Sunday, December 2, 2012

Nursing School's Influence on the Gift of Life

In the past, I've never been a huge pro-life advocate. I knew it was wrong, but didn't fully understand why, and typically I would just keep quiet when the topic came up because I didn't know what to say. This semester I am in a Human Growth in Development class, where we learned about conception, babies, and all stages of life. I'm also in Human Anatomy and Physiology. Currently, we are learning about the brain, and brain development. So I'm sitting here reading about the development of a brain in a fetus - and thinking about other various things I've learned this past semester - and I find myself growing ever more passionately distraught by the pro-choice movement, and by the existence of abortion.

When this first started to strike me I was sitting in my human growth class in the first month of the semester, I believe it was the second week to be exact. Our topic of the day was prenatal development and birth, and the first section of the chapter is Conception and Genetics. I distinctly remember my professor saying "conception is a miracle" Each and every time a woman gets pregnant it is a miracle. Everything has to be so perfect. The body needs to be the right temperature, there is only a few days window where a woman can even get pregnant, the sperm has to travel through the womanly organs and attach with the egg properly, and then it has to properly implant in the woman's uterus... There are so many things that have to be just right - that it truly is a miracle for a child to be conceived. It is truly a miracle for a child to be born.

That then started to cross my mind from time to time throughout the semester, especially as I would here people talking about abortion, and birth control, etc. And all I could think to myself was, is - that child that you're killing, or preventing for your own pleasure is a miracle, and it is miraculous that everything between your body, and your significant other's body was so perfect that a life was able to be conceived.

Then, today I'm reading about the brain and the best way to learn about the brain is starting from the beginning- with the developing brain in a fetus. "By the fourth week, the human brain begins to form as an expansion of the neural tube" Each fetus has a neural tube which begins to form the central nervous system, and this is formed very early in development, but by the fourth week the brain is starting to form, with the brain we function. That is how we think, eat, breathe, walk, talk, grasp a fork, kick, etc. The central location for all functionality is already present and forming by the fourth week of a pregnancy, yet many seem to believe it's not a life yet? This I don't understand.

I see a baby, and I can't help but smile. I see a pregnant woman, and she is all aglow, even in the early months when they may be feeling sick. I don't normally post very controversial topics because I don't really want to have arguments, and I simply want people to come to know Jesus, and His love, and help them get there by words that I feel compelled to share - but I think one thing we need to realize is that each human life is a precious gift. I never understood the miracle of each life until this year. There was a point when if someone asked my opinion on abortion/contraceptives I would have told them it's not for me, but it's okay that they exist. Now, with a better understanding of the gift of life and the miracle that each conception, each child is -I hope, and pray that one day each person in this world would realize the gift of each life, and choose to embrace the gift, the miracle of a child.

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