by Russ Rooney
Lucidity is the presumed capacity to perceive the truth directly and instantaneously.[1] In recent years researchers have looked at unexplained lucidity near the end of life, a condition known as terminal lucidity. Could there also be lucidity at the beginning of life?
The following physician testimony is just one ancectodotal example of terminal lucidity.[2] There are peer-reviewed medical studies that have provided strong evidence of a transcendent soul.[3]
We did not believe our eyes and ears. Kathe, who never spoke one word, entirely mentally disabled from birth on, sang the dying songs to herself. Specifically, she sang, “Where does the soul find its home, its peace? Peace, peace, heavenly peace!”…Then she quietly died…. I cannot explain this in medical terms. If demanded, I can prove by autopsy that…from an anatomical perspective, thinking could not have been possible.
Near Death Experience (NDE) studies have revealed patients blind from birth accurately reporting events requiring sight without a natural explaination.[4] If unexplained phenomena can occur at the end of life, then why not at the beginning?
Lucidity at the beginning of life, is“initial lucidity.” This lucidity could be a form of non-verbal communication. Here is an example from late-term abortionist, Warren Hern, M.D.: “The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.”[5] Hern refused my interview request. Some questions I would have asked: “What do you think caused the electric current sensations during a late-term abortion?” “Would you agree that the sensations were not from dead ‘Products of Conception?’” “Can we agree that what you felt was from a living human being?”
Below is testimony from another abortionist, Lisa Harris M.D., who experienced non-verbal communication from two nascent children; one was her own child. Here is the heartbreaking example of initial lucidity:
When I was a little over 18 weeks pregnant with my now preschool child, I did a second trimester abortion for a patient who was also a little over 18 weeks pregnant. As I reviewed her chart, I realized that I was more interested than usual in seeing the fetal parts when I was done, since they would so closely resemble those of my own fetus…I felt lucky that this one was already in breech position—It would make grasping small parts (legs and arms) a little easier. With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick a—fluttery “thump, thump” in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a “thump, thump” in my abdomen. Instantly tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by any training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life. Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier…dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.[6]
The baby nestled within the mother’s womb and the one being torn apart seemed to send a message. What happened has no obvious explanation, similar to terminal lucidity. The only difference is the stage of life when the inexplicable phenomena occur.
Perhaps the abortionist’s soul responded to the empathetic soul of her baby. The message that traveled from her hand could have been from the baby whose life force was being extinguished.
Harris has acknowledged the violence from late-term abortions after performing one on a 23-week baby and then treating a similar age newborn.
I thought to myself how bizarre it was that I could have legally dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it were inside its mother’s uterus – but that the same kind of violence against it now would be illegal, and unspeakable.[7]
She went on to say, “I consider declining a woman’s request for abortion also to be an act of unspeakable violence.” After the ongoing unjust mistreatment of women by more powerful men, it’s quite surprising a well-educated woman does not condemn all unjust violence. Harris acknowledges the contradiction of abortion and feminism.
In general feminism is a peaceful movement. It does not condone violent problem-solving, and opposes war and capital punishment. But abortion is a version of violence. What do we do with that contradiction?[8]
Initial lucidity may explain what Gianna Jessen experienced after an unsuccessful saline abortion. Saltwater (saline), as found in the ocean makes a crackling sound. At the age of four Gianna was with her family at a cabin and for the first time heard the crackling of a fire. She screamed in terror. “Two doctors conferred and concluded, ‘She is subconsciously reliving the abortion. The roaring and crackling sounds recapitulate the effect of the saline solution as it burned her in the womb.’” [9]
Hern stated “We reach a point…where there is no possibility of denial of an act of destruction by the operator. It is before one’s eyes.” Then he hints at what is beyond the physical: “No one who has not performed D & E [dilation and evacuation abortion] can know what it is like or what it means; but having performed it, we are bewildered by the possibilities of interpretation.”[10]
There is something that occurs, at the beginning of life, beyond any physical explanation. It is the mystery of initial lucidity.
[1] Lucidity Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster.
[2] https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc461761/m1/11/.
[3] See especially Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D., Science at the Doorstep to God, Science and Reason in Support of God, the Soul, and Life after Death (San Franscico: Ignatius Press, 2023).
[4] Ibid, 130–132.
[5] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271273425_What_about_us_Staff_reactions_to_D_E
Warren M. Hern, M.D., and Billie Corrigan, R.N., “What About Us? Staff Reactions to the D & E Procedure,” a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians, San Diego, California, (October 26, 1978).
[6] Lisa Harris, “Second Trimester Abortion Provision: Breaking the Silence and changing the Discourse,” Reproductive Health Matters (2008), 76.
[7] Lisa Harris, “Second Trimester Abortion Provision: Breaking the Silence and Changing the Discourse,” Reproductive Health Matters (2008), 77. (Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1016/S0968-8080%2808%2931396-2?needAccess=true ).
[8] Harris, “Second Trimester Abortion Provision,” 77.
[9] Jessica Shaver Renshaw and Gianna Jessen. Gianna, Aborted and Lived to Tell About it (Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1995), 38.
[10] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271273425_What_about_us_Staff_reactions_to_D_E