In the Womb - Animals

National Review:

Scientists don’t claim to have all the answers; as Sims says, “all over the planet, human beings are amassing . . . facts and doing the best they can to interpret them. When nature reminds us that our explanations are approximate, we tweak them again.” This work of observing and theorizing is thrilling. “How exciting,” Sims writes, “to decipher old mysteries and discover new ones in previously uncharted territory — inside molecules, at the bottom of the sea, beyond our galaxy, and in the womb.”

And how awesome it is to recognize that human beings have evolved to find this knowledge exciting. As G. K. Chesterton said, the simplest lesson of the ancient cave drawings is that an observer has now “dug very deep and found the place where a man had drawn the picture of a reindeer. But he would dig a good deal deeper before he found a place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man.” This beautiful record of animal life in the womb is not produced by cats or crocodiles but by members of our own human race, the most curious (in all senses of the word) creature of them all.

How awesome indeed. Yet I believe Chesterton would also think it a tragedy that the unborn members of our own human race don't garner as much respect these days.

There is no mystery surrounding abortion. [National Geographic photo]