Letter of the Day | Busting Rattray’s pro-abort myths
Published:Saturday | February 29, 2020 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
This is a response to Dr Garth Rattray’s column published in The Gleaner on February 24, 2020. While outlining some of the potential side effects of home abortions and the impact of black market abortion drugs, Dr Rattray stumbles at a few critical junctures in his exposé.
Dr Rattray propagates the fake medical knowledge that unborn babies should be killed to save their mothers. Every day at Victoria Jubilee Hospital, there are mothers whose lives are in danger. This is often due to preeclampsia (a hypertensive disease in pregnancy) or a myriad of other illnesses that are extremely common.
These illnesses aren’t common in the first trimester, but occur in the second or third trimesters. An abortion at this stage would mean a dilatation and curettage (scraping and sucking out the baby), a saline abortion (where the baby is burnt in acid in the womb) or dismemberment.
There is no MEDICAL reason to do this! There is never a need to scrape out or burn the baby or crush a baby’s skull, suck out their brains or dismember them. If a mother’s life is in danger, we do our best to prolong the pregnancy to allow for as much maturation of the baby as possible, and then induce labour, bringing the premature baby to the paediatricians, who do their best to preserve life.
Our lives inevitably include mentally traumatic events and situations. Mental trauma after birth is not a justification for infanticide, and similar trauma during pregnancy cannot justify the killing of the innocent unborn child.
Dr Rattray goes on to describe a foetus as being “the potential for human life”. He seems to think the foetus is either not alive or not human. Well, things that grow, excrete, move and use nutrients must be alive (learnt that in Grade 4).
The baby’s heart is beating as early as day 18. Each life starts at conception and progresses unhindered until natural death. Humans aren’t exempt. Secondly, only a little human can grow into a bigger human. There is no scientific evidence that organisms can switch species as they grow.
Puppies become big dogs. Kittens become big cats. Babies become big humans (must have learnt that in at least Grade 3). The marker of humanity, human DNA, is uniquely formed from the moment of conception. A foetus is a living human being, so much so that scientific advancements have allowed us to do medical procedures, even surgeries, on babies after taking them out of the womb, then putting them back for further growth!
Abortion is not healthcare. Abortion is not just removing a lump of potentially human cells. Abortion kills a living person and is always unnecessary. Just pretend you are the baby. It could have easily been you.
Dr Daniel Thomas
President
Love March Movement