'God, use me': New technology is changing hearts and saving unborn babies’ lives, speaker says
Ultrasound technician and pro-life speaker Shari Richard of West Bloomfield, Mich., displays a fetal model made by Our Lady of Mount Carmel parishioner Noel Merrick of Carmel, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese, during her keynote speech for the Great Lakes Gabriel Project’s second annual “Partners for Life” fundraising dinner on March 29 in Indianapolis. The pro-life ministry’s website is www.glgabrielproject.org. (Photo by Mary Ann Wyand)
By Mary Ann Wyand
These portraits are priceless.
A preborn baby yawns, and another sucks her thumb. Yet another tiny infant smiles contentedly, and a fourth baby stretches his arms and legs. Twins snuggle together inside their mother’s womb.
Amazing digital ultrasound images of developing babies recorded by the miracle of technology are saving lives as well as changing minds and hearts through unforgettable pro-life educational videos.
Sonographer Shari Richard of West Bloomfield, Mich., has given a powerful voice to the unborn by using her pictures of babies growing in utero for DVDs titled Ultrasound: A Window to the Womb and Eyewitness to the Earliest Days of Life.
Her compelling two-dimensional videos produced by Sound Wave Images, a company that she founded in 1990, have educated millions of people about prenatal development with more than 500,000 copies distributed, broadcast and translated worldwide.
In 2009, Richard produced Window 2 and Eyewitness 2: The Next Generation featuring incredible three- and four-dimensional ultrasound images that clearly display the humanity of unborn babies, and expose the abortion industry’s lie that fetuses are disposable tissue.
During her emotional keynote address for the Great Lakes Gabriel Project’s second annual “Partners for Life” fundraising dinner on March 29 in Indianapolis, Richard praised Ian Donald, the pioneer of clinical ultrasound technology, for his life-saving invention that she has used for 34 years to show people the miraculous stages of fetal growth.
“We couldn’t do this [pro-life work] without all of you coming together,” she said, to help the Great Lakes Gabriel Project and other pro-life ministries.
“In 1987, when The Silent Scream came out—which is actually an abortion being done viewed by ultrasound—and I watched the baby’s heart rate and saw the baby try to get out of the way and then the baby’s mouth opened, I just screamed too,” Richard told the pro-life supporters. “I said, ‘God, use me.’ And that’s why I’m here today.
“I had seen ultrasounds over and over again,” she said. “I see them every day. I know what babies do in the womb. They move, they jump, they relax, … and I could no longer be silent. So I collected my ultrasound images.”
Richard named her favorite baby “George” because the delightful 10-week-old fetus continually bounced around in his mother’s womb during the ultrasound.
“George never stopped moving,” she recalled, so she took his ultrasound to Capitol Hill when she testified before Congress in an effort to end legalized abortion.
“Sen. Orrin Hatch [of Utah] said it was the most powerful testimony ever brought before Congress,” Richard said. “No one had brought in an ultrasound before.”
A year after she recorded George’s amusing prenatal antics, the baby’s mother contacted Richard to say thank you for helping her to choose life for her unborn baby.
At the time, Richard said, “I didn’t realize that she was scheduled for an abortion the next day.”
Gender is difficult to determine by ultrasound at 10 weeks of gestation, she explained, and George turned out to be a girl who is now 24 years old.
“God called her from the womb to be a prophet for the nation,” Richard said. “God chose the weakest of the weakest to confront the lies.”
Sometimes women who saw this special ultrasound would tell her, “I aborted a baby at that age. I was told that it was a blob of tissue.”
Richard could see the grief and pain in the women’s eyes so she began producing her first pro-life educational video to show to women experiencing crisis pregnancies and high school students so they can see the truth about the miracle of life.
“I had a powerful tool that God gave me,” she said. “[The video of] George went everywhere I went, and gave me the confidence to speak out [against abortion, including on television]. All George had to do was jump around.”
Now, Richard also teaches volunteer nurses to do obstetrical ultrasounds at pro-life clinics like the Gabriel Project’s recently opened 1st Choice for Women at 5455 W. 86th St. in Indianapolis.
“Your life is never the same once you start serving God,” she said, who healed her from the pain of an abortion as a college student, led her to become an obstetrical sonographer and blessed her as the mother of three sons.
“For the first time in American history, the polls are showing that the majority of the people are now pro-life,” Richard said, “and they give the credit to ultrasounds.”
Pointing to one of her prenatal ultrasounds projected on a large video screen, she explained, “The first thing you can see, which is so cool, is that little, little heart beat four weeks following conception. … So much [fetal development] happens in those first few weeks.
“At seven to eight weeks from conception, every organ is formed and just need to develop and grow,” she said. “At 24 weeks, the baby weighs about one pound, and can hear her mother’s voice and heartbeat. The mother will begin to feel the first stirrings of life within her. … During the third trimester, from 28 to 40 weeks, the baby’s weight will triple to more than seven pounds and the baby will grow to about 20 inches. … The unborn baby now uses the four senses of vision, hearing, taste and touch.”
Fetus is not a bad word, Richard said. “It means ‘young one.’ ”
Because these young ones cannot speak for themselves,
pro-life supporters must give them a voice, she said, by helping crisis pregnancy ministries purchase ultrasound machines to reveal the truth and beauty of God’s miraculous gift of life. †
