Danger, danger

The Catholic Herald, 6 October 2006

Are babies dangerous?

Professor Donald Peebles, of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at University College, London, thinks so.

Now perhaps Professor Peebles lives an exceptionally sheltered life. But you would have thought that an experienced scientist who has risen to a level of some importance in the august halls of University College, London, had probably knocked around a bit.

Indeed, he must spend at least some time walking round central London of an evening, perhaps after late night sessions in the lab. So you would expect the Prof. to have a rather different view of which categories of human beings pose a genuine threat to life and limb than that which he expresses in statements to the Press this week.

But no, Professor Peebles thinks babies are dangerous, and in particular pictures of babies. Pictures of babies are terribly, terribly dangerous, says Professor Peebles!
Why? Has Professor Peebles had his wallet stolen by a rampaging foetus?

Well, you remember those “4D” films of babies moving around in the womb? The “walking baby” pictures that presented the humanity of the child in the womb more clearly than ever before?

Well, Professor Peebles and his many powerful pro-abortion colleagues have let it be know that those scans have a “dangerous impact”.

Now when I first saw this headline I nodded in mistaken agreement. Over recent years there have been increasing concerns about the safety of repeated ultrasound scans. Some ultra-cautious mums are already declining scans – not because there is a proven danger to the baby, but because there has never been any proof that there is NO danger to the baby. Some mums really are very, very cautious indeed and who are we to object?

“The docs have a point,” I thought. “Those amazing 4D scans could have hidden health risks that won’t turn up for years and years. Past experience with any kind of prenatal testing tells us that it’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

A shame really, as there are many American parents enjoying hours of harmless entertainment showing their baby’s first home video performance to their long-suffering friends and relations.

“No, stupid” said Mr J. “You’ve missed the point as usual.” I looked at the story again. “Oh,” I said.

The doctors are not the tiniest bit worried about these powerful electronic scans being dangerous to babies. The “danger” is that parents, friends, teenagers, children, grandparents, uncles and aunts – in short, the human race – will, when confronted with a movie of an unborn child below 24 weeks of gestation, be so struck by the sheer humanity of the baby that they will rise up and revolt against the prevailing pro-abortion culture in the UK today.

The “danger”, in other words, of these 4D scans is this: that they might start people thinking. People might start asking – just who are these little creatures, 186,400 of whom our hospitals sluice away every year?

Professor Peebles seems to think that if we see a photo of a baby sucking its thumb in the womb, we poor peasants might “think it is happy” and therefore foolishly think the baby is a human being.

“It’s that feeling which I think is extraordinarily dangerous,” he says. A scientist from Imperial College backed him up: “Personification of the foetus at that age is dangerous,” she echoed.

Dangerous to whom?

How dangerous is it for a baby in the womb for his mother to be aware of his responses to her mood? Every mother knows that when she is contented, the baby is contented. Every mother knows that a loud noise will make her baby jump. Observant mums notice that a sudden adrenalin boost for her means a jumpy baby ten minutes later. Is it dangerous, too, for mothers to know these things? Is it dangerous for babies, that mothers know these things?

No, but it is extremely dangerous to Professor Peebles. Because, you see, if we were all aware of how human an unborn child is, his abortionist friends would lose a lot of business.

In fact, if everybody really understood the ghastly human significance what the Prof’s friends in the clinics and “pregnancy advice centres” do for a living, they would quickly find themselves out of a job.

Yes, those 4D scans are dangerous indeed. What else does Professor Peebles want to stop us from knowing?