Seeing is Believing

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Images have the power to change a mind...and thus, by extension, a life. When the lives are mothers seeking abortions, however, special pictures are required.

It may seem obvious, but sonograms are a powerful tool in helping a mother make an informed decision about her pregnancy. Ultrasound technology literally brings a mother face-to-face with her unborn child, and the reality that she is the carrier of a beautifully unique human being; a human being who often gives quite a display of personality during his or her short time on-screen.

Tuesdays at the Brooklyn office are generally happier days than most, as those are the days we generally reserve for prenatal care. The sonograms performed on those days are generally later-term babies who display calmness and contentment, reflecting the attitudes of their mothers.

Today, however, we had several young women come in for counseling, rather than prenatal care. One was a Ecuadorian girl of 16 who desperately wants to keep her baby, but fears the repercussions from her strict family. She is a typical "good girl," who strives to get good grades in high school - both to live up to her family's expectations and to fulfill her dreams of going on to college - but who, like many girls we see every day, had an "accident" involving too much time alone with a boy. The boy involved in this particular situation is eager to see the problem "dealt with," even if the price was the life of his unborn son.

Seeing her little boy - 19 weeks old, according to our measurements - on the sonogram screen for the first time was a life-changing experienced for this young mother. He was bouncing around on the screen, agitated by his mother's stress levels and giving us some beautiful shots of his face, mouth open and smiling. Whereas before the girl was overcome by fears of how she would tell her parents about her "condition," after seeing the face of her son her attitude shifted towards love of her child. She was still in tears at the thought of disappointing and angering her parents, but her child gives her courage.

She is not the only one to have been inspired by the images of her unborn child. Dozens of women turn around every week, awe-struck at the plainly identifiable hands, feet, faces, ears, and heartbeats of their little ones. The sonogram provides mothers with undeniable proof: the unborn fetus is not a lump of tissue, but a living, conscious human child.