The Mother and Her Child | Page 7

months, almost every structure and organ necessary to life is present in a rudimentary state.
AT THE END OF THREE MONTHS
By the close of the third month, witness the work of creation! From the blending of the two germ cells there has come forth a beautifully formed body (Fig. 1). True, it is but three and one half inches in length, but it is nevertheless a perfect body. About this time, the sex may be determined. The eyes, nose, ears, chin, arms and legs and even the fingers and toes may all be clearly distinguished.
A "jelly mass" at three months? No, by no means! No! Life and form and features are all there. It really has a face, whose features may easily be delineated.
In all my experience, I have yet to find the woman who wished to continue in her wicked and criminal intent after she had listened to this story of the creative development of the first three months of her "child enmothered."
During the next four months, which take us to the close of the seventh, rapid growth and farther development take place to the extent, that, should birth occur at that time, life may continue under proper conditions.
LAST WEEKS OF PREGNANCY
Everything is now nearing completion--only awaiting further growth, development, and strength--except some of the bone development, which takes place during the remaining two months. Growth is rapid, strength is doubled, and as the two hundred and seventy-three days draw to a close, everything has been completed. It has all taken place according to the laws of creation in an infinite way and with clock-like precision.
With the developmental growth of the product of conception, the uterus or room that had been particularly prepared for the "big reception" of the second week, has also grown to great dimensions. It fills almost the entire abdomen and as a result of the pressure against the diaphragm the breathing is somewhat embarrassed.
The door of this "room" has been closed by a special mechanism, while, in the fullness of time, Mother Nature begins the delicate work of opening the door, through whose portals passes out into the world the completed babe.
The authors feel that this discussion of, and protest against, abortions, should be accompanied by an appropriate consideration of the control of pregnancy. We are never going to eliminate the abortion curse of present-day civilization by merely preaching against it--warnings and denouncements alone will not suffice to remove the stain. Notwithstanding our feelings and convictions in this respect, we are also well aware of the fact that public sentiment is not now sufficiently ripe to welcome such a full and frank discussion of the subject of the prevention of conception as the authors would feel called upon to present; we are equally cognizant of the fact that existing postal regulations and other Federal laws are of such a character (at least capable of such interpretation) as possibly to render even the scientific and dignified consideration of such subjects entirely out of question.
CHAPTER III
BIRTHMARKS AND PRENATAL INFLUENCE
In the preceding chapter we learned that when the two germ cells came together, there occurred a complete blending of two separate and distinct hereditary lines, reaching from the present away back into the dim and distant past. By the union of these two ancestral strains a new personality is formed, a new individual is created, with its own peculiar characteristics.
HEREDITARY TRAITS
Probably none of the laboriously acquired accomplishments of the present generation can be directly--and as such--handed down to our children. What we are to be and what we will do in this world was largely determined by the laws of heredity by the time we were well started on our development experience en-utero during the third or fourth week of our prenatal existence, as outlined in a former chapter.
It is now generally accepted in scientific circles that acquired characteristics are not transmissible. Someone has aptly stated this truth by saying that "wooden heads are inherited, but wooden legs are not." This does not by any means imply that we do not have power and ability to fashion our careers and carve out our own destiny, within the possible bounds of our hereditary endowment and environmental surroundings. Heredity does determine our "capital stock," but our own efforts and acts determine the interest and increase which we may derive from our natural endowment. From the moment conception takes place--the very instant when the two sex cells meet and blend--then and there "the gates of heredity are forever closed." From that time on we are dealing with the problems of nutrition, development, education, and environment; therefore, so-called prenatal influence can have nothing whatever to do with heredity.
A father may have acquired great talent as a physician or a surgeon, in fact he may hold the chair of surgery in a medical college,