What Does a 9-Week-Old Baby Look Like? California Representative Lies About It

A “Pregnancy” at 9 Weeks?

Here’s what he tweeted:

He wrote:

Below is pregnancy at 9 weeks.

Is that true? Well, Rep. Lieu is a Democrat and most Democrats pride themselves on being the party of “science,” so of course what he tweeted was scientifically accurate, right? Now, our artists here at Answers in Genesis spent months researching the scientific literature and consulting with our staff anatomist (before he sadly passed away), who taught medical students at Washington University School of Medicine for 34 years, so they could carefully sculpt babies at various stages of development for our gorgeous and powerful Fearfully and Wonderfully Made pro-life exhibit at the Creation Museum. Here’s what they sculpted as a nine-week-old baby. You may notice a few differences from Lieu’s picture:

There are just a few differences, right? Yes, Rep. Lieu is bald-faced lying to his 1.6 million Twitter followers about the humanity of the unborn—so much for being “pro-science,” right? The photo he tweeted is not the remains of a baby (which he callously refers to by the dehumanizing term “pregnancy”) in a petri dish. As others have pointed out, it appears to be the gestational sac that the baby lives in, but the baby itself is missing from the photo! And this isn’t just ignorance. Despite many pointing out to him that what is in that dish is not a 9-week-old baby, he doubled-down on his deception with another tweet:

Again, he is lying. That’s not what a six, seven, eight, or nine-week-old baby looks like. Here is what a baby actually looks like at 28 days of life—that’s the six-week gestational age of the youngest “baby” he supposedly shared a picture of:

That Baby Has Fingers, Toes, and Taste Buds!

Pro-death activists aren’t concerned with the truth—they will often lie because they want women to be deceived into thinking they are just removing a “pregnancy” or merely a blob of tissue, not a baby.

Pro-death activists aren’t concerned with the truth—they will often lie because they want women to be deceived into thinking they are just removing a “pregnancy” or merely a blob of tissue, not a baby. Their baby. Their baby who at nine weeks isn’t a clump of white tissue but is a baby with:

• Tiny fingers and toes
• All his or her major organs
• Tiny eyelids
• Reproductive organs
• Tastebuds

The abortion pill that Rep. Lieu desperately wants to keep legal kills that tiny baby by cutting off his or her food and oxygen supply. But to make this crime seem less heinous, he dehumanizes the baby—the same tactic evil men have used throughout history to get the masses to accept the killing (such as the Holocaust of the 1940s) or enslavement of any particular people. It’s evil, and the Lord hates it.

There are six things that the Lord hates,
    seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
    and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
    feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
    and one who sows discord among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16–19, emphasis mine)

“Are Those Human Beings?”

Lieu asks, “Are those pictures of human beings? I don’t know.” Well, I have a thought experiment for him that my friend Mark Spence, senior vice president of the Living Waters ministry, shared with a staff member. (This is an analogy they use in their excellent film that’s releasing next month, What Is It?; I encourage you to support this pro-life film!) Mark said,

Suppose you’re in charge of demolishing a building. Right before you hit the button to blow it up, you see a flicker of movement in an upstairs window. It could be a shadow or a curtain fluttering in the breeze. But you can’t be sure. Do you hit the button and blow up the building or do you stop and make sure there’s no one in the building? Any sane human would stop and make sure!

I would say the same thing to Lieu. If you don’t know when a human life begins, don’t just plow ahead, condoning the killing of human beings. Stop and research the question—figure it out!

Appearance Doesn’t Determine Humanity

One’s appearance doesn’t determine one’s humanity!

I can even help him figure it out! Rep. Lieu: one’s appearance does not determine one’s humanity! You see, ultimately, it doesn’t even matter whether a baby at nine weeks’ gestation “looks” like a baby or not. If Lieu’s pictures were what a baby actually did look like (which they are not), would that ultimately matter to the question of abortion? No!

A newborn doesn’t look like an adult, but that in no way means he or she is less human than an adult. Past generations claimed that those with a dark shade of skin were not fully human and could be enslaved and treated like animals. But, I’ll repeat myself: one’s appearance in no way determines their humanity.

And, by the way, neither does one’s level of development. A newborn is less developed and more dependent on his or her mother or father than a toddler, but that in no way makes that newborn less human. Life is a continuum of development from fertilized egg through birth and through the newborn, toddler, preschooler, and elementary ages and so on until natural death. Level of development doesn’t determine one’s humanity!

But you know what does? The words of our Creator:

For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13–16)

A human life begins right at the moment of fertilization, when an egg and sperm come together (right then, you have all the information that makes you you, and no new information is added after that—a person exists right from that moment!), because our Creator says “[I] knitted [you] together in [your] mother’s womb.” Yes, you were you even before you were born.

Life begins at fertilization because our Creator, the ultimate authority, says so.

Get More Answers on Answers News

This item was discussed today on Answers News with cohosts Dr. Kaia Kloster, Tim Chaffey, and Rob Webb. Answers News is our weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum and broadcast on my Facebook page and the Answers in Genesis Facebook page. We also covered the following topics:

• Children—are they “property”?
• Where did earth’s water come from?
• Are the oldest bats still bats?
• And more!

Be sure to join us each Monday at 2 p.m. (ET) on my Facebook page or the Answers in Genesis Facebook page for Answers News. You won’t want to miss this unique news program that gives science and culture news from a distinctly biblical and Christian perspective.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.