Quotes & Sayings About Fetus

I'm honestly perplexed about the distinction represented by the cervical wall. On one side, people should be prosecuted if they do anything to harm the fetus, but once on the outside, sorry kid, whatever happens happens. You're on your own. — Jennifer Granholm

Does the unborn human fetus have at any point the right to live? — Dennis Prager

Twenty-five?" Shawn squawked, horrified. "Good Lord, he's a fetus! — Erin McCarthy

you'll see each fetus wizen up inside its fertile womb. Yet drip it into the veins of Congress or a Corporation, just watch those Mountain Men outwrestle steers, gulping their liquid god go wildly enthusiastic so they can write laws in stone with one hand while joysticking lovers with the other, sacking Montana and out-dunking Jordan, out-leveraging - who was it, Archimedes, popped the world's blue eyeball into a Swiss snowbank? See, ghettoites, how sociable our masters are, these Bacchanalians, never alcoholic, immune in suburbs where bad sex has died and gone to heaven, no AIDS, no illegitimate children, all the schools have classic curricula and every personal fetus will be delivered right on time, uncorked like Chateauneuf du Pape, unscrewed like Southern Comfort to gurgle on its snowy tablecloth, caress with rosy fingers its parents' egos and become a tax loophole. Classic, ah Classic these Metamorphoses — MariJo Moore

You're not expecting, are you? (Jack)
No! (Syd)
Good, 'cause there's enough radon down there to give a fetus three heads. I don't want to be responsible for none of that. I only believe in corruption the ones what come out of the womb and grow to at least five feet in height. (Jack) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

It was autumn, the springtime of death. Rain spattered the rotting leaves, and a wild wind wailed. Death was singing in the shower. Death was happy to be alive. The fetus bailed out without a parachute. It landed in the sideline Astroturf, so upsetting the cheerleaders that for the remained of the afternoon their rahs were more like squeaks. — Tom Robbins

I inevitably felt like a fetus with eyeliner in comparison. — Mamrie Hart

Scientifically, there's no debate over whether the fetus is alive and human. — Ron Paul

There are those wonderful moments of clarity in life when one is reminded how irreparably flawed we humans are. Once, when I was nineteen, on the subway in Boston I lost my balance slightly and bumped into an elderly woman. I quickly apologized and she replied, "Well, hold on to something, stupid." There it is. That's it. That's it in a nutshell. I don't want to sound negative, but I think every fetus should be shown a film of that incident, maybe projected up on the uterine wall, and then asked if it wants to come out. I am a strong believer in a woman's right to choose, but I also think that in the last trimester, the kid should be given every opportunity to back out. — Paula Poundstone

And isn't it actually unbelievable that one simple name encompasses all of this? The fetus in the belly, the infant on the changing table, the forty-year-old in front of the computer, the old man in the chair, the corpse on the bench? — Karl Ove Knausgard

Here's a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life - possessive, even. You know more about him than his father and mother; they knew his fetus, but you know his corpse. Only you can complete the story of his life, only you know why his body has to be pushed into the fire before its time, and why his toes curl up and fight for another hour on earth. — Aravind Adiga

The measure would set criminal penalties, the same as those that would apply if harm or death happened to the pregnant woman, for those who harm a fetus. — Ken Calvert

My kids learned to color on this table. There's been a lot that's went around this table. Waylon Jennings sat right there in that chair and showed Miley the chords to 'Good Hearted Woman.' Sitting in that chair. This table's a bit like life. It's a circle. And I believe everything in life is a circle. You come into this world a little teeny wrinkled-up fetus — Billy Ray Cyrus

I think you better hurry along with that French toast making, Stud. You know - before my fetus eats your face."
"It would be equally as delicious. — Pella Grace

Statutes that curtail her abortion choice are disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state's asserted interest. — Dawn Johnsen

We would not think of allowing a man to determine a woman's life merely because a fetus he helped create was in her womb; then why would we allow a woman to determine a man's life merely because a fetus he helped create is in her womb? — Warren Farrell

People should be entrusted with their own lives. People must be independent in every respect. No one should own anything. Property should be free like people are. The roads should not belong to any one person, in order to stop someone from collecting tolls from travelers. A priest shouldn't take a toll for prayers. A farmhand shouldn't take a toll for the fruits of the earth. The phone company shouldn't take a toll for conversations. Totally free of charge, like the fetus's time inside the mother continues to be after its birth. — Kristin Omarsdottir

You named him Fetus? You know in Latin Fetus means happy? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon? — Rick Riordan

If I were president, I would turn the tables and allow the fetus to abort its mother. — David Sedaris

[I]t is more than slightly ironic that Democrats, the fiercely pro-choice party, reserve free choice for aborting a fetus, while denying it for such matters as choosing your child's school or joining a union. — Charles Krauthammer

There's a difference between early and late abortions. If you have a late abortion, where the fetus might feel pain, then I think you should have a good reason. Because then you're inflicting pain. As you go through the third trimester, you need to have more serious reasons to end a pregnancy. — Peter Singer

Such a strange thing. What was terrible for a healthy fetus has been wonderful at defeating the cancer cells. — Geraldine Ferraro

Defenders of the morality of abortion are usually defenders of early abortion: abortion of the embryo or of a fetus well before it is viable outside the womb, usually in the first trimester. That is, they are defenders of the morality of removing from a mother a group of cells that is not an independent, viable, and recognizable human being. Opponents — George Lakoff

These same people who tell us we must defend the lives of the unborn-they are the same people who seem not so interested in defending anyone but themselves after the accident of birth is complete! These same people who profess their love of the unborn's soul-they don't care to make much of a contribution to the poor, they don't care to offer much assistance to the unwanted or the oppressed! How do they justify such a concern for the fetus and such a lack of concern for unwanted and abused children? They condemn others for the accident of conception; they condemn the poor-as if the poor can help being poor. One way the poor could help themselves would be to be in control of the size of their families. I thought that freedom of choice was obviously democratic-was obviously American! — John Irving

Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you,' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a birth certificate. And afterward, your milk comes in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.' She looked up at me. 'You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever. I know I didn't do the wrong thing. But I don't feel like I did the right thing, either. — Jodi Picoult

Same first name as a president and an obscure comic book character. Half-Jewish. Excellent grammar. Easily nauseated. Likes Reese's and Oreos (i.e. not an idiot). Divorced parents. Big brother to a fetus. Dad lives in Savannah. Dad's an English teacher. Mom's an epidemiologist.
The problem is, I'm beginning to realize I hardly know anything about anyone. I mean I generally know who's a virgin. But I don't have a clue whether most people's parents are divorced, or what their parents do for a living. I mean, Nick's parents are doctors. But I don't know what Leah's mom does, and I don't even know what the deal is with her dad, because Leah never talks about him. I have no idea why Abby's dad and brother still live in DC. And these are my best friends. I've always thought of myself as nosy, but I guess I'm just nosy about stupid stuff.
It's actually really terrible, now that I think about it. — Becky Albertalli

If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, then in a field, ... it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light. — John Calvin

Each has a placard hung around his neck to show why he has been executed: a drawing of a human fetus. They — Margaret Atwood

Upon learning that her cancer had spread to her spine, Paula prepared her thirteen year-old son for her death by writing him a letter of farewell that moved me to years. In her final paragraph she reminded him that the lungs in the human fetus do not breathe, nor do it's eyes see. Thus, the embryo is being prepared for an existence it cannot yet imagine — Irvin D. Yalom

She who has intentionally destroyed [the fetus] is subject to the penalty corresponding to a homicide. For us, there is no scrutinizing between the formed and unformed [fetus]; here truly justice is made not only for the unborn but also with reference to the person who is attentive only to himself/herself since so many women generally die for this very reason.. — Saint Basil

They warn us when we're kids that we're going to have to suffer, but they neglect to mention the indignity. What self-respecting fetus, if shown its future as a proctology patient, boot-camp recruit, or game show contestant, would still elect to be born? — Tom Robbins

On a low coffee table, with circular and semicircular stains bitten into the dark veneer, lay a few wilted numbers of Time and Life. I flipped to the middle of the nearest magazine. The face of Eisenhower beamed up at me, bald and blank as the face of a fetus in a bottle. — Sylvia Plath

Tahiya hote pavan nahin pani, tahiya srishti kown utpati;
tahiya hote kali nahin phula, tahiya hote garbh nahi mula;
tahiya hote vidya nahin Veda, tahiya hote shabd nahin swada;
tahiya hote pind nahin basu,
nahin dhar dharni na pavan akasu;
tahiya hote guru nahin chela, gamya agamya na panth duhela.
Sakhi: avigati ki gati ka kahown, jake gawn na thawn
gun bihuna pekhana, ka kahi lijai nawn
In that state there is no air or water, and no creation or creator; There is no bud or flower, and no fetus or semen; There is no education or Vedas, and no word or taste; There is no body or settlement, and no earth, air or space; There is no guru or disciple, and no easy or difficult path.
Sakhi: That state is very strange. I cannot explain it. It has no village or resting place. That state is without gunas (qualities). What name can on give it? — Kabir

In vacuum one has no need for new things, nor of excitement, nor of foreign stimuli. One has only to maintain a bare survival, to vegetate, like a fetus in a jar. — Henry Miller

It is said that life begins when the fetus can exist apart from its mother. By this definition, many people in Hollywood are legally dead. — Jay Leno

The Great Mother aborts children, and is the dead fetus; breeds pestilence, and is the plague; she makes of the skull something gruesomely compelling, and is all skulls herself. To unveil her is to risk madness, to gaze over the abyss, to lose the way, to remember the repressed trauma. She is the molestor of children, the golem, the bogey-man, the monster in the swamp, the rotting cadaverous zombie who threatens the living. She is progenitor of the devil, the "strange son of chaos." She is the serpent, and Eve, the temptress; she is the femme fatale, the insect in the ointment, the hidden cancer, the chronic sickness, the plague of locusts, the cause of drought, the poisoned water. She uses erotic pleasure as bait to keep the world alive and breeding; she is a gothic monster, who feeds on the blood of the living. — Jordan B. Peterson

The rights of children as individuals begin while yet the remain the fetus ... I hold abortion to be just as much murder as the killing of a person after birth is murder. — Victoria Claflin Woodhull

It's kinda cool to think about you as a real person, instead of some fetus ghost. — Hillary Frank

The exact science of one molecule transformed into another
that Mabel could not explain, but then again she couldn't explain how a fetus formed in the womb, cells becoming beating heart and hoping soul. She could not fathom the hexagonal miracle of snowflakes formed from clouds, crystallized fern and feather that tumble down to light on a coat sleeve, white stars melting even as they strike. How did such force and beauty come to be in something so small and fleeting and unknowable? — Eowyn Ivey

I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a former organ harvester describe a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. — Carly Fiorina

What happened in that cold dark, when frost formed a halo in the child's straw hair and snowflake turned to flesh and bone? Was it the way the children's book showed, warmth spreading down through the cold, brow then cheeks, throat then lungs, warm flesh separating from snow and frozen earth? The exact science of one molecule transformed into another-that Mabel could not explain, but then again she couldn't explain how a fetus formed in the womb, cells becoming beating heart and hoping soul. — Eowyn Ivey

So the time line of when we consider a fetus 'human' is arbitrary after conception. — Ron Paul

Only the mouth-hole piped out, Importunate cricket In a quarry of silences. The people of the city heard it. They hunted the stones, taciturn and separate, The mouth-hole crying their locations. Drunk as a fetus I suck at the paps of darkness. The food tubes embrace me. Sponges kiss my lichens away. The jewelmaster drives his chisel to pry Open one stone eye. This is the after-hell: I see the light. A wind unstoppers the chamber — Sylvia Plath

On the drive home I continue to try and jar the fetus loose with more abrupt driving maneuvers. — Chad Kultgen

The fetus is the property of the entire society, — Nicolae Ceausescu

What it gives any human being a right to - to pick and choose which embryo - which fetus is more valuable than another. That's is not up to human beings. — Nadya Suleman

As it happens, the first souvenir I bought was a dried llama fetus. Revolting as it may sound, my poor stillborn llama is actually rather cute. Frozen in the fetal position and dried stiff like beef jerky, it has the gentle, smiling face of a camel and plenty of soft, if slightly formaldehyde-scented, fur. I bought the llama fetus partly because it horrified me, but also for educational purposes, so that my eight-year-old daughter Sophia could show it to her class. (She refused.)
Bolivians buy llama fetuses to ward off evil in its many guises. Bolivian miners - who, with a life expectancy of forty-five years, basically live their entire adult lives dying - look to llama fetuses for protection against dynamite explosions and the lung-destroying silicon particulates they inhale all day. Downing high-proof alcohol also helps. "The purer the alcohol, the purer the minerals I find," one miner told me wryly. — Amy Chua

Before a baby is born, you have a baby shower, not a fetus shower. — June Hunt

Everyone knows now how early a fetus becomes a baby. Women who have been pregnant have seen their babies on ultrasounds. They know that there is a terrible truth to those horrific pictures the anti-choice fanatics hold up in front of abortion clinics. — Ayelet Waldman

You may be surprised to learn that, in our law, although the fetus is currently without the right to life, it does have some rights. For instance, under civil law, the unborn child has the right to inherit part of his father's estate should his father die before he is born, and he has the right to sue his Mother, or a doctor, for injuiries sustained while in the womb. — Janet E. Smith

I'm gonna make like a fetus and head out. — Tara Sivec

I've always pictured my starchy mother looking at the three of us and wondering what happened to her middle fetus. And my sweet, practical dad saying, "Two out of three isn't bad, Carrie." In — Stephanie Bond

Kill an unborn baby and you still couldn't de-fetus — Celph Titled

Don't listen to this asshole, Frank," laughed Kyle. "The kid is sitting there wearing a Dying Fetus t-shirt and talking sexual morality." "Well — Jeff O'Brien

With all due respect, if you're forty-three, then I'm a fetus. — David Levithan

How thrilling to discover one had depths, how consoling to find them less polluted than the shallows, how encouraging to identify the enemy not as a fissure in the will but as a dead fetus in the specimen jar of the unconscious. My attention was being paternally led away from the excruciating present to the happy, healthy future that would be enabled by an analysis of the sick past, as though the priest had nothing to do but study old books and make bright forecasts, the present not worthy of notice. — Edmund White

An internally conceived and gestated fetus is a protected fetus, and a protected fetus is a fetus freed to loll about long enough to bloom a giant brain. So we lend new meaning to the term egghead: from the cloistered egg is born the bulging frontal lobe. — Natalie Angier

If a woman plans to terminate her pregnancy, she commonly refers to the life within her as the 'fetus'. But if she intends to deliver and love and care for the little child, she affectionately calls him 'my baby'. — James Dobson

We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children. — Joycelyn Elders

And I remember that the editors wanted to have a witness to say that this was really the case, because it was a very sharp picture of the just the face, the head of the fetus inside the womb. — Lennart Nilsson

The rich women, to avoid dividing the inheritance among many, kill their own fetus in the womb and with murderous juices extinguish in the genital chamber their children. — Ambrose

I like to think of myself less like 'an adult' and more like a 'former fetus.' — Anna Kendrick

There's a a right to privacy for all individuals and all who have legal rights - and that includes the unborn. As an obstetrician, if I cause any harm to a fetus, I will be sued. If someone kills or harms a fetus they're liable in a court of law. — Ron Paul

In the case of abortion, one pits the life of the fetus against the interests of the pregnant woman. — Leon Kass

When a play enters my consciousness, is already a fairly well-developed fetus. I don't put down a word until the play seems ready to be written. — Edward Albee

A shared choice movement sees the fetus as the genes of a woman and the genes of a man; the flesh of the woman, the flesh of the man; the bone of a woman, the bone of a man; the responsibility of a woman, the responsibility of a man; the rights of a woman, the rights of a man. It desires a transition to equality. — Warren Farrell

To destroy the fetus 'is something worse than murder.' The one who does this 'does not take away life that has already been born, but prevents it from being born.' — Saint John Chrysostom

I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus. — Faye Wattleton

5 Do not be of two minds whether this should happen or not. Do not take the Lord's name for a futile purpose. Love your neighbor more than yourself. Do not abort a fetus or kill a child that is already born. Do not not remove your hand from your son or daughter, but from their youth teach them the reverential fear of God. — Bart D. Ehrman

This neuronal correlate of consciousness - the transient assembly - satisfies all the items on the shopping list of phenomena above. The efficacy of an alarm clock is explained as a very vigorous sensory input that triggers a large, synchronous assembly. Dreams and wakefulness differ because dreams result from a small assembly driven by weak internal stimuli, whereas wakefulness results from a larger assembly driven by stronger external stimuli. Anesthetics restrict the size of assemblies, thus inducing unconsciousness. Self-consciousness can arise only in a brain large and interconnected enough to devise extensive neuronal networks. The degree of consciousness in an animal or a human fetus depends on the sizes of their assemblies, too. — Scientific American

Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked. — George Carlin

The Old Testament does, in fact, seem to make a distinction between the life of a child and the life of a fetus. — Mark Galli

The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus in a woman's body. — C.S. Lewis

A week-old baby is not a rational and self-aware being, and there are many nonhuman animals whose rationality, self-awareness, capacity to feel and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week or a month old. If, for the reasons I have given, the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either. — Peter Singer

In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in the seed. — Tertullian

In the specific case of abortion, the matter is particularly easy in that no woman wants a late abortion. Once abortion was made legal, the age of the aborted fetus went down. The slope slipped in the other direction. If we legalize RU-486 and other similar new drugs, the age will fall to one week or less and start approaching zero. The slippery slope will slide in the other direction. The only reason we have late abortions is because we make early abortion difficult. — Garrett Hardin

In the fetus, or a really young child, all the different brain areas are connected to each other, diffusely. And as the brain develops, the excess connections are turned off, so you get very specialized areas. So most people have really specialized talents. What happens in creative people is this pooling doesn't take place. — Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

The fetus was minute - a congregation of loitering cells - and as with anything that informal, there was a good chance that it might disperse. — David Sedaris

Make it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime. — Jerry Weller

I keep having these bros come up to me and say, "I used to watch you when I was a fetus," and I just want to kill them. — Nick Offerman

So many things are lost in the dark. A slight misstep and we lose our footing. A quick hand in a pocket and we lose our money. A coat hanger in a womb and we lose a fetus. A swift puncture and we lose a life. — Pat Henshaw

When I was a fetus, I used to sneak out at night when my mother was sleeping. I figured I should start stealing stuff while I still had no fingerprints. — Steven Wright

Even if it cannot be
proven that a fetus is an actual living human person, there is no doubt that it is a potential living human person. In other words, a fetus is a developing person. It is not in a frozen state of potentiality. The fetus is in dynamic process-without interference or unforeseen calamity, it surely will become a fully actualized living human person. — R.C. Sproul

It's not good to throw back scotch with a new fetus. — Jessica Simpson

The most brutal form of domestic violence is the violence against unborn children, and this particular bill would prohibit abortions after the fetus feels pain, which is 20 weeks and older. — Joseph Fischer

With respect to those meanings of 'human' that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig, — Richard Dawkins

The generation of seeds ... is therefore marvelous and analogous to the other productions of living things. For first of all an umbilicus appears ... Its extremity gradually expands and after gathering a colliquamentous ichor becomes analogous to an amnion ... In the course of time the seed or fetus begins to become visible. — Marcello Malpighi

No, I'm the human here. I'm the life at stake. I'm the one with fingernails, who feels pain.

Me. — Alicen Grey

She--the unnamed lady--simply drew his hands to the Paleolithic places men always have grown tumid from feeling, like the outward cradle of the hips within which a fetus will reside and her breasts that will nourish it, once born. — Edward Hoagland

Maybe I'll have a tumour like his someday. At first it will be a small but growing sphere that will branch out, growing larger in my stomach like a fetus. I will probably feel it when it starts to take motion, moving inward with the fury of a sleepwalking child, traveling through my intestines blindly - — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Opening Yulia Koroleva's uterus was the most heartbreaking thing I'd ever done. When I saw that perfect fetus, when I took it in my hands, my vision clouded over with tears and my professional reserve fell away...[he] had fully formed organs each in its correct location, without any abnormalities. The foot length told me he had been nineteen weeks old, exactly halfway through gestation. I returned him to his mother's body, to be buried with her. — Judy Melinek

Jasmine had endured enough parochial schooling before middle school to have a residual attachment to the beautiful parts of believing, the certainty of knowing one is loved by something beyond comprehension, but also a niggling fear of those who believed too much in anything they could not touch. Believers were the sort to wave pictures of dead fetuses at her when she went to her gynecologist for a checkup. — Thomm Quackenbush

Going to the cinema is like returning to the womb; you sit there still and meditative in the darkness, waiting for life to appear on the screen. One should go to the cinema with the innocence of a fetus — Federico Fellini

Forced motherhood results in bringing miserable children into the world, children whose parents cannot feed them, who become victims of public assistance or "martyr children." It must be pointed out that the same society so determined to defend the rights of the fetus shows no interest in children after they are born; instead of trying to reform this scandalous institution called public assistance, society prosecutes abortionists; those responsible for delivering orphans to torturers are left free; society closes its eyes to the horrible tyranny practiced in "reform schools" or in the private homes of child abusers; and while it refuses to accept that the fetus belongs to the mother carrying it, it nevertheless agrees that the child is his parents' thing. — Simone De Beauvoir

Meanwhile in Wichita, Kansas, Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors who performs late-term abortions - only about 1 percent of all procedures but crucial when, for instance, a fetus develops without a brain - is shot in both arms by a female picketer. He recovers and continues serving women who come to him from many states. I finally meet Dr. Tiller in 2008 at a New York gathering of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. I ask him if he has ever helped a woman who was protesting at his clinic. He says: "Of course, I'm there to help them, not to add to their troubles. They probably already feel guilty." In 2009 Dr. Tiller is shot in the head at close range by a male activist hiding inside the Lutheran church where the Tiller family worships each Sunday. This is done in the name of being "pro-life. — Gloria Steinem

A pregnant woman and her spouse dream of three babies
the perfect four-month-old who rewards them with smiles and musical cooing,the impaired baby, who changes each day, and the mysterious real baby whose presence is beginning to be evident in the motions of the fetus. — T. Berry Brazelton

And I get it. I can be cynical myself. Every time I see some smiley TV preacher talk about God's plan for me or hear Sarah Palin say something irretrievably mean and stupid about poor people, or every time I pass an embarrassing billboard featuring Jesus and a fetus, I totally get why reasonable people would keep their distance. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

The thing with Jen ended with a pregnancy scare. She had seen my world and didn't want to bring a baby into it. This led to some violent arguments during which I pointed out, loudly and in sprays of spittle, that if she got an abortion the fucking unborn fucking fetus would likely fucking haunt us - I mean literally haunt our home - until the day we died and possibly beyond. It turned out that was the wrong thing to say. — David Wong

Most people, even most doctors, learn that the placenta is a nice, tight seal that prevents anything in the mother's body from invading the fetus, and vice-versa. That's mostly true. But the placenta doesn't seal off the baby perfectly, and every so often, something slips across. — Sam Kean

The guy at the cash register is a redhead in his thirties with freckles and a two-inch-diameter birthmark, as pink as uncooked salmon, on his pale forehead. The mark is uncannily like the image of a fetus curled in a womb, as if a gestating twin had died early in the mother's pregnancy and left its fossilized image on the surviving brother's brow. — Dean Koontz