in which the author makes claims as to the numerous nature of her cells

Disclaimer: I equate the antichoice (a.k.a. "pro-life") movement with the belief that women are incapable of making choices about what is best for ourselves and our families.

This evening I've come to lodge a protest against this image:

It has appeared a number of places, but most recently I saw it on a family member's facebook page with a caption that reads, "12 weeks gestation.....legal to kill in all 50 states.....is this a blob of cells to you?..."

First of all, my husband is a wise and loving man who warned me not to respond with the full extent of my reaction on my family member's post.  (Read: I did respond, but only to observe that the image has been photoshopped.)

Secondly, this image is obviously not a likeness of a human embryo at 12 weeks' gestation, and to state that it is negates, in my opinion, the very nature of the appeal being made: "Look at me, I'm so cute and fully formed, I'm clearly too adorable to scrape into a biohazard bag."  Bullshit.  If human embryos were this fully developed at 12 weeks, nobody would bother gestating for another 28 weeks.  If a 12 week fetus is valuable to you as a fully-fledged member of the human species, don't represent it in your appeal as something else entirely.  To do so is more than a concession that a 12 week fetus isn't actually terribly lovely, it's a tacit admission that a 12 week fetus, as it truly exists, is not worthy of legal protection.  Here's a real human fetus at approximately 12 weeks' gestation:

While possessed of many attributes that lead to the suspicion it might be en route to humanhood -- and while admittedly fascinating to contemplate at this stage of development -- this creature looks like a prop in a B horror movie based on radiation exposure.  It is decidedly un-cute.  And it'd be even less cute cradled in an adult human hand (due to the implication of its unceremonious removal from the womb, where it will likely remain until it manages to pack some flesh onto its scrawny limbs and perform some extensive remodeling of its cranial vault).  Abortion photographs, paradoxically, are a tactic employed by groups with the same goal as the misguided artist above, except that the products of abortion are never photoshopped into miniaturized adorableness.

This post will not enter into a diatribe on the right to choose (except for the strongly stated disclaimer above), but rather observes that to proffer a false image as testimony for a cause implies that the cause does not stand on its own merit but requires bolstering to attain viability.  Like a freaking 12 week fetus -- it requires a lot of bolstering to attain viability.

We're all freaking blobs of cells.  Some of us have just amassed a larger collection than others.