CAHART, HERN AND TILLER: LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES
Dear Andrew,
In the British radio interview to which you linked me (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/2009/07/090701_outlook_abortiondoctor.shtml , “Dr.” Carhart’s worst case justification for late term abortion is anencephaly. He says these children will die at or immediately following birth. He is a liar. The New York Times, “The First Ache,” February 10, 2008, reported that a Swedish neuroscientist named Bjorn Merker video taped a group of five children with anencephaly (the upper hemispheres of the brain are missing) enjoying a trip to Disney World.
The youngsters, ages 1 to 5, are shown smiling, laughing, fussing, crying; they appear alert and aware of what is going on around them. Yet each of these children was born essentially without a cerebral cortex. The condition is called hydranencephaly [a condition for which “Dr.” Tiller would have killed in a heartbeat, so to speak] in which the brain stem is preserved but the upper hemispheres are largely missing and replaced by fluid. Merker (who has held positions at universities in Sweden and the United States but is currently unaffiliated) became interested in these children as the living embodiment of a scientific puzzle: where consciousness originates. He joined an online self-help group for the parents of children with hydranencephaly and read through thousands of e-mail messages, saving many that described incidents in which the children seemed to demonstrate awareness.
“Dr.” Carhart also justifies late term abortion with the argument that they are necessary to save the lives of mothers with complicated pregnancies. But if his purpose is to save the mother, why is he killing the baby. These are post-viability babies who could survive outside the womb. He could simply induce labor without first killing the baby. That would save the mother and the baby. But he doesn’t do that because his purpose, and that of the mother, is to kill the child.
Sadly, the interviewer was lobbing softballs at “Dr.” Carhart instead of calling him on his brazen lies. The free press is dead in the U.K and the U.S. and just about everywhere else. Long live the state-run media.
Lord bless,
Gregg Cunningham