Monday, June 22, 2009

The first glimpse

It feels like a movie, honestly. Those scenes in which a woman's face is turned toward the screen and she's nearly literally glowing, beaming in amazement as she stares at the first image of her child, hears its heartbeat. They cry. They clutch the father's hand. Their jaws drop and they hold their breath as the abstract concept growing inside becomes a visible reality.

I spent today assisting one of our ultrasound technicians. I saw ultrasounds performed on women from as early as six weeks to as late as thirty-six weeks, an amazing spectrum of development. The sonogram is one of the best tools we have in this work, so simple yet so powerful -- a real-time viewing, an inside picture. At EMC we're lucky that we can so easily refer to and provide girls with free sonograms; I've seen many abortion-minded women change their mind after that moment, after that first glimpse. And that -- that feels better than a movie.

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