Is this real? Anti-abortion Propaganda

[SpeakNow]

It popped up on my newsfeed. Was Comfort and the gang lying?

http://www.onthebox.us/2012/07/jake-was ... cells.html

[Arete]

The picture has to be a hoax, or she was lying about how far along she was. Fetuses do not have differentiated genetalia at 13 weeks.

[SpeakNow]

The picture has to be a hoax, or she was lying about how far along she was. Fetuses do not have differentiated genetalia at 13 weeks.

That's kind of what I thought, but I'm not the most knowledgable about fetal development

[Guest Anonymous]

I can't find any information about this specific case that is not from similar pro-life propaganda sites.

In terms of fetal development, 13 weeks should be this (according to babycenter.com):

Fingerprints have formed on your baby's tiny fingertips, her veins and organs are clearly visible through her still-thin skin, and her body is starting to catch up with her head — which makes up just a third of her body size now. If you're having a girl, she now has more than 2 million eggs in her ovaries. Your baby is almost 3 inches long (the size of a medium shrimp) and weighs nearly an ounce.

I don't know how well that compares.

If this was a real photo, the woman would have had to wash and prepare that foetus for the photograph. I'm not a mother, and I have never been pregnant or miscarried, so is that normal? I can imagine grieving a miscarriage, however far along the pregnancy, so I can't imagine using that miscarriage to prove a political point.

[Coconut Flan]

This website has photos so you can see the development that would normally be present at 13 weeks.

http://www.baby2see.com/gender/external_genitals.html

[VVV]

She might have been able to tell.

http://www.baby2see.com/development/week13.html

[Arete]

This website has photos so you can see the development that would normally be present at 13 weeks.

http://www.baby2see.com/gender/external_genitals.html

My question is whether it actually is a fetus or a reproduction.

Edited because I was comparing it to the wrong aged pictures in the link.

[Coconut Flan]

The writing seems rather calm and the detail of miscarrying at Target is odd to me. I always had spotting and cramping for hours if not days ahead of time and no way would I have been merrily trotting around Target shopping and just plopped out a miscarriage. But her experience may just have been very different from mine.

[tropaka]

I miscarried at this time period and nothing recognizable came out at this time. It could happen, I guess, but we'd have to defer to the medical folks.

[AnnieC 305]

I kind of suspect that we might be looking at a micro-preemie doll in a wet dish.

http://www.godslittleones.com/micropreemies.html

I lost my last one at about 13-14 weeks. It looked a lot like the picture Abigail put up, tethered to what looked like a lily pad by a long cord. Turns out that was the umbilical cord and placenta. I had to fish it out of my own toilet, which was unpleasant enough, and drop it into a leftovers container all the while going through labor pains* and trying not to spread gore everywhere, just to take it to the ER so they could confirm that yes, it was a miscarriage and finally figured out why I kept having them.

I refuse to believe she went through labor and delivery in Target, or that she then fished it out of a bloody public restroom stall only to bring it home and clean it up to share with the rest of it. I had cramps/labor pains for a good 24 hours every time and more blood loss than I care to think about. I call bullshit.

*They don't tell you that according to uterus a miscarriage and delivery are the same dammed thing. Your vagina doesn't have to go through as much, but your uterine muscles can't tell the difference.

[bafleyanne]

That website freaks me out. Maybe I'm being insensitive but I can't imagine what comfort it would bring to a mother who has suffered a miscarriage to have a teeny tiny smaller than a gummi bear "doll" of her 6 weeks gestation fetus.

[Arete]

I kind of suspect that we might be looking at a micro-preemie doll in a wet dish.

http://www.godslittleones.com/micropreemies.html

I lost my last one at about 13-14 weeks. It looked a lot like the picture Abigail put up, tethered to what looked like a lily pad by a long cord. Turns out that was the umbilical cord and placenta. I had to fish it out of my own toilet, which was unpleasant enough, and drop it into a leftovers container all the while going through labor pains* and trying not to spread gore everywhere, just to take it to the ER so they could confirm that yes, it was a miscarriage and finally figured out why I kept having them.

I refuse to believe she went through labor and delivery in Target, or that she then fished it out of a bloody public restroom stall only to bring it home and clean it up to share with the rest of it. I had cramps/labor pains for a good 24 hours every time and more blood loss than I care to think about. I call bullshit.

*They don't tell you that according to uterus a miscarriage and delivery are the same dammed thing. Your vagina doesn't have to go through as much, but your uterine muscles can't tell the difference.

Holy hell, that site is creepy. Who makes stuff like that?*shudders*

[Coconut Flan]

Those dolls are freaky.

[Minerva]

13 weeks may be accurate. According to babycenter, 13 week fetuses are about 3 inches crown to rump. You can't see their sex on an ultrasound just yet, but according to this: http://www.baby2see.com/gender/external_genitals.html (really scholarly source, I know...) fetuses have the precursor of a penis or clitoris pretty early on. However, Tony Miano is full of shit when he says it's a boy. A fetal penis and a fetal clitoris both look like that at that stage.

And while Leslie has my full sympathy for her miscarriage, it's pretty silly of her to assume that someone who's been to med school doesn't know what a 13 week fetus looks like. (Then again, if she's in the Ray Comfort crowd, maybe she's never been acquainted with the formal education system.) It only takes a little critical thinking to be like "hey, it's dead obvious that nobody actually thinks a fetus looks like a blastocyst through all 9 months of pregnancy, maybe they mean something else by 'clump of cells'". But no, they have to resurrect and beat that strawman to death as often as they can because, hey, what else do you do when you don't have an actual argument? Never mind the fact that "it's a person because look how humanoid it is!!1!1!!" contradicts "it's a person the moment the sperm hits the egg!!!!!1!!!"

As for people's miscarriages not looking like that, anti-abortion people, when using what they consider their child's corpse to make a political statement, will sometimes dig through the...products until they find the fetus for the photoshoot. Come to think of it, that's probably what Leslie's doctor meant - that she'd pass a clump of tissue. Had she not dug through it, she would have seen just that, but that was her decision to make. I've seen some scary micropreemie dolls, but never that scary. I'm leaning towards real.

Edited because punctuation isn't my strong suit late at night.

[Arete]

Thanks Minerva. I just never trust these photographs or "preserved" fetuses that they pull out in front of clinics because they have faked so many of them.

[keeperrox]

*They don't tell you that according to uterus a miscarriage and delivery are the same dammed thing. Your vagina doesn't have to go through as much, but your uterine muscles can't tell the difference.

Thankfully, I was pretty much told this, which is one of the main reasons I chose a d&c. I already had to deal with the fact I went from 2 healthy fetuses to no heartbeats in just a couple of days. I was not going to deal with labor on top of that. (This is another thing I worry about when it comes to Anti-abortion Legislation... I am so thankful that I had that option and I fear that somehow, some day, that choice could be taken away, too.)

I'm finding it hard to believe that a fetus, miscarried in Target, fished out of the toilet, and somehow carried home to photograph would be that clean and intact. I'm having no problem believing, however, that some anti-choice crazy would buy/make a model to pass off on the internet as an aborted fetus. As a woman who miscarried only 3 weeks ago, I find it horrifyingly insulting.

[Arete]

I'm so sorry keeperrox.

[Minerva]

Thanks Minerva. I just never trust these photographs or "preserved" fetuses that they pull out in front of clinics because they have faked so many of them.

Yeah. It's hard to describe, but you can tell when they're fake/used dishonestly. Edited to put the rest under a spoiler because not everyone who's had a miscarriage necessarily wants to read Minerva's guide to anti-abortion signs. I'm sorry for your loss, keeperrox.

Sometimes it's common sense, like when they try to pass a 12 week fetus for an 8 week one, or a baby with a full head of hair that's just been shrunk in photoshop. Or "Malachi", whose body was found rotting in a jar by anti-choicers who broke into the medical building where it was stored. It's impossible to tell how Malachi died and how much of the damage was due to decomposition, but anti-choicers pass him as an aborted fetus on their signs all the time. Other times you can just tell it's fake, or someone's stillbirth that they felt the need to show the world.

[jafrmano]

Long time lurker who is coming out of hiding to say that fetus looks to have the same features as my loss did at 16w4d. I had to go through the delivery because the Dr thought it would be safer based on a blood disorder I have. The fetus measured 13w5d but we know he was older based on previous exam a week before where we saw a heartbeat. The size and features in her picture are almost identical to mine.

Thank you.....now back to lurking.

[Coconut Flan]

So very sorry, keeperrox.

[keeperrox]

I'm so sorry keeperrox.

Oh, I'm fine. It's just that when the Anti-Choicers co-opt something so personal and polarizing, and bastardize it like this, I just get infuriated. Now that it's happened to me, a whole additional level has been added. These people disgust me.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

I must be cold-hearted, because while I don't see a clump of cells in the technical definition, I also don't see a viable human being.

[keeperrox]

I must be cold-hearted, because while I don't see a clump of cells in the technical definition, I also don't see a viable human being.

[rezski44]

When I miscarried at 10 wks de to a blighted ovum there was a baseball sized sack that came out of me and no fetus whatsoever. I had been bleeding for a few weeks as well. I always felt that the early pregnancy was potential life but not atual life yet. I mourned a lost chance but not a lost baby. The miscarriage actually gave me hope as I had been trying unsuccsessfully to get pregnant for a while and at least I now knew I could. I was still nursing #1 son which was the real reason it was hard to conceive. A month later I became pregnant with my second son who wouldn't have existed without the intervening miscarriage.

[Chowder Head]

I can not imagine doing what she said she did. I had a miscarriage at 8 weeks. It took me years to say it outloud. I remember bleeding for a long while and cramping. I just cant fathom. But in my opinion..the pics dont match. The coloring is different from pic 1 to pic 2. The first pic has a lot of what looks like bruising. Plus, he is a little big and real preserved for all that traveling from store to home.