Search

The Merchants of Calumny

In all of English literature, perhaps the most dramatic and devastating argument against prejudice is that given by Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Substituting 'human foetus' for 'Jew' and 'adult' for 'Christian', we can use Shylock's argument to defend the human unborn against his detractors — the merchants of calumny.

1. "I am a human foetus:
   
   In his article "The Humanity of the Unborn Child," pediatrician Eugene Diamond writes:
   
   
   To consider the fetus not to be a separate person but merely a part of the mother has not been tenable since the sixteenth century when Arantius showed that the maternal and fetal circulations were separate — neither continuous nor contiguous.²
   
   
   Medical evidence³ is contrary to the unscientific views of Justice Holmes, who once declared that the unborn child is "a part of its mother."⁴ It shows conclusively that the foetus is a human being in its own right "with its separate principle of growth and development, with its separate nervous system and blood circulation, with its own skeleton and musculature, its brain and heart and vital organs."⁵
   
   Genetics clearly establishes the human foetus as a member of the human race by recognizing that his 23 pairs of chromosomes per somatic cell are derived equally from a human mother and a human father. Fetology establishes the selfhood of the human foetus by tracing his growth and development from a single cell which belongs neither to mother nor father. Dr. H. M. I. Liley writes:
   
   
   He (the unborn baby) has his own space capsule, the amniotic sac. He has his own lifeline, the umbilical cord, and he has his own root system, the placenta. These all belong to the baby himself, not to his mother. They are all developed from his original cell.⁶
   
   
   The selfhood of the human foetus is further corroborated by electrocardiographic (ECG) readings of his heart beat at 7 1/2 weeks⁷ and electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of his brain waves at 6 weeks.⁸
   
   
2.  ... Hath not a human foetus eyes?
   
   His eyes begin to form at 19 days. By 8 ½ weeks the eyelids become sensitive to touch. If the eyelid is stroked, the child will squint.⁹ Rugh and Shettles describe the foetus after 8 weeks as having "a human face with eyelids half closed as they are in someone who is about to fall asleep."¹⁰ During the fifth month the hair of his eyebrows begins to grow and a fringe of eyelashes appears.
   
   In the sixth month his eyelids will open and close. His eyes will look up, down, and sideways. The iris diaphragm will contract or dilate to admit the proper light intensity. Dr. Albert Liley contends that the child may perceive light through the abdominal wall of his mother.¹¹
   
   
3. ... hath not a human foetus hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
   
   The hands, with fingers and thumbs, are recognizable by the seventh week of fetal life.¹² The lines in the hands (and feet), which will remain a distinctive feature throughout the life of the individual, are engraved at 8 weeks.¹³ At 81/2 weeks the palms of  the hands become sensitive to touch. If the palm of the foetus is touched, his fingers will close to a small fist.¹⁴  The child's grip at 16 weeks is quite strong. At this time he is able to maintain his grasp on an object, such as a slender rod, while that object is being moved up and down or slightly away from him.¹⁵
   
   All the organ systems are present in the human foetus by 8 weeks.¹⁶ In the ninth and tenth weeks, if the child's forehead is touched, he may turn his head away from the stimulus and pucker up his brow and frown. By the twelfth week, his organs, dimensions, senses, affections, and passions are present and operative.
   
   By the end of the first trimester (twelfth week), the fetus is a sentient moving being. We need not pause to speculate as to the nature of his psychic attributes but we may assume that the organization of psycho-somatic self is now well underway.¹⁷
   
   
4. ... fed with the same food,
   
   In Shakespearian England, as scholars have pointed out, the segregated Jew did not dine in the company of the Christian. Moreover, in accordance with his Jewish tradition, his diet was markedly different from that of the Christian. The human foetus and his mother, on the other hand, are quite literally fed with the same food.
   
   The taste buds and the salivary and digestive glands develop in the foetus during the third month. At this time the baby is able to swallow and utilize amniotic fluid.¹⁸ Although the blood of the mother and her child do not mix during foetal development, the child receives oxygen and food from his mother through placental attachment, "much as he receives food from her after he is born."¹⁹
   
   When a child in utero fails to receive adequate nourishment, it is possible to correct this problem by injecting supplementary nutrients directly into the amniotic fluid which he normally swallows in the amount of 250-700 cc a day. One doctor states, "We well may be able to offer the child that is starving because of a placental defect a nipple to use before birth."²⁰
   
   
5. ... hurt with the same weapons,
   
   In an early 1972 interview, a California doctor who performed abortions was asked: "Doctor, what does the aborted baby feel while it's dying?" The doctor answered, "Oh, I think that depends on your philosophy." Furthermore, he stated that the question was not an important one.²¹
   
   To Dr. Albert W. Liley, pre-eminent fetologist of New Zealand, the crucially important question of foetal pain can be answered on the basis of objective evidence. In 1963 Dr. Liley developed the first surgical technique for administering intrauterine blood transfusions to the foetus.²² According to Dr. Liley, the foetus feels pain as early as three months. In offering instructions for carrying out the surgical technique of foetal blood transfusions, he advises his colleagues to take into serious consideration this fact of foetal pain. During the actual surgical procedure the child must be sedated and given pain-relieving medication. Dr. H.M.I. Liley, wife and research assistant to Dr. Albert Liley and a distinguished fetologist and pediatrician in her own right, remarks in her well-known book Modern Motherhood:
   
   
   When doctors first began invading the sanctuary of the womb, they did not know that the unborn baby would react to pain in the same fashion as a child would. But they soon learned that he would. By no means a 'vegetable' as he has so often been pictured, the unborn knows perfectly well when he has been hurt, and he will protest it just as violently as would a baby lying in a crib.²³
   
   
   In reference to aborting a 12-week-old foetus by the method of dilatation and curettage (D & C, in which the neck of the womb is dilated and the foetus removed in pieces after the womb has been scraped by a sharp instrument called a curette), Dr. Eugene Diamond states:
   
   
   When this procedure is done, there is little doubt that the foetus, in fact, feels what is done to it.²⁴
   
   
   In the words of physician Gino Papola, "The curette will become mightier than the sword."²⁵
   
   The weaponry used against the unborn — curette, suction, and salt, together with the starvation and suffocation which follow a hysterotomy — is fatal for physiological reasons alone. If an adult were similarly assaulted, he would succumb for the same medical reasons as does the aborted foetus.
   
   
6. ... subject to the same diseases,
   
   Dr. H.M.I. Liley writes:
   
   
   No problem in fetal health or disease can any longer be considered in isolation. At the very least two people are involved, the mother and her child.²⁶
   
   
   The most convenient way in which the physician may diagnose the condition of the foetus is from an analysis of the amniotic fluid which surrounds the unborn child. In observing the color, turbidity and volume of the amniotic fluid, or the enzymes and other chemicals contained therein, he is able to diagnose a long list of foetal diseases.²⁷ In addition, the electrocardiogram of the unborn and the analysis of his heart sounds through phonocardiography is helpful to the diagnostician.
   
   In Ashley Montagu's book, Life before Birth, the author lists some of the diseases which may afflict the unborn child. The list includes pneumonia, scarlet fever, typhoid, streptococcal infections, rheumatic fever, listeriosis, syphilis, malaria, virus diseases, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, and others. All these diseases can be transmitted from the pregnant mother to her unborn child.²⁸
   
   
7. ... healed by the same means,
   
   Dr. Liley's technique of intrauterine blood transfusion has been mentioned. Perhaps the most famous case involving a blood transfusion given to the unborn foetus occurred in 1964. Because of certain religious beliefs, a pregnant woman refused to allow her unborn to undergo a blood transfusion. The child, because of an Rh problem in his blood, vitally needed this particular operation. The case went to court. The judge ruled that the unborn's right to survival was a value which out-weighed the mother's right to practice her religious beliefs in this manner.²⁹
   
   Analysis of the amniotic fluid surrounding the unborn has led to diagnoses of the adrenogenital syndrome, hemolytic anemia, adrenal insufficiency, congenital hyperuricemia, and glycogen storage disease. Some of these maladies can now be treated before birth;³⁰ it is expected that someday all of them can be.
   
   There are ways in which nature heals an injured foetus without medical assistance. If the child sustains a fractured limb when his mother falls, the limb will heal naturally. Even a gunshot wound (incurred at three months) will heal naturally, and only a scar will remain at the time of birth.³¹
   
   
8. ... warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as an adult is?
   
   The unborn is directly affected by temperature extremes, or changes.³²
   
   When the body is colder than normal, the brain needs less oxygen than normal, because metabolism is retarded and oxygen is circulated in the blood stream at a slower rate. When a patient faces a lengthy operation, it is sometimes medically expedient to cool his body so as to prevent possibly harmful effects to the brain from large doses of anaesthesia.
   
   Drs. F. Wilson and C.B. Sedzmir have reported the case of a woman, 32 weeks pregnant, who had been cooled in preparation for surgery, As her body temperature was being reduced, the heartbeat of her unborn child dropped from 160 to 85 beats per minute. Furthermore, when trimethaphan was injected into the woman to provide a relatively bloodless field for surgery, the foetus protested by kicking rather furiously. The doctors conjectured that the kicking was brought on by anoxia (lack of oxygen) induced in the child by the drug injection. In another case, a patient's temperature was cooled to 86 degrees F. prior to her operation. At the same time her 24-week unborn child's hearbeat fell from 180 beats per minute to 120.³³ In both cases, after the mother's temperature had returned to normal, the child's metabolic and circulatory rates likewise returned to normal.
   
   
9. ... If you prick us do we not bleed?
   
   Blood cells begin to appear at about 17 days. The heart commences development at 18 days, and although this figure is given as the normal time for such development, Marcel and Exchaquet attest to observing contractions of the heart as early as two weeks.³⁴
   
   At 30 days the heart is beating regularly 65 times a minute³⁵ and pumping blood cells through a closed circulatory system.³⁶ At 51/2 weeks it is functionally complete and, in general configuration, is essentially similar to that of an adult heart.³⁷
   
   By the seventh week of life, the liver is manufacturing red blood cells and the kidney is eliminating uric acid from the blood.³⁸ Straus et al. have shown that the electrocardiogram of a 71/2 week foetus demonstrates the existence of a functionally complete cardiac system.³⁹
   
   The blood which the unborn sheds in abortion is his own, its type (antigens and antibodies) having been determined genetically at conception.
   
   
10. ... If you tickle us do we not laugh?
    
    Doctor Andre Hellegers writes:
    
    
    If we tickle the baby's nose, he will flex his head backwards away from the stimulus.⁴⁰
    
    
    About the end of the twelfth week the vocal cords of the unborn are completed. The child, however, is unable to cry (or laugh), primarily because his voice cannot be activated in the absence of air.⁴¹
    
    Dr. H.M.I. Liley relates an incident which occurred after an air bubble had been injected into an 8-month unborn baby's amniotic sac for the purpose of locating the placenta on x-ray. When the air bubble happened to cover the child's face, the child inhaled, allowing his vocal cords to become operative, and produced a cry which was clearly audible to all those present, including the physician and the technical assistants. The mother later reported to the doctor that the air bubble kept moving over the baby's face whenever she lay down to sleep, allowing the child to cry so loudly that both she and her husband were kept awake.⁴²
    
    
11. ... if you poison us do we not die?
    
    Dr. Paul Marx describes abortion induced by saline poisoning:
    
    
    Then a long needle is skillfully used to puncture the abdomen and uterus — skillfully, because the doctor may hit the brain or body of the baby and draw blood whereas he wishes to withdraw a considerable amount of amniotic fluid. When the fluid has been withdrawn, the abortionist next infuses in its place an equal volume of hypertonic saline, a strong, sterile, salt-water solution which, in effect, pickles the baby alive. He may thrash about for some time but soon becomes still in death. The mother will to into labor and deliver her dead child, on the average, about twenty-four hours after amnio-infusion, though the period may range from three hours to three days — or even several weeks.⁴³
    
    
    There is scientific evidence that the unborn child is as suscentible to poisoning as the rest of the population is.⁴⁴ Lead, mercury, arsenic, copper, phosphorous, bromide, iodide, potassium chlorate, and strontium are just a few of the many inorganic poisons which can reach the child through his mother's body.⁴⁵
    
    Dr. P. Bernhard in 1949 and Dr. J.M. O'Lane and Dr. J.R. Zabriskie in 1963 found, as as result of their extensive studies, a strong index of correlation between smoking during pregnancy and spontaneous abortion and prematurity⁴⁶ (prematurity is the leading cause of death in early infancy).⁴⁷
    
    
12. ... and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? if we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that."
    
    It is written in the Talmud that, "Whosoever sheds the blood of man within man, his blood shall be shed.”⁴⁸
    
    Professor Ian Donald of Glasgow University, referring to the deaths of 15 mothers as a result of the 20,000 legal abortions in England in 1969, states:
    
    
    We can look forward to this (legal abortion) being the dominant cause of death to young women.⁴⁹
    
    
    The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in Abortion Act (1967), a inquiry into the effects of the first year of England's permissive law, states:
    
    
    Eight maternal deaths occurred in relation to 27,331 terminations of pregnancy during the year 1968-9. This gives a mortality rate of 0.3 per thousand, which is higher than the maternal mortality rate (including abortions, criminal or otherwise) for all pregnancies in England and Wales at the comparable time. A statement issued by the Secretary of State to Parliament on 4 February 1970 reveals a similar state of affairs in respect of about 54,000 induced abortions notified from all sources during 1969; among these there were 15 maternal deaths.⁵⁰
    
    
    In a documented report prepared in January 1971, for presentation before the Minnesota State Legislature, legal-abortion mortality rates were compared to the maternal mortality rates per births. The maternal mortality rate for the state of Minnesota was established by Rosenfield et al.⁵¹ at 14 per 100,000 live births. In countries having a history of legal abortions, the maternal mortality rate was 66 per 100,000 legal abortions in Finland, 41.4 in Denmark, 39.2 in Sweden, and 39.2 in Great Britain.⁵²
    
    On the basis of the mortality rates for mothers undergoing legal abortions in various countries, the following conclusion was reached by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology:
    
    
    The inherent risks of a therapeutic abortion are serious and may be life-threatening; this fact should be fully appreciated by both the medical profession and the public. In nations where abortion may be obtained on demand, a considerable morbidity and mortality have reported.⁵³
    
    
    Apart from mortality figures, non-fatal medical complications (morbidity) arising from induced abortions have been documented, indicating the grave risks to health and fertility a woman assumes in undergoing an abortion.
    
    Dr. Stallworthy et al. reported a survey of 1,182 legal abortions in one teaching hospital in England. The report showed that nearly 17% of the patients lost more than 500 ml. of blood and 9.5% required transfusion. In addition, cervical lacerations occurred in 4.2%, and the uterus was perforated in 1.2%. Emergency laparotomy was required 6 times and hysterectomy was twice necessary to save life. In 27% of the patients pyrexia (high fever) of 38'C or more persisted for longer than 24 hours. Fourteen patients suffered peritonitis.⁵⁴
    
    "It is disquieting," wrote the doctors, "that postabortal infection, which is one of the common causes of death after criminal abortion, should have occurred in 27% of this series."⁵⁵
    
    The Stallworthy report was especially disturbing since it showed almost identical results with those reported by Sood.⁵⁶
    
    Dr. Droegemuller, reporting on Colorado's first-year experience with legal abortion, reported that 8 out of every 100 women required blood transfusions after being aborted.⁵⁷
    
    The incidence of major hemorrhaging following legal abortion was reported in Russia as 14.2%⁵⁸ (D & Q, Great Britain 21%⁵⁹ (all methods of inducing abortion, and Sweden 3 to 7.8% (saline).
    
    In Japan, the 1969 survey of the office of the Prime Minister reported the following complications resulting from induced abortion: 9% sterility after three years, 14% habitual spontaneous abortion, 4% extra-uterine pregnancies, 17% menstrual irregularities, 20% abdominal pains, 19% dizziness, 27% headache, 3% frigidity, 13% exhaustion, and 3% neurosis.⁶¹
    
    The Nagoya survey by the Women's Associations reported 59% were severely troubled with adverse after-effects or were in poorer health following abortions. In the Mainichi survey in 1969, 18% complained of being physically unwell after one abortion; 27% after two, 40% after three, and 51% after four.⁶²
    
    The Swedish experience with legal abortion is well documented. Perhaps the most thorough follow-up study has been done by Dr. Martin Ekblad. Dr. Ekblad studied 479 women at the time of their abortion and again 2-31/2 years later. He found that 10% felt the operation unpleasant, 14% had mild self-reproach, 11% suffered serious self-reproach and self-regret, and 1% had gross psychiatric breakdowns.⁶³
    
    A study in Poland has shown a 14% decrease in sexual libido 4 to 5 years after abortion;⁶⁴ while the Czechs have reported decrease in libido in 33% of patients 9 months after the abortion.⁶⁵
    
    It has been said that, "You can drag a baby out of the uterus but you cannot wipe it out of the mind."⁶⁶ According to certain psychologists and psychiatrists, the feminine principle is one of receiving, keeping, and nourishing.⁶⁷ Although the pregnant woman may initially deny her unborn child, once she admits she is pregnant (and she must do this to undergo an abortion) she feels an unconscious attachment to him. Because of this, many women feel that part of themselves is lost through abortion.⁶⁸
    
    The psychiatrist Karl Stem states that it is not infrequent that women who have had abortions break down with a serious depression or even psychosis when the time arrives when they would have given birth to their child. What is remarkable about this, notes Stem, is that the patient may very well be unaware of the due date, or even indifferent to the moral dimension of abortion. Her profound reaction of loss is a natural reaction to the birth which did not take place.⁶⁹
    
    A world Health Organization group of scientists have concluded that:
    
    
    There is not doubt that the termination of pregnancy may precipitate a serious psychoneurotic or even psychotic reaction in a susceptible individual.⁷⁰
    
    
    Apart from the death brought to the unborn, and the mortality or morbidity suffered by the mother as a result of abortion, there are also serious dangers to subsequent children of aborted mothers.
    
    Fourteen years after legalizing abortion, Hungary reported a 5% increase in premature babies.⁷¹ In addition, because of birth injury, post-natal asphyxia, and atelectasis (collapsing of the lungs) which are leading causes of death in premature infants, Hungary's infancy mortality rate was 1,278.2 per 100,000 live births compared to 549.4 per 100,000 for the U.S.⁷² Following legalized abortion on request, the perinatal mortality rate in Hungary doubled!
    
    The frequency of spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) in women who have undergone legal abortions has been reported as 30 to 40% higher than in cases where women had not been aborted.⁷³ Furthermore, the incidence of foetal death during pregnancy is twice as great for a woman who has had an abortion compared to those who have not.⁷⁴  Dr. Demetrios Kelaris, whom U.S. Air Force officials in Athens have described as the best obstetrician and gynecologist in Greece, says that one of his country's biggest gynecological and obstetrical problems is women's inability to retain pregnancies because of previous and sometimes multiple abortions.⁷⁵
    
    Findings such as these have led one authority to conclude:
    
    
    Induced abortion plays an important role in the development of a subsequent child ... the impact of premature birth on infant mortality and of the mental and physical development of the child is connected with the frequency of abortions.⁷⁶
    
    
    Dr. Alfred Kotasek of Czechoslovakia corroborates this conclusion:
    
    
    Furthermore, as noticed recently, a high incidence of cervical incompetence results from interruption of pregnancy that raises the number of spontaneous abortions to 30-40%. These legal abortions affect subsequent pregnancies and births. We rather often observe complications such as rigidity of the os, placenta adherens, placenta accreta, and atony of the uterus.⁷⁷
    
    
    Professional -researchers Margaret and Arthur Wynn draw a similar conclusion:
    
    
    The complications of subsequent pregnancy resulting in children being born handicapped in greater or less degree could be the most expensive consequence of induced abortion for society and most grievous for the individual and her family.
    
    
    
    ... The number of abortions aimed at reducing the number of handicapped children is, however, very small compared with the number of abortions liable to increase the prevalence of handicap.⁷⁸
    
    
    Just as Shylock, the Jew, cannot be discriminated against with impunity, the human foetus cannot be aborted without grave consequences to his mother, her future progeny, the medical profession, and the rest of society. The merchants of claumny who banalize the human foetus and suppress information about the medical risks of abortion are bargaining for their own pound of flesh.

1. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act III, Scene i.
2. Eugene Diamond, "The Humanity of the Unborn." Catholic Lawyer. Spring, 1971, p. 174. Dietrich v. Northhampton. 138 Mass. 14, 52 Am. Rep. 242 (1884).
3. That is to say the current findings in embryology, fetology, perinatology, and all of the biology.
4. David Granfield, The Abortion Decision. Doubleday, 1971, p. 23.
5. Day & Liley, The Secret World of a Baby. Random House, 1968.
6. Reuben Straus et al., "Direct Electroencephalographic Recording of a Twenty-Three Millimeter Human Embryo," The American Journal of Cardiology." Sept. 1961, pp. 443-47.
7. J.W. Still, Washington Acad. Sci. 59:46,1969.
8. Davenport Hooker, The Prenatal Origin of Behavior, Univ. of Kansas Press, 1952. G.L. Flanagan, The First Nine Months of Life. Simon & Schuster, 1962.
9. Robert Rugh & Landrum Shettles with R.E. Einhom. From Conception to Birth: The Drama of Life's Beginnings. Harper & Row, 1971, p. 71.
10. Albert W. Liley, "Auckland MD to Measure Light and Sound Inside Uterus," Medical Tribune Report, May 26, 1969. Bradley, Human Embryology. Third Edition. Ch. 9. McGraw-Hill, 1968
11. Arnold Gesell The Embryology of Behavior Chs. 5-6, 10. Harper & Row, 1945.
12. Davenport Hooker, "Early Human Fetal Behavior with a Preliminary Note on Double Simultaneous Fetal Stimulation." Proceedings of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease. Williams & Wilkins, 1954.
13. Cf. photograph in G.L. Flanagan, op. cit. p. 98. (Photograph by the courtesy of Hooker & Humphrey).
14. Dr. & Mrs. J.C. Willke, Handbook on Abortion, Hiltz, 1971, p. 21.
15. Arnold Gesell, op. cit. p. 65.
16. Carl Wood, "Weightlessness: Its Implications for the Human Fetus." J. Obstetrics & Gynecology of the British Commonwealth. Vol. 77, 1970, pp. 333-6.
17. Amicus Curiae Brief of Some 220 Physicians, Professors and Fellows of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Before the U.S. Supreme Court in Texas and Georgia Cases. Oct. term, 1971.
18. Rafael Sevilla, "Oral Feeding of Human Fetus: A Possibility." JAMA. May 4,1970, pp. 713-17.
19. Interview between Mike Levy and Dr. Ballard, Triumph. March, 1972. pp. 20-23, 44.
20. Valerie Vance Dillon, "Application for Life." Sign. Oct. 1968, p. 12.
21. Dr. H.M.I. Liley, Modern Motherhood, Revised Edition. Random House. 1969, p. 50.
22. E. Diamond, op. cit. p. 175.
23. Gino Papola, MD, "Abortion Today: A Doctor looks at a modem problem." L'Osservatore Romano, March 23, '72, p. 10.
24. H.M.I. Liley, op. cit. p. 207.
25. E. Horger & D. Hutchinson M.D., "Diagnostic Use of Amniotic Fluid." J. of Pediatrics Vol. 74, No. 3, Sept. 1969, pp. 503-508. W. Floyd, M.D., P. Goodman, & P. Wilson, "CT: Amniotic Fluid Filtration and Cytology." Obstetrics & Gynecology. Vol. 34, No. 4, Oct. 1969. Szijarto, "Modem Diagnostic Criteria of Fetal Suffering." Fracestoro, Vol. 61, Nov. — Dec. 1968. Parmley et al., "Fetal Maturity and Amniotic Fluid Analysis." Am. J. Obstet. & Gynec. Vol. 105, No. 3, pp. 354-362.
26. Ashley Montagu, Life before Birth. New American Library, 1964, Ch. X.
27. Raleigh Fitkin-Paul Morgan Memorial Hospital v. Anderson, 42 N.J. 421, 201 A. 2d 537, cert denied, 377 U.S. 985 (1964).
28. Peter Berman et al., "A Method for the Prenatal Diagnosis of Congenital Hyperuricemia." J. of Pediatrics. Vol. 75, No. 3, Sept. '69. N. O'Doherty, "THe Prenatal Treatment of Adrenal Insufficiency." The Lancet, No. 29, '69, 2:1194-95. A. Hodari & T. Loma, "Experimental Surgical Procedures Upon the Fetus in Obstetric Research." Obstet. & Gynec. Vol. 34, No. 2, Aug..69, pp. 204-11.
29. Dillon, op. cit. p. 10.
30. Montagu, op. cit. pp. 187-8.
31. Ibid. p. 178.
32. M. Marcel & J. Exchaquet, "L'Electrocardiogramme du Foetus Human Avec un Cas de Double Rythme Auriculaire Veriflem," Arch. Mal. Couer. Paris 31: 504, 1938.
33. Flanagan, op. cit. p. 51.
34. Leslie Arey, Developmental Anatomy, 6th edition. Saunders Co. 1954, Chs. II, VI.
35. Marcel et al. op. cit.
36. Gesell, op. cit.
37. Straus et al., op. cit.
38. A. Hellegers, "Fetal Development." Theological Studies. 3, 7, 1970, p. 26.
39. H.M.I. Liley, op. cit. B. Patten, op. cit.
40. Liley, op. cit. p, 50. Hooker, op. cit. p. 75.
41. Paul Marx, Ph.D., The Death Peddlers. St. John's U. Press. 1971, p. 24.
42. Montagu, op. cit. p. 186.
43. Ibid. "Tobacco Smoke and Other Poisons." p. 99.
44. Ibid. p. 97.
45. Cf. Willke, op. cit. p. 72. Cf. also A.J. Schaeffer, Diseases of the Newborn. Saunders, 1966. ". . premature birth is the leading cause of infant death, and one of the leading causes of mental and motor retardation."
46. Quoted by Rabbi Karasich in Papola op. cit. p. 10 under "Jewish Comments". This remark has been traditionally interpreted as constituting a commandment against killing the unborn child.
47. Dr. Ian Donald, The Scotsman. March 9, 1970.
48. "The Abortion Act (1967)," British Medical Journal, 30 May, 1970, p. 533.
49. A.B. Rosenfield et al., "Recent Trends in Infant and Maternal Health in Minnesota," Minn. Med. 53:807-16,1970.
50. Thomas Hilgers, M.D. & Robert Shearin, M.D., "Medical Complications of Induced Abortion." Induced Abortion: A Documented Report. Jan. 1971, p. 24.
51. Drs. Gardiner, Pisani & Mattingly, College Statement and Minority Report on Therapeutic Abortion, issued by the Am. College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chicago, May 1, 1969.
52. J.A. Stallworthy, A.S. Moolgaoker, J.J. Walsh, "Legal Abortion: A Critical Assessment of its Risks," The Lancet. Dec. 4, 1971, pp. 1245-49.
53. Ibid. p. 1248.
54. S.V. Sood, Br. Med. J. 1971, iv, 270.
55. W. Droegemuller et al., "The First Year of Experience in Colorado with the New Abortion Law." Am. J. Obstet. & Gynec. 103:694-698, March '69.
56. A.M. Lekhter, "Experience in the Study of the Sequelae to Abortions." Sovet. Zdravookhr. 25:27, 1966.
57. L.O. Courtney, Proc. Roy. Soc. Med. 62:834, 1969.
58. L.P. Bengtsson et al. "Legal Abortion Induced by Intrauterine injections." (parts I & II) Lakartidninger, 64:5037, & 64:5046, 1967.
59. Dr. Paul Popenoe, "Abortion in Japan." Catholic Digest (Condensed from Family Life) Sept. 1971, p. 28.
60. Ibid.
61. M. Ekblad, "Induced Abortion on Psychiatric Grounds, A FollowUp Study of 479 Women." Acta. Psychiat. Neurol. Scand. Suppl. 99:238,1955.
62. E. Midak, "Early and Late Sequelae of Abortion." Pol. Tyg. Lek. 21:1063, 1966.
63. J. Cepelak et al. "Influence of Interruption of Pregnancy on the Sexual Life of the Woman." Cesk Gynaek. 25:609, 1960.
64. Quoted by Dr. Paul Marx, O.S.B., "What Sisters Should Know About Abortion." Sisters Today. 1972, p. 527.
65. Helene Deutsch, The Psychology of Women; A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. Grune & Stratton, 1945. Karl Stem, The Flight from Woman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965, pp. 21-23.
66. R. Le Roux (moderator), "Abortion". Am.J. Nursing. 70:1919-1925, '70.
67. Stem, op. cit. pp. 22-23.
68. "Spontaneous Induced Abortion," report of a World Health Organization scientific group. World Health Organization Technical Report Series, No. 461, p. 41.
69. A. Klinger, "Demographic Consequences of the Legalization of Induced Abortion in Eastern Europe." Int. J. Gynec. & Obst. 8:680691, Sept. 1970, p. 691.
70. World Health Statistics Report, Vol. 23, No. 7 pp. 546-549.
71. M. Kuck, "Abortion in Czechoslovakia." Pro. Roy. Soc. Med. 62:831-832, 1969.
72. World Health Statistics Report, op. cit.
73. Dr. P. Marx, op. cit.
74. A. Klinger, op. cit.
75. Kotasek, "Artificial Termination of Pregnancy in Czechoslovakia." International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Vol 9. Number 3,1971.
76. M. and A. Wynn, "Some consequences of Induced Abortion to Children bom Subsequently." Foundation for Education and Research in Child-bearing. London, 1972, p. 12.
77. Ecclesiastes 5:14.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

DeMarco, Donald. "The Merchants of Calumny." Abortion in Perspective. (Cincinatti: Hayes,1974), 40-53.

Reprinted with permission of Donald DeMarco.

THE AUTHOR

Copyright © 1974 Donald DeMarco