Ultrasounds may shift our point of view
Lori Borgman | Monday, January 12, 2009
On my birthday this past fall, I received an e-mail
from our son and his wife with the subject line HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
Inside the e-mail was an ultrasound image of a 12-week-old fetus
wearing a bright red and yellow party hat that screamed Happy Birthday.
The ultrasound was courtesy of an obstetrician’s office; the party
hat was courtesy of Photoshop.
In the digital age, this is how a woman receives
notice she is going to become a grandmother. (Well, that and they
dropped by with their dog which was wearing a shirt that said, “I’m
the Big Brother.”)
Our children’s baby books all begin with the inky
little footprints taken in the nursery shortly after they were born.
Baby books these days begin with ultrasounds done before the babies
were ever born.
This remarkable technology has made inroads into
the animal kingdom as well. This month the National Geographic Channel
aired “In the Womb: Dogs” and “In the Womb: Cats.” Using 4-D imaging,
they tracked development of a wolf, three breeds of dogs, a lion
embryo and a kitten embryo. The cats can be seen running in place
and stretching in the womb.
One cannot miss the irony of two documentaries
on the wonder of life inside the womb debuting in January, the 36th
anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized
abortion.
The abortion battle has been going on for nearly
four decades now. Recently invited to a luncheon attended by people
who have been deeply involved in the pro-life movement since the
‘70s, I couldn’t help but notice conversation was punctuated with
questions like, “Is she still alive?” or “Is he well?” There is
speculation, which follows every general election, that the debate
itself is aging and dying.
Yet election polling by the Pew Research Group
found younger people, who tend to be more liberal than their parents
or grandparents on many issues, are more conservative than their
older counterparts when it comes to abortion. Some analysts
say the reason is because the pro-life side of the argument is couched
in terms of “right to life,” and young people are all about rights.
But surely part of the leaning is due to technology.
In the early days following Roe v. Wade, an argument was floated
that the ethics of abortion were inconsequential because it wasn’t
really a baby. Even as someone who was unsettled on the issue back
then, I always wondered, if it wasn’t a baby, what was it?
A semi-truck? A hippo? I later learned it that
it would feel like such things during labor and delivery, but it
was, in fact, a human being. And now technology answers the question
of life sharply, definitively and in living color.
Here’s another thing I have noticed about the
next generation. Because they are visual, early imaging causes them
to form far more personal attachments with the baby while it is
still in the womb. Many young couples are naming their babies before
they are born, sharing the names with family and friends and referring
to the pre-born baby by name.
It would be one thing to talk about aborting one’s
fetus, but quite another to talk about aborting a Riley, Jackson
or Grace.
Ultrasound imaging may be changing hearts in a
way that the protests, shouting and placards never could. A picture
really is worth a thousand words, or in some cases, a thousand lives.
