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About a baby’s development at 15 weeks, from InfoBaby:
“This stage is very special, because many important organs of the fetal starts to develop. Central nervous system is developing, in the future it will have to control the whole body. The process of the development of the cerebral cortex and the division of nerve cells lasts one month. Therefore, you have to treat yourself very gently and carefully during the pregnancy.
The taste buds are already formed; the fetus now can clearly distinguish the taste of the mother’s food. If the fetus is male, at this term he starts to produce testosterone (male hormone).
At fifteen weeks the baby’s cardio-vascular system is developing rapidly, you can even see the vessels. The transparent skin of the fetus acquires reddish or pinkish color. The pigment of the hair color starts to appear. The heart is able to pump 20 liters of blood per day.
The intestines start to function well receiving the bile secreted by the liver, then feces are produced. The kidneys function well, and the fetus often exerts the urine in the amniotic fluids.
At the fifteenth week, lungs are developing through swallowing and spitting water. All the muscles of the baby are also developing actively. The glottis is now open as the voice cords are already formed.
The baby’s bones are growing and starting to get harder. The baby begins to move, turns and bump, opens and closes her fists, which contributes to the active development of joints and muscles. The hair begins to grow and thicken, the eye brows and eye lashes are forming and become visible.”
From The Guardian: Mississippi’s governor has signed the nation’s tightest abortion restrictions into law.
Governor Phil Bryant, a Republican, signed House Bill 1510 on Monday afternoon. It becomes law immediately and bans most abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation. Bryant has frequently said he wants Mississippi to be the “safest place in America for an unborn child”.
The law’s only exceptions are if a fetus has health problems making it “incompatible with life” outside the womb at full term, or if a pregnant woman’s life or a “major bodily function” is threatened by pregnancy. Pregnancies resulting from rape and incest are not exempted.
Abortion rights advocates are calling the law unconstitutional because it limits abortion before fetuses can live outside the womb. The owner of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, Diane Derzis, opposes the law and has pledged to sue.
Derzis said after the state legislature passed the bill earlier this month that if the governor signed it – adding: “Phil Bryant has never seen an abortion bill he didn’t like” – her clinic would be forced to turn away women who seek abortions after 15 weeks and refer them out of state, where the number of clinics is also dwindling in the face of legal and legislative challenges by a resurgent anti-abortion, religious right movement.
A legal challenge could set up a supreme court showdown over the 45-year-old landmark Roe v Wade case that legalized abortion in the US in 1973.
Mississippi, a relatively poor state, has the highest infant mortality rate and worst overall ranking in the nation for children and infant care, according to the 2018 Health of Women and Children report published earlier this month by America’s Health Rankings, which has been publishing an annual state-by-state assessment for nearly 30 years, according to Newsweek.
(So why include the above? To justify keeping abortion legal at any time so one doesn’t have to raise a child in a poor state?)
Along with shortening the window in which a woman can seek to have an abortion, the law, also known as the Gestational Age Act, also says a person found guilty of performing an abortion after 15 weeks of gestation will face a felony conviction and up to 10 years in prison and could have their medical license suspended or revoked. Before the new law, Mississippi banned abortion after 18 weeks of gestation.
DCG