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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Can John Brown be far behind?
Message-ID: <221@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Jan-85 11:57:34 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.221
Posted: Tue Jan 29 11:57:34 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Jan-85 06:57:06 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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> > Fetuses don't think.  They don't verbalize.  They don't understand
> > language from outside the womb.  At the ages when abortions are most
> > common they don't have nerve pathways allowing them to sense anything.
> >
> Do you have any proof for this?  Have you ever heard of the fact that the fetus
> will recoil from the needle, knife, or whatever when it approaches them, even
> when very young?  Fetuses develop most major systems very earlier(I don't have
> the exact date here).

The central nervous system develops into its final form around week 11-12,
i.e. at the end of the first trimester. Since most abortions are performed
inside the first trimester (something a woman has a right to under the
terms of Roe vs Wade), the original posting *is* correct.

Besides, read the passage again. It dealt with the ability to "think"
and "verbalize". A fetus cannot verbalize, I hope we are in agreement
on that. The jury is out on whether a fetus "thinks". "Recoil[ing] from"
some pain source is instinctive, and *not* an indication of thought processes.

Marcel Simon