Dan Arthur Pryor
Abortion in a petri dish
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By Dan Arthur Pryor
August 1, 2026

In the states that allow abortion past viability Planned Parenthood has no qualms about dismembering human life in the most tragic way, i.e., piece by piece from the mother's womb. Up to a certain point before viability abortion is still tragically done. The little human fetus is sucked out whole, beating heart and all. Do I have your attention?

Before Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion was outright illegal in 30 states and all but four of the other states had severe restrictions on abortions. Planned Parenthood was forced to have a modicum of scruples. Before Roe mandated abortion legality in all 50 states Planned Parenthood couldn't be in their current wholesale, hellbent mission of rampant abortion services. Before Roe, Planned Parenthood even spoke the truth about abortion's end result. At least up to 1963, Planned Parenthood issued their pamphlet stating: "Abortion kills the life of the baby after it has begun. It (abortion) is dangerous to your life and health. It (abortion) may make you sterile so that when you want a child you cannot have it."

After Roe v. Wade was implemented Planned Parenthood began to conduct abortion with the lucrative engineering they have perfected to this day. Each year Planned Parenthood receives hundreds of millions of fungible federal dollars. Honestly, their core mission is abortion. Those other "services" are only done to pad the billing sequence. Generally speaking, women get those other "services" at Planned Parenthood only to get an abortion if they are pregnant. Studies show that the majority of women are pressured to get an abortion by the many people close to them.

In order to sanitize the atrocities of abortion Planned Parenthood had to abandon the graphic truth they used to acknowledge and therefore obfuscate the definition of abortion. Now Planned Parenthood calls the abortion procedure removing the "products of conception" or removing "uterine matter." Planned Parenthood has cast aside "Abortion kills the life of the baby" that was in their 1963 pamphlet.

So, Planned Parenthood has sanitized abortion with language. But now abortion has been "medically" sanitized too. Look no further than In Vitro Fertilization. IVF is the science of joining female human eggs and male human sperm in petri dishes. "In vitro" comes from Latin and means "in glass." A human embryo is created (conceived) in a petri dish. In Latin the opposite is "in vivo," which means "in a living organism." A human embryo is conceived naturally in a woman's womb. In reality, intrinsic human life begins at conception whether in the mother's womb or the petri dish, and to destroy human life at any time after conception is morally wrong (abortion). The location of human life conception (natural setting or artificial setting) does not detract from the embryo's inheritance to the human race and to God.

The in vitro fertilization industry makes a ton of money, but not for Planned Parenthood. Not only that, one woman utilizing IVF causes more abortion than one abortion patient at Planned Parenthood. It can be understood that one IVF cycle destroys more human lives than one abortion at Planned Parenthood. One IVF cycle conceives multiple human lives and the majority of those human lives will eventually be destroyed in order to allow one life to be brought to full term pregnancy and birth. Human life is connatural to humanity at the moment of conception whether conceived in the mother's womb or a petri dish. Hence, one IVF cycle destroys several human lives compared to the one human life that an IVF cycle brings to fruition.

The IVF cycle begins when the woman is given medicine for multiple ovarian eggs to be produced at one time. The eggs are collected and fertilized with the man's semen in laboratory petri dishes. These moments of fertilization create embryos that are real human beings with all the unique DNA present that has already determined eye color, hair color, race, etc. (exactly the same unique DNA sequencing as naturally occurring in the conjugal marital act at conception). These embryos are developed in an incubator until they reach a stage where a small sample from each embryo can be removed. These samples are tested for genetic quality. Any embryos that are considered "defective" are "discarded." Hence, abortion in a petri dish. These embryos are indeed intrinsic human lives in their tiniest form and they are not "discarded" but they are aborted human lives. Then, some of the "good" embryos are transferred to the woman's womb to increase the likelihood of one embryo implanting in the uterus. Sometimes multiple embryos implant in the uterus and a surgical procedure called fetal reduction is used to reduce fewer babies. The result? More human lives are aborted. On a year-by-year basis IVF aborts more human life than Planned Parenthood. In retrospect, the IVF industry is more pro-abortive (and destructive) than Planned Parenthood.

The secular boundaries surrounding IVF as completely benevolent to life have weakened. In February of 2024 the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos (of IVF) are considered children under state law. The decision that frozen embryos are children came from a wrongful death suit brought by three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic. The Alabama justices, citing pro-life language in the Alabama Constitution, ruled that an 1872 state law allowing parents to sue over the death of a minor child "applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location." These couples sued the clinic under Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, allowing parents to sue for damages if the minor child's death is "caused by the wrongful act, omission, or negligence of any person."

The Supreme Court of Alabama has already ruled in 2011 and 2012 that an unborn child (in a natural setting) at every stage of development qualifies as a "minor child" in the Wrongful Death of a Child Act. In this 2024 ruling, the Alabama Court decided there was an "unwritten exception" based on location, i.e., an embryo in a petri dish has equal protection under the Act as an embryo in the mother's womb.

Then it's no wonder when Roe v. Wade fell in 2022, Alabama revived and enacted some of the most restrictive anti-abortion state laws in America. In Alabama, the unintentional destruction of embryos at a fertility clinic is the accidental death of children. I think the Alabama Supreme Court would wholly agree the intentional destruction of embryos in a fertility clinic is abortion. Maybe the Alabama Supreme Court will someday decide the IVF industry in Alabama is replete with intentional abortion. The Catholic Church already teaches the IVF industry is rife with abortion and Catholics are not allowed to have any usage, participation or connection to the industry.

© Dan Arthur Pryor

 

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Dan Arthur Pryor

Any writing skill I have comes from determination and perseverance. I began by writing letters to editors of local newspapers, always from a conservative or religious perspective. From 2011 to date, I've had 360-plus letters printed mostly in various daily newspapers. A general range of topics covers religious freedom, abortion, LGBTQ issues, and politics.

I have two small books in print through Dorrance Publishing: "Bible Letters to the Public Editor" and "Scripture Letters in the Public Square." My third book with Dorrance, "Culture War Letters in the Public Forum" (260 pages), is very near completion. This third book relies much less on biblical references applied to the modern world.


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