The Piercing Scream of Silence
"The Silent Scream" Exposes the Horror of Abortion in Vivid Detail
Fitz E. Barringer
2006-01-01
Watch the Silent Scream Online
According to the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, though, a picture is worth far more. You can read that abortion kills children and dismiss the words as opinion. But when you see the process – when you see a child being suctioned from his mother’s womb – the murderous aspect of abortion becomes much more vivid.
Creating a visual image of abortion is the goal of “The Silent Scream,” a 1985 documentary film. Using ultrasound equipment, “The Silent Scream” takes viewers on a horrific tour of the process by monitoring a real abortion procedure at 12 weeks after conception.
Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, a former abortion provider, narrates the film. According to the film, Nathanson co-founded the National Abortion Activist League (NARAL), a pro-abortion organization, in 1968, but eventually adopted a pro-life stance on scientific grounds. His calm demeanor and matter-of-fact delivery underscores how routine abortion had become, even in the 1980s.
Whether your views are pro-life or pro-abortion, “The Silent Scream” is not for the faint of heart. The film opens with Nathanson describing advances in ultrasound equipment and the various stages of a child’s life. He marvels at the fact that medical advances have allowed doctors to treat the fetus as a ‘second patient.’ “Tradition medical ethics and precepts,” he says, “command us that we must not destroy our patients—that we are pledged to preserve their lives.”
Nathanson’s calm voice stands in stark contrast to the images displayed on screen. The doctor uses the first few minutes of the film to display the instruments used in a typical abortion. Holding a model of a child at 12 weeks after conception, Nathanson demonstrates how each instrument is introduced into a woman’s body to kill the child. Moving one particular instrument known as the suction device up and down on the model, Nathanson says, “The suction tip will begin to tear the child apart.”
Nathanson also points out that the child’s head, even at 12 weeks, will be too large to enter the suction device. As a result, Nathanson demonstrates how the polyp forceps – a device shaped similar to cooking tongs – is used to crush the child’s skull, where brain waves have been active for six weeks.
This portion of the film, however, is just a warm-up for the main show. In the next scene Nathanson sits by a television showing ultrasound footage of a small child in his mother’s womb. As the images roll by on screen, Nathanson gives a step-by-step account as to what is taking place. He alerts viewers when new instruments are introduced into the womb, and points out when the child actually recoils in fear from the abortion tools.
As the suction device enters the womb, for instance, the child, clearly in fear for his life, begins to move violently away from the instrument. After watching the horrific image for several seconds, Nathanson remarks, “There is no question; this child senses the most mortal threat imaginable.”
When the suction device begins to tear the child apart, Nathanson pauses the video and points to the child’s open mouth. “Now we can discern the chilling ‘silent scream’ on the face of this child, who is now facing eminent extinction,” he says.
After the abortion is complete, Nathanson offers his own opinions about abortion. He calls abortion a terrible social problem and asks for people to find a solution of love for the unborn children. “A resort to such violence is an admission of scientific and, even worse, ethical impoverishment,” he says.
“Let’s all, here and now, for humanity’s sake, stop the killing.”
Nathanson’s words are carefully chosen and persuasive. Unfortunately for those without a medical eye (but perhaps fortunately for the weak of stomach), the ultrasound images in “The Silent Scream” are not very clear. The image appears to be magnified to fit Nathanson’s television and events move quickly to the untrained eye. Once Nathanson points out the various positions of the child and abortion tools, however, it is fairly easy to discern the action on screen.
Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America, of course, takes issue with the film beyond its image quality. According to the organization’s website, a 1985 Planned Parenthood panel created the “Facts Speak Louder” critique of “The Silent Scream.” The panel takes issue with the fetus’s movement away from the suction device. “At this stage in the pregnancy [12 weeks], all fetal movement is reflexive in nature rather than purposeful, since the latter requires cognition, which is the ability to perceive and to know,” the report states.
Furthermore, the Planned Parenthood study states that Nathanson’s frequent use of the word ‘person’ to describe the unborn child is inaccurate. “Constitutionally, a fetus has not rights of personhood. Most legal precedent in English law attributes personhood to the live born,” states “Facts Speak Louder.”
“A fetus of 12 weeks,” the study continues, “cannot in any way be compared to a fully formed, functioning, person.”
Finally, the study contests Nathanson’s statement that the unborn child feels pain. Because the child is in early stages of development, the Planned Parenthood study concludes that pain impulses cannot be received or perceived. Evidence for these claims comes from the fact that animals develop pain sensations in the third trimester and that premature newborns have less response to pain than full-term newborns.
Contrary to the Planned Parenthood study, recent scientific evidence suggests that human babies may in fact be capable of experiencing pain during an abortion. According to Dr. Sunny Anand, a leading expert in fetal pain, unborn children might develop pain sensations well before the third trimester. “Based on the available scientific evidence, we cannot dismiss the high likelihood of fetal pain perception before the third trimester of human gestation,” said Anand in a testimony before Congress on the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act.
In fact, according to American Standard magazine, a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association advocated giving anesthesia to all fetuses during fetal surgery where the child was not being aborted.
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, the sponsor of the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, believes that women considering abortion should be told that their child might experience pain during the procedure. In a note posted on his website discussing the proposed bull, Brownback says, “Women should not be kept in the dark; women have the right to know what their unborn child experiences during an abortion.”
Brownback’s comments echo the educational sentiments of the creators of “The Silent Scream.” By taking viewers inside an actual abortion, the film gives people the opportunity to see a child – not just a foreign blob of tissue – in the last moments of his life. The images shown in “The Silent Scream” and new scientific data about fetal pain should give any pregnant couple pause before consenting to abortion.
“The Silent Scream” will not win an Oscar Award this March, but twenty years after its filming the film remains an important reminder of the horrors of abortion.