National Geographic announced its Pictures of the Year for 2024, and among them is the striking photo of a 70-day old rhinoceros fetus.
The photo highlights the intricacies of the tiny rhino’s body, which developed at a rapid rate in the 10 weeks it was alive in its mother’s womb. The animals’ limbs, eye sockets, nose, head, and ribs are on full display in the photo, though the fetus would have developed for another 13-16 months in utero, had he lived and developed full-term. During an attempt at in-vitro fertilization, the surrogate southern white rhino died from an unrelated bacterial infection, and so too did this tiny, yet recognizable, rhinoceros.
This photo — and the fact that it was chosen as a Picture of the Year for National Geographic — serves as a critical window into the universally accepted reality of life in the womb. Across the many animal species, scientists and journalists have long been aware of the magnificent realities of prenatal development. National Geographic published a video in 2023 highlighting preborn life in the womb for several animals, including dogs, meerkats, and elephants. The overall message is loud, clear, and scientifically true — animals in the womb are very much alive, growing, and developing members of their species.
This makes the rejection of science and what it shows us about humans in the womb both troubling and cognitively dissonant. Many in the pro-abortion movement deny the life of people in the womb altogether — despite ample evidence to the contrary. Abortion giant Planned Parenthood consistently dehumanizes preborn human beings, calling them “pregnancy tissue,” or “products of conception.” They’ve also been known to deny showing mothers the sonogram images of their children, fearing if women see the humanity of their preborn children, they won’t go through with their abortions. (Chillingly, this is the same company whose executives admitted under oath to selling aborted baby body parts).
But human life in the womb is no less marvelous than any other animal. Former abortionist, Bernard Nathanson — who committed and oversaw 60,000 abortions — describes in his book, “The Hand of God,” that if humans grew at the same rate of development throughout the entire pregnancy as they do the first two weeks in utero, “we would each weigh twenty-eight thousand pounds at birth.” Nathanson later converted to Catholicism and became pro-life, in part because he no longer could deny that he was killing a very-much-alive human person.
At 70 days, the age at which this ‘Picture of the Year’ rhino was photographed, a human being is growing and moving in his mother’s womb. His eyes and lungs have appeared, brain waves have already begun, and his hands, feet, and legs have formed and are beginning to move. His heart also has formed four chambers, and it has been beating since 22 days after fertilization.
Despite many pro-abortion attempts to diminish this amazing human being to a clump of cells, he is a recognizable person – who, barring death from natural causes or his direct and intentional killing via induced abortion, will one day soon be a beautiful human baby boy, toddler, child, man.
Picture that.
Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek:
Stop killing America’s future. Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!
