Do babies learn before they’re born?

Ann Bailey

“Some of the most important learning we ever do happens before we are born, while we are still in the womb,” states Annie Murphy Paul,  author of “Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives.

As she tells of remarkable research that points to the cognizance and learning that is occurring during that unborn child’s months in the womb, I can’t help but wonder if the pro-abortion folks are cringing that such information is being spread far and wide.  After all, their flimsy case for abortion is built upon the understanding that the unborn child is a piece of foreign tissue that has no humanity.  That’s kind of tough when you have scientists like Annie Murphy Paul saying things like, “The recognition that learning actually begins before birth leads us to a striking new conception of the fetus, the pregnant woman and the relationship between them.”

Watch and enjoy!  It will make your day.

To read more specifics go to the link below:

What babies learn before they’re born

Consequences of Abortion… More than the Death of a Child.

by Rachel Allison

In September Priscilla Coleman was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry showing an association between induced abortion and mental health problems.

Overall, women with an abortion history experience an 81% increased risk for mental health problems. The results showed that the level of increased risk associated with abortion varies from 34% to 230% depending on the nature of the outcome. Separate effects were calculated based on the type of mental health outcome with the results revealing the following: the increased risk for anxiety disorders was 34%; for depression it was 37%; for alcohol use/abuse it was 110%, for marijuana use/abuse it was 220%, and for suicide behaviors it was 155%.

When compared to unintended pregnancy delivered, women who terminated had a 55% increased risk of experiencing any mental health problem.

Finally, nearly 10% of the incidence of all mental health problems was shown to be directly attributable to abortion.

There are women all over the world who, having aborted their children, recognize the emotional and mental impact it has had on their lives. To their credit, many have publically spoken out including at UN conferences.  Several years ago, I met one such group of women.  Seven articulate women with a message that they were passionate about traveled to NYC to join hands in protest of the worldwide abortion agenda that was robbing the unborn of their right to life. Each one of these women took their turn telling about the helplessness they felt when they discovered they were pregnant, and the mental anguish they experienced as the decision was made to terminate their pregnancy.  Each and every one of them expressed their disbelief at the flippant demeanor the nurses and doctors had while they were being prepared for the “procedure.”  Each one refused to believe they were destroying a life…but afterward, they knew the reality of what they had allowed to happen…and it has haunted them every day of their lives since. To their credit they were speaking out so that others do not feel their loss and anguish.

I had a doctor acquaintance who told me of an experience he had as a medical student.  He was watching an abortion take place.  The doctor performing the abortion was callous and unfeeling.  The woman on the table was in total denial, talking freely, even laughing at times until she became sedated.  Immediately following the abortion, as she was becoming coherent, she began to sob uncontrollably.  At that point she knew what she had allowed to happen…this young medical student was powerless to help her pain.

There are many I’m sure that will dispute the findings of Ms Coleman’s study.  They will say, “Women are not damaged. They make a choice, and they do just fine with their decision to terminate the life growing within them.”

The scientific findings may or may not be accurate but my heart goes out to those women who are damaged.  If Ms Coleman’s data is incorrect, our hearts should mourn for a society where women are not affected by such a gut-wrenching decision.

The Perfect Abortion Candidate

Today we at United Families International welcome Melissa to our UFI Team.  Her story will astound you.   Melissa speaks with a voice and experience that will touch hearts and change minds.  You won’t want to miss her upcoming articles.

By Melissa Anderson

I was the perfect abortion candidate.  When my nineteen year old mother discovered she was pregnant with me she already had a nine month old son, no education, no employment and no future. Neither of my parents were ever employed for more than a few months at a time. I can almost hear the masses calling to my mother, advising her that the uneducated, unemployed, unplanned teen parent should never allow a birth.  As it was the state of California paid for my birth, my formula, my baby food. For my entire childhood the state of California bought every bit of food that made its way into my mouth.

My life was never easy.  My father would later be condemned to serve two life sentences in state prison for child abuse, child neglect, sexual abuse and, perhaps the worst of it all, torture.  Of all the things to succeed at, my parents chose the Olympics of abuse, running the gauntlet through every category of abuse they knew, hiding us in secrecy while we endured whatever our parental task masters had in mind to heap upon us.  It was in my childhood home I witnessed, endured and eventually survived the multiple depravities one human can lash upon another.  The hateful words and actions of my mother and father will forever haunt me.  I will never forget the screams, the blood, the pain.  I will never forget the humiliation and the hopelessness.

And yet, I bless my mother’s name.

When the cold winter of Seoul, Korea nipped at my nose, I had my mother to thank for it.  When the sharp rays of the South Carolina sun shone on my black hair, I had my mother to thank for it.  I had my mother to thank the first time I handled the red clay earth of Georgia or felt the lap of the ocean against my bare feet in Monterey. Most of all, when I curl up with my own baby and smell the sweet scent of milky baby breath, or hold my child’s hand or braid thick masses of hair or bake terribly disgusting brownies that my children secretly feed to the recycling bin, I have my mother to thank.  When my husband holds me tightly, I have my mother to thank.  She gave me life. She gave me the chance to choose for myself what my life would be and to eventually move beyond the childhood she gave me.  If the woman gave me nothing else, she gave me life and for that I bless her name.

Others aren’t so lucky.  Others are never given the chance for birth at all because some social formula we’ve created pops out the risk factors and determines that birth would be too much of a risk for mother and society.  One more mouth to feed.  One more future criminal minority on welfare perpetuating the cycle.  One more mother who wasn’t ready when she made the choice to have sexual intercourse.  And the preborn infant pays the price.

And what have I been doing with the life I shouldn’t have been given the opportunity to live? Am I a child abuser myself? Perhaps addicted to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to drown out my parents voices? Absolutely not.  In fact, I’m a licensed attorney, a children’s book author, child advocate, raising my own children beneath the protection of love and support. The cycle is broken.

The choice to go to law school for me was a no-brainer.  The world, I felt, needed a translator, someone who had spent close to two decades in the trenches of poverty, abuse, hunger and despair. Someone whose life might have ended in one of the multitude of abortion clinics conveniently located in the poor, minority parts of town where young girls flock who already feel trapped and afraid. After all, it’s their own choice; the preborn don’t matter.

The rhetoric of “choice”

The interest of preborn infant are consistently disregarded for the faulty arguments raised in defense of abortion.  Future articles will discuss the connection between abortion rhetoric and child abuse rates, will dissect the faulty logic of allowing elective abortion on demand in the untruthful plea for protection of the less than 1% of women who seek an abortion for reasons of rape, incest and mother’s life, as well as the argument for sonograms as a necessity prior to an abortion.

While the horrific memories of my youth will lie in the back of my mind, always silently yearning for recognition, one by one those memories are being replaced by my own choices- The choices of the fetus who never had a chance.

Let us not forget that deeply hidden in the rhetoric for choice is the glaringly incorrect proposition that the life choices of the preborn infant have already been made.  The welfare-fed daughter of a convict and an uneducated teenaged mother is better off aborted.  She’ll just feed the cycle of poverty and abuse in the future.  Her choices are already made.  She will fail.  As a survivor of the trenches, I am here to say that such thinking is absolutely incorrect. More than that, I am here to debunk the false logic of the pro-abortion campaign.  I hope that you will join me in the campaign to save the lives of our children. Share these articles. Joining together we will change hearts and minds.

 Melissa Anderson is a lawyer in San Antonio, Texas.  She is the mother of seven crazily adorable children and an author of children’s books.  In her spare time, Melissa volunteers extensively with Court Appointed Special Advocates educating the community on issues related to child abuse and neglect.

For more information on Melissa’s story:

From brutal childhood to head of the class

Overcoming Obstacles

Reader Poll: Would you vote in support of a “personhood amendment” similar to the one that recently failed in Mississippi?

Here’s the question we asked our readers:

“Would you vote in support of a “personhood amendment” similar to the one that recently failed in Mississippi?”

 

Here’s how UFI readers responded:                                        

71  percent            Yes

24  Percent              No

5  Percent                Undecided

The personhood amendment movement is somewhat controversial within the pro-life/pro-family community.   Most in the pro-life community can rally around the understanding that life begins at conception, but for many the personhood amendments are an issue of strategy.   Is the timing right to push for an amendment such as this?   Has the culture moved toward a pro-life position to the degree that the type of legislation can be passed or is it counterproductive and even dangerous to the pro-life movement.  For example, the pro-abortion folks are certainly glorying in the loss of the Mississippi Amendment and insisting that the pro-life movement is losing its momentum now.

There is no question that if an amendment such as this were to pass it would be challenged in court and could eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.  If that were to occur before the court had the right composition of pro-life minded judges, the results could be devastating – a ruling against the personhood amendment that would set the pro-life movement back for generations to come.

Is it better to take a slower, more incremental approach to laws and with that effort soften hearts and change the culture to eventually accept an overturn of Roe v. Wade?  Those pre-conditions are probably necessary to allow a sympathetic U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade anyway.

All in, United Families International is in the camp that believes the slower, more incremental approach is a better strategy, but we certainly understand and sympathize with the pro-personhood amendment position as well.

 

Passing By

By Melissa Anderson

Last Thursday a two year old child died. She had black hair and dark eyes and a little round face. Her name was Wang Yue, but she was called YueYue. Wang Yue toddled out into the middle of a small street in China. She was hit by a passing van, ran over twice and was left in the middle of the road dying for a whole nine minutes while no fewer than eighteen people passed her little body lying in the road, turned their heads and did absolutely nothing.  In the end, it was a tiny old woman collecting bits of trash who pulled the child to safety, hoisting the little girl up from the street and finding help.  Wang Yue was rushed to the hospital and  survived for a week before her body failed.

Lets go back to those people.  Eighteen.  Think about that.  As this tiny, curious tot lay slowing dying in the street, eighteen people passed by, within a few feet of the child, turned their heads and passed by.  Eighteen people were placed in the situation to intervene and eighteen people did not. As a result of their lack of action, Yue was run over not by one vehicle, but two and felt the most terrible pain of her life completely alone.  Eighteen people did not rush to the child’s aid.  Eighteen passersby didn’t get in the way because it was none of their business.  Wang Yue was someone else’s child.

Before we point a finger of condemnation at those eighteen passersby, let us honestly ask ourselves: Are we not all sometimes passersby?

Everyday thousands of our children are killed through the tragedy of abortion. These are real human beings. Real lives, each very much as individually important as Wang Yue’s. All too often we find ourselves afraid to speak out against abortion, despite our deeply seeded beliefs.  We keep our noses, as they say, out of the business of others. All too often we shy away from the discussion.  Silence becomes our safe haven while the children of the world lie in the streets, unable to save themselves.

I encourage my readers to be bold in your beliefs.  Be firm. Don’t turn a blind eye convinced you’re too small to institute change.  The world needs more tiny, obscure trash collectors.  They are so often the most noble among us.

Melissa Anderson is a lawyer in San Antonio, Texas.  She is the mother of seven crazily adorable children and an author of children’s books.  In her spare time, Melissa volunteers extensively with Court Appointed Special Advocates educating the community on issues related to child abuse and neglect.

The Future of Down syndrome? Hope or Elimination

By Rachel Allison

In July of this year Dan Hurley wrote a heart-warming article in the New York Times on Dr. Alberto Costa, his wife Daisy, and their daughter Tyche. (pronounced Tishy)

Costa and his wife had been trying to have a baby for a couple of years. Daisy’s first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, which they knew could occur because of a genetic disorder in the fetus. When Daisy became pregnant a second time, Costa insisted they get a chorionic villus sampling, an invasive prenatal genetic test. But the procedure caused a miscarriage. (The test showed that the fetus was genetically normal.) Costa vowed that if there were a third pregnancy — this one — they would conduct no prenatal tests.

Hours after Tyche’s birth on June 25, 1995, the hospital’s clinical geneticist explained to Dr. Costa that Tyche had Downs syndrome. Costa sat up through most of the night crying. But by morning, he found himself doing what any father of a newborn might: hovering by the crib, holding his daughter’s hand and marveling at her beauty.

“From that day, we bonded immediately,” he told Hurley. “All I could think is, ‘She’s my baby, she’s a lovely girl and what can I do to help her?’ Obviously I was a physician and a neuroscientist who studies the brain. Here was this new life in front of me and holding my finger and looking straight in my eyes. How could I not think in terms of helping that child?”

Since then Costa has dedicated himself to the study of Downs syndrome. Advances in research had taken place before Tyche’s birth, but in the past ten years investigative research and studies have surged forward giving new hope to the 6,000 parents who give birth to Down syndrome babies each year.

As excited as Dr. Costa and other devoted scientists are about discovering procedures and drugs that would normalize the brain cells of those with Down syndrome, a competing group of scientists are striving to eliminate it altogether. How? With tests that detect Down syndrome in the first trimester of pregnancy. Unfortunately these tests are providing an incentive for parents to abort their fetuses.

Costa, like others researching the “hows” to help those born with Down syndrome, fears that the imminent approval of those prenatal tests might undercut support for treatment research, and even raises the possibility that children like Tyche will be among the last of a generation to be born with Down syndrome.

Recognizing the precious experiences and devotion he and his wife have had with their Tyche, Dr. Costa feels there is a critical race taking place. If he and the dedicated team of doctors win, their research and discoveries will give purpose and acceptance of those born with Down syndrome. If the other teams of doctors win, those fetuses detected with Down syndrome will in most cases be aborted before the precious experiences and hope in research have a chance.

“Who are we to decide?”

“Who are we decide that we pick and throw one away and pick up and struggle to save the other ones?”  So states a pro-life  ad produced by the Ron Paul Presidential campaign.   We want to go on record that United Families International is neutral on the U.S. Presidential candidates.  So please don’t contact us and ask us why we’re supporting Ron Paul. We’re not supporting any candidate.  But this ad has such a profound pro-life message that we felt compelled to share it with you.

“Unless we resolve this and understand that life is precious and we must protect life, we can’t protect liberty.”  Well said!

Isn’t it time we call a spade a shovel?

By Danny Quinney

I think it is important to point out that of all the contributors to this website, I’m the dumbest.  I say that, not to brag, but to let you know I’m aware of my dumbery.  I ain’t no highly educated man.  See what I mean?  I just used a double negative (seriously, what an idiot).  Despite my dumbery, I am just smart enough to recognize inconsistencies in the media.

I have always been aware of them, but when I recently read an article by Tim Groseclose, it really brought them to the forefront of my mind.  In addition to the article, Mr. Groseclose is an author of “Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind.”  In his article he references an essay appearing in this years August 10^th edition of the New York Times magazine titled, “Two-Minus-One Pregnancy”.

Apparently an expectant mother, “after choosing not to endure the extra burden of raising twins” decides to “reduce to a singleton.”  Awwww…Isn’t that cute?  “Reduce to a singleton”, you can almost imagine skipping through a field of daisies, hugging your favorite “My Pretty Pony”, while listening to the “Care Bears Christmas”, can’t you?  The fact that the Doctor injects a long needle filled with potassium chloride into the chest of the baby, quickly killing it, the body of the baby shrivels the remainder of the pregnancy and is removed during the birth of the other twin is just a nifty little side note.

Ew.   When I say it like that it isn’t really nifty at all.

Hmmmm?

Mr. Groseclose then goes on to show how the media uses cute and fluffy words to describe things that aren’t so pleasant about abortion (Mr. Groseclose, of course, never used the words “cute” and “fluffy” – those are my contributions – remember I’m trying to dummy things down here).  He explains his book, “contains a systematic statistical analysis to document the bias in the abortion language of journalists”.  Now, to be fair, I’m really not sure what any of those words mean.  But I do know that in my lifetime we have gone from “Deaf” to “The Hearing Impaired”,   “Prisoner” to “Correctional Faculties Inmate”, and “Stewardess” to “Flight attendant”.  Honestly, it has to stop. Especially from the media.  The Elderly aren’t “Chronologically Advanced”, the Dead aren’t “Living Impaired”, an Abortion isn’t a “Near-Life Experience” and I am not “Fecally Plenary” (full of crap).

Mr. Groseclose closes his article by saying, “No matter what one’s view on abortion, one can’t deny that “twin reduction” and partial-birth abortion involve gruesome and ghastly procedures. It’s time that the media—when describing these procedures, as well as abortion policy in general—began using more direct and accurate language.”

Brilliant.

I’ll end my article like this:  Mary Poppins was right.  A spoon full of sugar really does help the medicine go down.  But as a society we have been force fed sugar for too long.  I, for one, am sugared out.  Can’t the media realize once and for all that we are all grown ups?  We can handle big people words.  Isn’t it time we call a spade a shovel?

Video: Humane Humanity

“Life.  Protect it.  Respect it.”  So ends a well-crafted video produced by Virtue Media.

On this 10th Anniversary of 9/11, we are reminded about what happens when people begin thinking of others as less than human.

Myth Buster Monday: Is the best way to decrease the number of abortions to increase the availability of contraception?

Ask any pro-abortion individual how to best reduce the abortion rate.  Almost without exception, they will say, “increase the availability of contraception.”   Well, there’s a new analysis out that lays waste to that notion.  It sure appears that the best way to reduce the rate of abortion is to encourage and promote marriage.

Take a look at this chart:

 

Over the decades, as contraception technology and availability have improved, the abortion rate in most countries of the world has climbed higher and higher. 

If the analysis done for this chart is correct, here are a few thoughts:

• Is there an inverse correlation between the decrease in marriage and the increasing abortion rate?
• To those who say cohabiting relationships are the same as married relationships, why such a staggering abortion rate?
• Wouldn’t you think that the rate of abortion for non-cohabiting women would be higher than the rate for women in cohabiting relationships?  Could it be that a cohabiting woman is just trying to “keep her man” and thus is willing to abort their child?
• What is the reason for abortion among the married?   Of the 7.7 married women (per thousand) who have abortions, how many are done because of assumed developmental problems of the unborn child?

What are your thoughts?

Chart by David Schmidt of Live Action based upon data from a recent study: Unintended pregnancy in the United States: incidence and disparities, 2006