THE FILM: THE BIOLOGY OF PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT
The documentary film, The Biology of Prenatal Development (it could also be watched from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FYjhbCMYoE&playnext=1&list=PLC32680F4224395B6&feature=results_main), which was distributed by the National Geographic, has followed the beginning of life from conception to birth. With the use of a sophisticated high-end camera and state of the art 3D imaging system, the documentary film has allowed the viewers to follow the rapid and highly detailed development of a single-cell human zygote into a fully developed fetus inside the mother’s womb.
There are so many technical terms that caught my attention. I am happy that the writer and the producer of the film recognized conception, the union of sperm and egg cell, each with 23 chromosomes, as the beginning of life. From the film, I quote: “pregnancy in humans normally lasts approximately 38 weeks as measured from the time of fertilization, or conception, until birth.” I also quote, “…during the first 8 weeks following fertilization, the developing human is called an embryo, which means growing within." This period is characterized by the formation of most major body systems. And from the completion of 8 weeks until the end of pregnancy, "the developing human is called a fetus," which means "unborn offspring."
From conception, it is only after 24 to 30 hours after fertilization, the zygote completes its first cell division. By 3 to 4 days after fertilization, the dividing cells of the embryo became a spherical shape called morula. The embryo became a blastocyst after 4 to days when a cavity forms within this ball of cells. The embryo traversed the uterine tube and implant itself in the uterine wall of the mother. Following implantation, placenta develops. For 2 to 4 weeks, germ layers and organ formation took place.
After four weeks, the amniotic fluid starts to surround the embryo. Amniotic fluid protects the baby. This time, there are the formation of the brain, heart limbs and lungs. While liver and kidneys start to develop after five weeks. By six to eight weeks, the embryo begins to make spontaneous and reflexive movements. The hands are visibly developing and the rest of the organs are maturing. Although there is no air in the uterus, the embryo displays intermittent breathing motions. After nine weeks, the fetus starts to swallow, sigh, and stretch. The fetal period continues until birth. Before the birth of the fetus, hearing, feeling and smelling were already developed.
REFLECTION
The movie has made me realized that life is a precious gift from God. Conception is the very start of personhood wherein God breathe the breath of life, the soul, to each human life. The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. We cannot separate God in the creation of human life for every human ‘person’ is willed by God; each is imprinted with God’s image. Each one's dignity does not come from the work they do, but from the persons they are. The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God.
This little life in the womb of a mother is a little person who cannot defend himself yet. He is not merely a thing like any other utilitarian would want to think of him. He is a ‘life’ with a dignity coming from God. He is a person with full of bright potentialities when nourished and let to grow with love and compassion. He is a son to his father and mother who both offered him their genes to start living and growing. He is a little person who is created by God, a little person who has a purpose of his own. He is a being in the image of God…who is not just something, but someone.
We cannot limit our understanding of a person to his immediate capability of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. Because each one of us is in need of time to grow. We are in need of time to reach our potentials. All of us were once a child who was so dependent to the caring of our parents. Going back to our childhood, we were once afraid to take a step to cross the street without holding the hands of our parents. Much more, when we were inside the womb of our mother, when we do not know yet what has to come for us? But like anyone else, when we were inside the womb of our mother, we already have the precious gift of life that God has endowed us. Like anyone else, we already have the human soul from the start of our conception. And that same life with a soul was already there even before the moment of our implantation to our mother’s womb as most legislators and doctors would claim and decide when and where we become a person in favor of RH Bill.
Promoting human dignity implies above all affirming the inviolability of the right to life, from conception to natural death, the first among all rights and the condition for all other rights of the person. According to Pope John II, “laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law. ” I am starting to be afraid because if the RH Bill would be fully enacted as a law, it would lead us to this end—a society so free to do his caprices and society playing God with other’s life. The bill is a threat for every defenseless and every unborn life. In my opinion, RH Bill is a water gate that would flood us with licentiousness to take other’s life where we would deny the sanctity of each life. What lies beyond this bill is lee way for abortion and euthanasia which have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself. Whatever insults human dignity… they poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury.
In broad daylight, those who fight for the approval of the RH Bill already twisted the original biblical mandate of God to us: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. ” Most of our legislators has exhibited their lost of trust in God. They are unanimous in reasoning that they are so afraid that we are bloating as an over populated hungry nation. I am hoping that there's no personal interest behind all these. In this political and spiritual battle, most tend to lose their identity as being a ‘creation of God for all—a person, (sonare, sound back) who is open to communication. Legislators are expected to be the voice of their people who are their constituents. What they have relayed to the nation via national television is the pulse of those whom they are representing. Admittedly, the occasion has divided our opinions as a Church. All of a sudden, most of us Catholics seems to forgot the every Sunday Apostle’s Creed we always recite where we claim, “I believe in God…” and “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.” In this occasion, I am reflecting on the question: “Do we fail as a Church?” In my opinion, no, we fail only as ‘teachers’ of our flock. They do not already recognize the voice of God in us because, maybe, they cannot understand the language we are now using.
I believe that the legislators who favored the RH Bill has inflicted serious wound in our society and our culture. They are the very people who ought to be society’s promoters and defenders of human life...even to the smallest scale, we see them as defenders of the weak and the incapable to defend themselves. The biting reality is already here, RH Bill is now gaining support. The block favoring it is getting stronger. The RH bill's bait is growing stronger and sooner or later we would be making a covenant with death. But despite of the present situation, we should still urge those Catholic officials who choose to depart from teaching of the Church on the inviolability of human life in their public life to consider the consequences based on their conscience for in their hands is law that would lead others into serious sin: “Thou shall not kill.” We must stand against the present relativism which tends to lead all of us into utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism is a civilization of production and of use, a civilization of "things" and not of "persons", a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used. In the context of a civilization of use, woman can become an object for man, children a hindrance to parents, the family an institution obstructing the freedom of its members.
We must rekindle the spirit of God in every family. Each family is a community of God. Each family is a protector of every weak and of the unborn. Let us appeal to every parents, let us reach out to them to remind them that when they become parents-- spouses receive from God the gift of a new responsibility. Their parental love is called to become for the children the visible sign of the very love of God, "from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named."
Any human society, if it is to be well-ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle, namely, that every human being is a person, that is, his/her nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. Indeed, precisely because s/he is a person, s/he has rights and obligations flowing directly and simultaneously from her/his very nature.
When RH Bill becomes a fully established law, we can't be open anymore to express our opinions against it. We will be dead-silent. What we can offer by that time are concrete alternatives which not every parishes have as of the moment. Our silence would not mean our blind-obedience to the implemented law. The virtue of prudence will guide all of us and hope will always remain as our inspiration to carry on.
Like the rest, some of us are doing what we can contribute. And we are doing it urgently. We are earnestly praying that more and more hearts would listen to our small voices-- who are not as intelligent as they are but simple principles which are simply rooted from our Christian conscience which is based on Christian truth.
CONCLUSION:
Human dignity originates from God and is of God because we are made in God’s own image and likeness. Human life, no matter how small a life is, remains sacred because the human person is the most central and clearest reflection of God among us. It is necessary for us to respect life because life is a precious gift of God to each one of us. We should not create it nor take it with our own hands. We are mere stewards only of God. We are mere stewards only of this precious gift of God. Beyond ourselves, as persons who communicate with one another, each one of us is a brother and sister’s keeper… for we are all responsible to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, as children of God.
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[1] CCC, no. 362.
[2] Cf. The Hundredth Year, no. 11.
[3] CCC, no. 1700.
[4] Cf. CCC, no.
357
[5]The Social Doctrine of the Church
and the Catholic School, no. 553.
[6] Evangelium Vitae (1995), no. 72.
[7] The Church and the Modern World,
no. 27
[8] Genesis 1:26.
[9] Pope John
Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995), no. 59.
[10] Pope John Paul II, Letter to Families, February 2, 1994, no.
13.
[11]Familiaris Consortio, no.
14.
[12] Peace on Earth,
no. 9.
[13] Cf. Gn 1:26-27.
