New Study Says Unborn Babies Have Short-Term Memory
WASHINGTON (BP)--Unborn children have memories, according to a new study from The Netherlands.
Researchers at two medical centers found unborn babies at 30 weeks gestation show short-term memory, according to The Washington Times. By the time the unborn children reach 34 weeks of development, they “are able to store information and retrieve it four weeks later,” The Times reported.
The results were based on a study conducted on 100 women and their unborn children. Scientists gave the women a series of buzzes on their stomachs for one second each with a “fetal vibroacoustic stimulator” at five points during the final eight weeks of pregnancy, according to the July 16 report. They used ultrasound imaging to measure “fetal learning” patterns, particularly through the baby’s eye, mouth and body movements.
The children adjusted to the vibrations and sounds to the extent they would no longer respond, according to the report. That process is called “habituation.”
“It seems like every day we find out marvelous new things about the development of unborn children,” said Randall O’Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund, The Times reported. “We hope that this latest information helps people realize more clearly that the unborn are members of the human family with amazing capabilities and capacities like these built in from the moment of conception.”
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you until this line:
"amazing capabilities and capacities like these built in from the moment of conception"
Pick a week of gestation where we can metric the capabilities of a child, make the argument for it, and I will definitely buy into it. But please don't sell me the moment of conception. Most of us really are smarter than that.
...Overboard in that and lost a little credibility in doing so. All in all, though, it is quite possible that what the researchers at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud is bone-fide science .
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
biology is not my expertise. But I don't see how it can be any other way really. As soon as the brain has begun neural mapping, then sentience is born. I would also go as far as to say that prior to any sense of "reasoning" that instinct is formed. Of course I would still argue that a developing brain would be necessary. But, I would have to think that "fight or flight" instincts would be developed almost immediately. Given the existence of a nervous system, then pain is possible.
Memories, or at least conditioning (this reminds me of a great study on Aplasia that I will have to dig up) should have been a given all along. I really don't want to steer this conversation towards abortion , but it is this line of reasoning on my part that causes me to only support abortion in early stages. Once a fetus is conscious and sentient, I can no longer justify its removal.