Says new scientific study
THE human foetus cannot feel pain before the age of 24 weeks, says an expert review that undermines calls to cut the time limit for abortion.
Nerve connections in the foetal brain do not form fully enough to allow perception of pain until after the 24-week limit for terminating pregnancies, an expert report commissioned by Britain’s Department of Health concluded.
The finding, by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, rebuts claims by anti-abortion activists that legal terminations can inflict pain on foetuses.
It will undermine the efforts of MPs in Britain who have tried unsuccessfully to reduce the limit in the last parliament, to force another vote.
Professor Allan Templeton, president of the Royal College, who chaired the inquiry, said: “There’s nothing in the report that suggests any need to review the upper limit.”
The Royal College was asked by the Labour government to review the evidence for foetal pain and awareness after the Commons Science and Technology Committee criticised its last report into the issue, published in 1997, as out of date. The conclusions of a working party of doctors, scientists, midwives and ethicists were peer-reviewed by independent experts.
It found that nerve connections to the cortex, the part of the brain that deals with pain and higher mental functions, do not form properly before 24 weeks. “It can be concluded that the foetus cannot experience pain in any sense prior to this gestation,” the report said.
Research claimed by anti-abortion campaigners to show that foetuses feel pain was based on evidence from premature babies that did not apply in the womb, Professor Templeton said.
Another finding was that even after 24 weeks, the foetus is naturally sedated and unconscious in the womb. This suggests that even late abortions, which are permitted for serious abnormalities or risks to the mother’s health, are unlikely to result in suffering.
The panel also advised that this sedation meant that anaesthetics, which can be risky, are not required when a foetus undergoes surgery.
A second Royal College report, into abortion for foetal abnormalities, advised that it would be impractical to draw up a list of “serious handicaps” for which late abortions can be permitted.
Some campaigners had demanded greater clarity following reports of late abortions for correctable conditions such as cleft palate. Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said the issue of foetal pain had been politicised: “Women and doctors need to be able to make informed decisions based on what science says, not what advocates (whether pro-choice or anti-choice) wish it said.”
Anti-abortion groups said the report did not challenge other arguments for a lower limit. “Performing abortion humanely does not justify the fact that you are terminating a human life,” said Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics.
Allan Templeton fought for the right for women in the United Kingdom to be able to abort their children at home with RU-486. He shrugged his shoulders over third-trimester abortions being performed because the babies would be born with very treatable cleft palates. To have him chair a study on when babies in the womb feel pain ensures the outcome will be anti-life. And so it is no surprise that his report finds that babies in the womb won’t feel their dismemberment until they are at least 24 weeks. This is just not the case. Read the following exchange, which is from a trial in U.S. federal court in Nebraska in 2004. Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand is being questioned by Judge Richard G. Kopf .
“Q. So, Doctor, do you have an opinion as to whether the partial-birth abortion procedure causes pain to the fetus?
A. If the fetus is beyond 20 weeks of gestation, I would assume that there will be pain caused to the fetus. And I believe it will be severe and excruciating pain caused to the fetus.
Q. What do you mean by severe and excruciating pain?
A. You see, the threshold for pain is very low. The fetus is very likely extremely sensitive to pain during the gestation of 20 to 30 weeks. And so the procedures associated with the partial-birth abortion that I just described would be likely to cause severe pain, right from the time the fetus is being manipulated and being handled to the time that the incision is made, and the brain or the contents, intracranial contents, are sucked out.”
In 1994, an article in the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet revealed hormonal stress reactions in the fetus. The article concluded with the recommendation that painkillers be used when surgery is done on the fetus. The authors wrote, “This applies not just to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures on the fetus, but possibly also to termination of pregnancy, especially by surgical techniques involving dismemberment.” In 1991, scientific advisors to the Federal Medical Council in Germany had made a similar recommendation.
In August 2001, Great Britain’s Medical Research Council concluded that pain perception may be as early as 20 weeks; other studies place it as early as 10 weeks.
That Templeton and his committee could review the existing literature and conclude that babies in the womb do not feel pain before 24 weeks is incomprehensible. But it is not at all surprising.
Just yesterday I spent a few hours with Dr. Stephen Zielinski, one of the original researchers of fetal pain, and we discussed his research in detail. To deny pain before 24 weeks is scientifically absurd. It reminds me of Bertrand Russel’s quote to the effect that a fisherman once told me that fish have neither pain nor sensation, but how he knew that, he could not tell me.
Some1 should look for that scientist that makes a report like that and shoot him. surely you can tell that he wasn’t love when he was a child, everything that got and breathe to live got feelings and can feel pain. ABORTION is wrong in everyway, but” if their a medical reasons why it have to be done to save a mother lifes it understandable. I’ve recently given birth to a beautiful baby boy and when i look at him i see jesus that is how i see a baby. Do you no how many under twenty four weeks old baby born early and survive when i was in the hospital having my son.as a woman if you found out that you are pregnant and dont want to keep the baby’ why waited until you are 24weeks to have an abortion that is down right wicked and cruel, ok its bad enough killing a baby at 24 are 26 weeks, but if you gonna have a abortion why not do it under twelve weeks. god help all we woman and those butcher of a doctor that just kill a baby just because we didnt want it, are because it didnt fix in our life style. Its really sadden me to hear a doctor came and national tv and makes such rediculous and absurd statement.