"An Active and Dynamic Creature"

CNN recently had a post on its website called, “What babies learn before they’re born.” In it the author, Annie Murphy Paul, discusses how the ninth month pregnancy period is important for the future of the baby (or “fetus”) inside. She writes,

The fetus, we now know, is not an inert blob, but an active and dynamic creature, responding and adapting as it readies itself for life in the particular world it will soon enter. The pregnant woman is neither a passive incubator nor a source of always-imminent harm to her fetus, but a powerful and often positive influence on her child even before it’s born. And pregnancy is not a nine-month wait for the big event of birth, but a crucial period unto itself — "a staging period for well-being and disease in later life," as one scientist puts it.

This crucial period has become a promising new target for prevention, raising hopes of conquering public health scourges like obesity and heart disease by intervening before birth. By "teaching" fetuses the appropriate lessons while they’re still in utero, we could potentially end vicious cycles of poverty, infirmity and illness and initiate virtuous cycles of health, strength and stability.

I’m in (partial) agreement. And one of the most important things we can teach babies in the womb is how valuable their life truly is. The more we extinguish life before birth the more we teach children how truly invaluable we feel life is. If we can get rid of them so easily, and without gasping, then how can they believe us when we say we love them and want good things for them?

Life is sacred. God is the author of life and we should be careful with his creations – especially the unborn.