pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (03/04/85)
Dr. Bernard Nathanson had some comments about his "widely characterized
as fraud" video tape called "The Silent Scream". They were recently
published in the Feb. 14 issue of the NRL News. I'll let him speak for
himself:
THE SILENT SCREAM
The "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of the Pro-Life Movement?
At the press conference held at the Senate Office Building
on the morning of January 22, Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.)
was generous enough to refer to "Silent Scream" as the "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" of the anti-abortion crusade. Harriet Beecher
Stowe's novel appeared in 1852 as the anti-slavery campaign was
moving inexorably toward its tragic crescendo. Although it
touched the hearts and the minds of countless Americans, Stowe's
powerful work had its detractors.
Charles Dickens referred to the book as "defective" and the
well-known critic (and slavery apologist) George Frederick Holmes
called Stowe a "termagent virago" and a "foul-mouthed hag". Ho
hum--what else is new?
Personally, I am inclined to think of "Silent Scream" as an
escalation of the abortion conflict into the high-tech arena, a
kind of Star Wars weapon for the pro-life movement against which
there can be no effective counter. The national media grudgingly
concede that the ultrasound images are compelling and even
devastating, but grumble that the commentary is unpardonably
political and partisan.
To this I have responded: turn off the audio and simply
watch the picture. Others complain that we are inferring too
much, that we cannot be sure it is pain that the unborn child is
experiencing during the abortion. Leaving aside for the moment
the incontrovertible scientific evidence that this unborn child
has all the anatomical and physiological equipment necessary to
feel pain, it seems endlessly curious to me that we are always so
quick to anthropomorphize the reactions of animals subjected to
painful stimuli (they cannot tell us they are in pain any more
thatn the unborn child can) but so reluctant to do so for one of
our own kind.
Nevertheless, like any other mute uncomprehending creature
in pain, the unborn child demonstrates graphically all the
responses appropriate to one subjected to an unbearable agony:
the accelerating heart rate, the grimacing, the violent churning
and agitation, and the pathetic attempt at flight. If a rabbit
or dog were the subject of this film, the animal rights legions
would come thundering onto center stage, like the U.S. calvary
(where *are* the animal rights people in this controversy
anyway?).
The press conference room was eerily still for a few moments
following the conclusion of the film. I resumed the rostrum to
take questions from the media and immediately recognized a
changed attitude in the questioning: no hostile challenges, no
unbridled attacks, not even the ususal condescending sneers.
The questions were neutral, well focused, and reflected an
intense interest in the scientific aspects of the film. For the
most part that same attitude has prevailed in the many media
events in which I have participated in the two weeks since this
showing of the film. More than any other single indicator, this
changing media attitude may presage a gradual irresistible move
to pro-life on the part of the two hundred million or so
uncommitted Americans out there.
This Star Wars weapon seems unanswerable. A few
critics--especially the British press--have suggested that the
film has been rigged, tampered with, or otherwise manipulated.
(Professor Ian Donald of Glasgow University--the father of
ultrasound and the most respected authority on its use throughout
the world--has confirmed without qualification the absolute
validity of every moment of these videotapes).
To those few who continue to carp over the quality of the
imaging or the interpretation of the picture, I say: please make
your own videotapes. If your fantasy is that you will somehow
produce a picture of an unborn child sliding happily into the
bloody gauze trap at the bottom of the vacuum bottle, you are in
for a truly paralyzing shock. Don't say I didn't warn you.
--
Paul Dubuc cbscc!pmd