Live Action’s new “Baby Olivia” project is shining a light on the humanity of preborn children. Using scientific details from the Endowment for Human Development and world-class medical experts, the video features the world’s most realistic and medically accurate animated representation of prenatal development, with computer-generated 3D animation created through motion capture technology of real human movement.
Viewers see Olivia’s journey from her very beginning at the moment of fertilization, through the moment she’s ready to be born. This includes the second trimester, when the preborn child begins to look undeniably human. Yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, thousands of abortions are committed during the second trimester each year.
During the second trimester, the preborn baby is displaying obvious human behaviors. By 13 weeks gestation, she can make complex facial expressions; by 16 weeks, she can respond to touch.
READ: ‘Baby Olivia’ shows a preborn child’s incredible second trimester growth
At 18 weeks gestation, a preborn child releases stress hormones after being poked with a needle. This is especially relevant to abortion, because it’s further proof that preborn children can feel the pain of the brutally violent abortion procedures to which they are subjected. Recent research has revealed that preborn children likely feel pain by the end of the first trimester, if not before.
The most common abortion procedure committed in the second trimester is a dilation and evacuation, or D&E, abortion. It’s a surgical procedure that takes several days to complete.
To begin, the abortionist inserts laminaria (thin seaweed sticks which slowly dilate the cervix) into the woman’s cervix to begin the process of dilation. This takes place 24-48 hours before the actual abortion is committed. Once the woman returns to the abortion facility, the process of committing the abortion begins.
The abortionist might administer anesthesia and dilate the woman’s cervix even further, using a speculum and metal dilators. From there, he uses a large suction catheter to empty the uterus of amniotic fluid. The preborn child is killed when he uses a sopher clamp — a grasping instrument with rows of sharp “teeth” — to literally tear the preborn child apart, limb from limb. He pulls the arms and legs from the preborn child’s torso, along with other organs. Finally he locates the baby’s skull and crushes it.
After the baby has been removed from the mother’s uterus, the abortionist uses a curette to scrape the walls of the mother’s womb, dislodging the placenta and making sure nothing is left behind. Abortion staffers must account for the baby’s body parts afterward to make sure everything was removed.
In addition to how gruesome this procedure is for the child, it also carries the risk of major complications for the mother. There are risks of perforated or lacerated maternal organs, including the cervix, uterus, bladder, and rectum. A D&E abortion also has a significant risk of heavy bleeding, cervical damage, and scar tissue, all of which can affect her ability to safely carry a child to term in a future pregnancy.
Baby Olivia makes it clear that the preborn child is a human being — and that abortion, therefore, is the intentional taking of a human life.
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