the murder of his victim can be morally justified. However to the population at large, murder is never morally correct nor is allowed.