This beautiful video comes from Real Alternatives, a non-profit group that works to support and provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women to choose life for their babies.

The video, a combination of animations and ultrasound images, shows the development of a baby in its mother’s womb and describes the changes which take place at each stage of pregnancy.

The Miracle Of Life

The video begins with an image of a pregnant woman, and asks the question “What should I do?” This is surely a question which many women ask themselves, and the answer lies in asking two more questions, regardless of the individual circumstances of the person asking them.

Firstly, is it ever OK to kill another human being? As Christians, we know that the answer is no. Many women live in and fall pregnant under difficult or even tragic circumstances. Poverty, rejection, abuse, rape… There are babies conceived in loving, stable relationships who will be born with disabilities, genetic illnesses, or who are simply the wrong gender. And there are those who result from misjudgment or weakness.

These babies are all human beings.

They are all loved by God, as are their parents, and they all have an equal right to life: each of them is a unique person. Their mothers deserve our love and compassion, and sometimes it can be tempting to think that their lives would be better without the complication of a child, or this particular child, but abortion is not the answer: it will not solve any of these problems, it will not undo past wrongs.

It is the second question which perhaps presents more difficulties, the answer to which is often used to bypass or justify the first: is the unborn baby a human being? Many answers and non-answers have been provided to this question. There are those who take an arbitrary point in a pregnancy and use it to establish a dividing line between person and non-person. The non-person is called a fetus, and the person is called a baby. But it is interesting to note how a wanted child is also called a baby; an unwanted one is merely a fetus. This video provides a clear answer to that question. At the moment of conception, a unique human being is created, and even before this child is born it shows personality traits, responding to sounds inside and outside the mother’s body. Life begins, quite simply, at the beginning.

We should always remember that the decision to abort a child is rarely undertaken lightly. Its advocates may speak of “choice” but many women who walk into an abortion clinic often do so because they do not feel that they have a choice. There is no denying that abortion is a grave wrong and a highly emotive topic: we may experience anger, sadness or disgust when we hear of it, but our response must always be a firm but gentle “no”, and love for all those parents and children whose lives it destroys.