The Miracle of Life

Modern medical science has clearly shown us that human life begins at conception.

• At conception a new human being begins, complete with his or her own unique set of DNA, which is present from the first day of life. The new little person’s sex is also determined from the beginning.
• Eighteen days after conception the baby’s heart is beating.
• During the first month the baby grows to 10,000 times his/her size at conception.
• S/he moves six weeks after conception though the mother does not yet feel the movements.
• At eight weeks every part of the body found in an adult is already in the baby.

• At eleven weeks after conception the baby has finger-prints and the finger nails are growing.
• At twelve weeks the baby’s lips open and close. S/he can wrinkle his/her forehead, raise his/her eyes, turn his/her head, smile and frown.
• At sixteen weeks s/he reacts to sound, sucks and swallows, may get hiccups, yawns and stretches.
• Although moving since six weeks, at eighteen weeks the mother now feels the movements. The baby pushes with his/her feet and head to exercise and tone his/her developing muscles and also sucks his/her thumb. His/her toenails, hair, eyebrows, fringe of eyelashes on closed eyelids are growing.
• At twenty weeks the baby sleeps and wakes and is fully able to hear.
• At twenty four weeks the baby may possibly dream and can make a fist and punch it against his/her mother.
• By twenty-five weeks the baby in the womb has the ability to hear like that of an adult and can discern the moods and attitudes of its mother. So we obviously want  happy Moms so that we can have happy babies!
• The baby from an early stage can show the usual symptoms of pain during a pre-birth operation and even release the chemicals associated with adult pain but nobody can judge definitively whether it is in pain or not. 

This account of the miracle of life growing in a mother’s womb leads us to ask, “Are expectant mothers so busy that they do not give enough time to contemplate the miracle within them?”

The beautiful thing about this life is that it is created by God. As our Psalm today says, “let us kneel before the God who made us”. Because it is God who made us. We should have great respect for human life. The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights.