Educating Nearly-Born People

In Victoria, Australia it is legal (since 2008) to abort a foetus anytime prior to delivery. This can't be right. I don't know where the line is between not-yet-human and nearly-born-person but I believe that Victorian law has drawn a line in the wrong place!

I recently learned about the work of Dr. Diane Colombelli-Négrel of Flinders University.* She and her team have discovered that superb fairy wren chicks begin their education before birth. Her work made me think about parents who play music for their unborn babies. How much can a foetus learn? (Lk 1:41-44)

A few days before the chicks hatch the mother sounds a unique note repeatedly in her song which will serve as a kind of feeding password in infancy. Post-hatching, the chicks incorporate this particular note into their begging song and effectively verify their identity at feeding time. Intruders, like the notorious cuckoos, fail to produce the note-code and are ignored at feeding time.

So, apparently bird-education begins pre-hatching. It makes me wonder what marvels a near-born-human has learned. What pre-delivery-living she or he has already begun to experience. And what favour God has already bestowed (Ps. 139:13-16; Jer. 1:5).

It just can't be right to legalise the termination of healthy nearly-born people. Surely we can find other ways to support women and help families through unwanted pregnancies.

* Australian Geographic #113 (March-April 2013), pg. 115.