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The power of a picture
Last month, Weblog's author wrote an article on the power of images, especially relating to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now check out this powerful image: a 12-week-old unborn child walking in its mother's womb. The photo is from one of the new 3D/4D ultrasound scans, this one from the Create Health London Clinic, where Stuart Campbell is compiling the book Watch Me Grow. (Other photos and videos from Create Health are available here.)

Those images, combined with shocking statistics on the number of abortions being performed and updates on medical advances that have led to earlier viability of unborn babies, are leading the U.K. to reconsider its abortion laws. Earlier this week, the author of Britain's 1967 Abortion Act, David Steel, said the law was wrongly based upon the assumption that fetuses can't survive outside the womb before 28 weeks. "Since then," he wrote in The Guardian newspaper, "medical science has continued to advance, recording survivals at 22 weeks of pregnancy, and lurid publicity has been given to 'botched' late abortions." (In 1990, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act prohibited abortion before 24 weeks. Pro-life activists had been pushing for a 22-week limit.)

He told the BBC, "I think people find it very repugnant to think you are getting close to the point where you are not dealing with a fetus but with the possibility of a baby." (The possibility of a baby? Considering the possibility of a baby is something people do before conception. Considering definitions of life and personhood is what's happening in this debate.)

Prime Minister Tony Blair has supported a review of the law. "I have not had an opportunity myself to study in detail the evidence that has been provided," he told Parliament this week. "But I am sure that if the situation does change then it would be advisable for us to have another look at the whole question. If the scientific evidence has shifted then it is obviously sensible for us to take that into account."

The BBC reports that Steel wants to push the limit back as early as week 12.

The Times of London reports, "In 2002, the latest year for which figures are available, 2,753 abortions were carried out [in Britain] at between the 20th and the 24th week of gestation."

Viability has been a key part of U.S. abortion law as well. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that the government's interest in protecting human life becomes compelling when the fetus is viable outside the mother's womb. In Roe, the court put that date at six months. Later Court cases, such as the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey, made the viability test less clear. States are still prohibited from banning abortions before fetal viability. But it's still hard to ban post-viability abortions, because the Court says even viable fetal life can be destroyed "to preserve the . . . health of the mother." Pro-life groups have noted that this renders the viability issue meaningless.

In discussing partial-birth abortion, for example, physician Warren Hern told a New Jersey newspaper, "I will certify that any pregnancy is a threat to a woman's life and could cause grievous injury to her physical health."

But as the debate in the U.K. signifies, the world is changing. Those ultrasound photos have potential to reignite debate over personhood on this side of the Atlantic, too. Fighting the "health of the mother" catch-all in light of astounding photos and earlier viability is no insurmountable task. At 12 weeks inside the womb, babies are taking their first steps. It's time for the pro-life movement to start taking its next ones.

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48