Photo by Elena Mirus
Alexander Spieldenner
Staff Writer
Franciscan embryology professor Derek Doroski, who holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering, gave a talk about the fundamental science and ethics of abortion in the Gentile Gallery Thursday at 7 pm.
Doroski spoke for about an hour, detailing the realities of abortion in today’s culture and the effect abortion has on the baby and the mother. If people want to have a meaningful conversation about abortion, he said, they must understand what it is.
Doroski addressed the development of a fetus, pointing out that the difference between an unborn baby and a born baby is similar to the difference between a child and an adult, not the difference between two animals. Thus, he said, one cannot argue that an unborn baby is less human than a baby who has been born.
Doroski then explained how the most common abortion procedures work, and played a video describing one of them. Each description was accompanied with diagrams to show what happened to the mother and the child, and Doroski gave statistics to provide context of just how many babies were aborted in a year compared to how many people die from other causes.
After that, he addressed the argument that abortions are necessary for health reasons. First of all, he said, abortions are not medical procedures.
“None of the (abortion) procedures help the body to work better,” Doroski said.
He then said that only 4% of abortions happen for health reasons at all, and brought up a case study to examine the necessity for abortion in such cases.
Finally, Doroski pointed out that the vast majority of biologists, even pro-abortion biologists, agree that life begins at conception.
After this, he answered a few questions, which ranged from the best arguments for abortions, the potential moral justifications for abortions and how one who is against abortion can change the minds of those who support it.
Throughout his talk, Doroski periodically mentioned that anyone who was interested in learning more should take his embryology class or come to his office hours.