A Child Is Born

"This is the most outstanding book of photography showing the development of a child from the very beginning. It shows the initial blob of a few cells after the sperm meets the egg, and all the later developmental stages, culminating in the fetus at the end of pregnancy, just ready to be born as a new baby. It shows the development of all the organs, and of the hands and feet, and an unborn baby sucking its thumb at 20 weeks gestation. Many of the photographs have become famous, and no one has ever taken better. I have written about fetal pain and I think the fetus can feel pain at about 20 weeks. At 13 weeks the brain is not connected to the rest of the body. You can touch the foot and it might move away but that is just a reflex. It has made me very aware of the different stages of development. As far as abortion goes, I would have little concern under 13 weeks and I am not always against late abortion. The trouble is that in later abortions they often chop the fetus up before extracting it. I don’t know for sure because we can’t ask them, but the state of the nervous system between 20 and 26 weeks would suggest that it is increasingly likely they would feel pain. This is the dark side of this, of course. The fetus is not one thing. It is different at different stages and this book makes one aware of the joy and the beauty of it."