Expert: Deborah - 6/25/2008

Question
QUESTION: I keep hearing that there is a heartbeat at 18 days and brain waves at 6 weeks.  Also, I have recently come across the following stories:

http://www.clipmarks.com/clipmark/878D607D-EAA2-4BCF-B614-BD557BB39DC8/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,363434,00.html

Baby Miraculously Survives Abortion, Expected to Live 'Normal' Life
Thursday, June 05, 2008

E-Mail Print Share:

A mother who decided to abort her son because he may have inherited a life-threatening kidney condition is overjoyed that he survived the procedure.

Jodie Percival of Nottinghamshire, England, said she and her fiancee made the decision to abort baby Finley when she was eight weeks pregnant.

Percival's first son Thane died of multicystic dysplastic kidneys — which causes cysts to grow on the kidneys of an unborn baby — and her second child Lewis was born with serious kidney damage and currently has just one kidney, the Daily Mail reported.

Click here for a photo of baby Finley.

"I was on the (birth control pill) when I became pregnant," Percival, 25, said. "Deciding to terminate at eight weeks was just utterly horrible but I couldn't cope with the anguish of losing another baby."

A short time after the abortion, Percival felt a fluttering in her stomach. She went to the doctor for a scan and discovered she was 19 weeks pregnant.

"I couldn't believe it,' Percival said. "This was the baby I thought I'd terminated. At first I was angry that this was happening to us, that the procedure had failed. I wrote to the hospital, I couldn't believe that they had let me down like this.

"They wrote back and apologized and said it was very rare," she added.

Dr. Manny Alvarez, managing health editor for FOXNews.com, said Percival's situation is actually quite common.

"Women that have early terminations in weeks six, seven and eight, many times the pregnancy is so small that doctors miss removing the baby," Alvarez said. "The danger is that the failed attempt can damage the baby. That is why these patients who get early terminations need follow-ups."

Another scan a week later confirmed the baby also had kidney problems, but doctors told the couple the baby was likely to survive, so they decided he deserved another chance at life.

In November, Finley was born three weeks premature. He had minor kidney damage but is expected to lead a normal life.

Click here for more on this story from News.com.au.

Click here to comment on this story.

AND

• Thirty years ago, Gianna Jessen's mother had an abortion when seven-and-a-half months pregnant.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The abortion failed and, 18 hours later, Gianna (pictured) was born alive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She suffered cerebral palsy as a result of the botched abortion, yet has defied doctors' predictions that she would never walk.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In fact she has run a marathon, is an accomplished singer and writer and travels the world to campaign against abortion.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her mother was 17 when she decided to have the abortion. Weighing 2lbs when she was born, she spent several months in hospital fighting for her life, before being placed in a foster home.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her cerebral palsy, which was caused by her brain being starved of oxygen during the abortion, was diagnosed at 17 months old. Doctors said she would never be able to crawl or even sit-up unaided, much less stand or walk.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She said: "If abortion is about women's rights, then what were my rights?



Thank you in advance for your honesty,

Frank

ANSWER: Dear Frank,


         Subject:    Is any of this true?
         Question:    I keep hearing that there is a heartbeat at 18 days
There are heart cells that begin beating at 21 days.  The heart isn't fully until the end of the embryonic period.


         and brain waves at 6 weeks.  
Read this source for an explanation of brain waves:
http://eileen.250x.com/Main/Einstein/Brain_Waves.htm


         Also, I have recently come across the following stories:

         http://www.clipmarks.com/clipmark/878D607D-EAA2-4BCF-B614-
         BD557BB39DC8/
I can't get that link to work.

         http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,363434,00.html

         Baby Miraculously Survives Abortion, Expected to Live 'Normal' Life
This story seems true.

         • Thirty years ago, Gianna Jessen's mother had an abortion when seven-and-
         a-half months pregnant.

See the following discussions about this story.

This is a discussion about this story on prochoicetalk.com.  The story states that Gianna guessed she was aborted when she was 12 years old.  The entire article follows this discussion:
TrueAtheist wrote:
Ever since this post was made, I've been looking for more information about this case and all I can find is this exact same article over and over again.

I personally don't believe this story is true.

It's way too sketch and vague.

TA


This is from the source in Mugen's page two post:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/04/nabort.xml

Quote:
Gianna Jessen grew up believing that she was born with cerebral palsy because she had been delivered prematurely in a particularly traumatic birth.

That was the story told to her by her adoptive mother and it was not until she was 12 years old that she discovered the truth about what made her different from the other children at school.


Gianna Jessen: 'I have a little bit of feistiness'
"I had an innate wondering," Miss Jessen says. "I wasn't satisfied for some reason, so I kept asking why I had this disability.

"She tried to break it to me gently and then, just as she was about to tell me, I said 'I was aborted, right?' She said 'Yeah, you were.' And my reaction was 'Well, at least I have cerebral palsy for an interesting reason.' "


SO, at 12 years old, out of the blue, she knows she was "aborted", lol!

To read this discussion, go here:
http://www.prochoicetalk.com/message-board-forum/viewtopic.php?p=122695&highligh

Here is the entire news article referenced in that discussion:


Gianna Jessen grew up believing that she was born with cerebral palsy because she had been delivered prematurely in a particularly traumatic birth.

That was the story told to her by her adoptive mother and it was not until she was 12 years old that she discovered the truth about what made her different from the other children at school.

Gianna Jessen: 'I have a little bit of feistiness'

"I had an innate wondering," Miss Jessen says. "I wasn't satisfied for some reason, so I kept asking why I had this disability.

"She tried to break it to me gently and then, just as she was about to tell me, I said 'I was aborted, right?' She said 'Yeah, you were.' And my reaction was 'Well, at least I have cerebral palsy for an interesting reason.' "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1504652/Gianna-Jessen-was-aborted-at-7and





Here is another discussion, also on prochoicetalk.com:

As for your Gianna Jessen fable/claim (again):
She parlayed her premature birth and the resulting cerebral palsey into a speaking tour promotong "born againism" and anti abortion propaganda. She made a career (organized and promoted by her adoptive mother/manager) as a speaker against abortion and for sexual purity (and of course for becoming a born-again Christian. I've no doubt the campaign was orchestrated by her adoptive 'mother' who thought nothing of displaying this young person much as "freaks" were displayed in carnivals once. She tried singing for a while but hasn't been very prominent latly.

As I said, her cerebral palsy is the result of her premature birth at 32 or 33 weeks or so (according to her). However there is no evidence, and never has been any presented for inspection, that she was born as the result of her mother's attempt to procure an abortion - saline or otherwise. Heasay and unsupported fables from professional liars does not count as evidence.

To read this discussion, go here:
http://www.prochoicetalk.com/message-board-forum/viewtopic.php?p=74235&highlight



         Thank you in advance for your honesty,

         Frank

You're welcome, and I hope I have helped.  Please write back if I can clarify anything or answer something else.

Take Care,

Deb

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks, I saw a response about many of the pictures of fetuses or POC being rubber or somehow misreported.  How are they getting away with that?  Why don't choicers just show some real photos and squash the propaganda machine. Thanks so much for your last response, please try to open the other link again about the fetus in the U.K. reported on the fox story.  Other than being from fox, it seemed pretty credible.  

Thanks,

Frank

Answer
QUESTION: Thanks, I saw a response about many of the pictures of fetuses or POC being rubber or somehow misreported.  How are they getting away with that?  Why don't choicers just show some real photos and squash the propaganda machine. Thanks so much for your last response, please try to open the other link again about the fetus in the U.K. reported on the fox story.  Other than being from fox, it seemed pretty credible.  

Thanks,

Frank

Dear Frank,

I wish more choicers would show up at some of these pro-life protests with real pictures.  

One problem is obtaining real photos. No self-respecting medical facility is going to allow photos to be taken and released to the public.  

Here is one, however:

http://www.abortion.org.au/abortionpictures.htm

There are scientific/research departments at Universities that have accurate real photos however.  Here is an excellent resource:

http://www.visembryo.com/baby/11.html

Note the tiny picture to the uppermost far left corner, which shows the ACTUAL SIZE of the embryo.  This particular page is of a little over a 5 week pregnancy.  The embryo is always 2 weeks younger than the pregnancy, because pregnancy is counted from the first day of a women's last period.  Ovulation doesn't occur for another 2 weeks, so for the first 2 weeks of "pregnancy", there is no fertilized egg yet!

As you can see the actual size embryo is barely visible.  That's another reason pictures are hard to use, you can't see anything.

The majority of abortions occur before the 8th week of pregnancy (6th week of embryonic period).

Take care,

Deb