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Doctor testifies in abortion case that fetuses feel pain after 20 weeks
AP ^ | Apr 6 2004

Posted on 04/06/2004 10:43:26 AM PDT by george wythe

A type of abortion banned under a new federal law would cause ''severe and excruciating'' pain to 20-week-old fetuses, a medical expert on pain testified Tuesday

''I believe the fetus is conscious,'' said Dr. Kanwaljeet ''Sonny'' Anand, a pediatrician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He took the stand as a government witness in a trial challenging the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

The act, which was signed by President Bush in November, has not been enforced because judges in Lincoln, Neb., New York and San Francisco agreed to hear evidence in three simultaneous, non-jury trials on whether the ban violates the Constitution.

Anand said fetuses show increased heart rate, blood flow and hormone levels in response to pain.

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Front Page News; US: Nebraska
KEYWORDS: abortion; abortionlist; fetalpain; fetus; nebraska; pba; prolife

1 posted on 04/06/2004 10:43:27 AM PDT by george wythe
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To: george wythe
It seems that the court should take judicial notice of this damned awfully obvious fact.

But good to hear this powerful, unassailable testimony for the children.
2 posted on 04/06/2004 10:47:32 AM PDT by Notwithstanding (Good parents don't let their kids attend public school or watch most TV)
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To: All


Thanks for the pic sciencediet :0)


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3 posted on 04/06/2004 10:49:16 AM PDT by Support Free Republic (Freepers post from sun to sun, but a fundraiser bot's work is never done.)
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March 23, 2004
The judge said the doctor's testimony will help him assess Congress' findings that the procedure is "brutal and inhumane" and that "the child will fully experience the pain associated with piercing his or her skull and sucking out his or her brain."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the National Abortion Federation, argued that Anand's testimony is insufficient because he will say it is likely but not definite that a fetus experiences pain during late-term abortions.


4 posted on 04/06/2004 10:53:34 AM PDT by george wythe
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To: george wythe
"likely but not definite that a fetus experiences pain during late-term abortions. "

. . . so err on the side of continuing to cause even possible excruciating pain?

It shows how callous these people are. I just hope and pray they don't end up offering to anesthetize the baby and kill him/her anyway . . .
5 posted on 04/06/2004 11:34:11 AM PDT by AMDG&BVMH (')
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To: AMDG&BVMH
It shows how callous these people are. I just hope and pray they don't end up offering to anesthetize the baby and kill him/her anyway . . .

It's very disturbing to read these people's thoughts.

Even the "pro-choice" doctors admit that fetuses do feel pain at 26 weeks and thereafter. Partial-birth abortions are performed during the last trimester, so my fuzzy math tells me these abortions kill fetuses 25 weeks and older.

Most "pro-choice" advocates believe that the complete system has to be "wired up" before the fetus can feel pain - i.e. at about 26 weeks into pregnancy.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists "recommended that the administration of painkillers should be considered before an abortion for any fetus which is 24 or more weeks since conception. This would give a 2 week safety factor in case the date of conception is incorrectly calculated."

6 posted on 04/06/2004 11:44:48 AM PDT by george wythe
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To: george wythe; churchillbuff; 2ndMostConservativeBrdMember; afraidfortherepublic; Alas; al_c; ...
Protecting the Ban on Partial-Birth AbortionA Trial Notebook by Jay Sekulow

Partial Birth Abortion Ban Court Transcripts (Please read & Forward to EVERYONE)

7 posted on 04/06/2004 2:16:48 PM PDT by Coleus (Roe v. Wade and Endangered Species Act both passed in 1973, Murder Babies/save trees, birds, algae)
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To: george wythe
bttt
8 posted on 04/06/2004 4:19:35 PM PDT by farmfriend ( Isaiah 55:10,11)
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On the Net:

U.S. District Court of Nebraska

Center for Reproductive Rights

National Right to Life Committee 

Justice Department

9 posted on 04/06/2004 4:20:51 PM PDT by Coleus (Roe v. Wade and Endangered Species Act both passed in 1973, Murder Babies/save trees, birds, algae)
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To: AMDG&BVMH; george wythe
Yeah, but tell these ACLU types that a cow or chicken feels pain in the slaughterhouse and they're organizing boycotts of McDonald's and KFC.
10 posted on 04/06/2004 6:20:59 PM PDT by Guillermo (Your own personal Konservative Klick-Guerilla)
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To: george wythe; MHGinTN; Coleus; nickcarraway; Mr. Silverback; Canticle_of_Deborah; ...
Doctor testifies in abortion case that fetuses feel pain after 20 weeks - PING

Let's look at the facts: 14 weeks

15 weeks, Hey look everyone, this disposable blob of tissue is sucking her thumb

16 weeks

18 weeks

20 weeks

At 20 weeks this baby girl can hear, recognize and distinguish between her mothers voice & others. Though still small and fragile, the baby is growing rapidly and could possibly survive if born at this stage. A number have survived at 20 weeks. Fingernails and fingerprints appear. Sex organs are visible. Using an ultrasound device, the doctor can tell if the child is a girl or a boy.

Now regarding the child at 20 weeks feeling pain: " According to reports, the head of the government-appointed Medical Research Council at Edinburgh University in the United Kingdom said a fetus was absolutely aware of pain by 24 weeks and perhaps as early as 20 weeks — earlier than the previously accepted 26 weeks." Source: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/SFL/fetalstudybritish.htm

Fetal Pain On-Line References:
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/index/publications/publications-research_reviews/publications-fetal_pain_summary_report.htm
http://www.all.org/issues/ab12.htm
http://opioids.com/endomorphins/foetpain.html
http://www.mccl.org/fp_news/fetal_pain.htm
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/Fetal_Pain/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,33437,00.html

From http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1110761/posts?page=34

THE COURT: Are you ever asked, Does it hurt?

THE WITNESS: Are we ever asked by the patient?

THE COURT: Yes.

THE WITNESS: I don't ever remember being asked.

THE COURT: And although you have never done an intact D&E, do you know whether or not the incision of the scissors in the base of the skull of the baby, whether that hurts?

THE WITNESS: Well, I guess my response would be I think that the baby feels it but I'm not sure how pain registers on the brain at that gestational age. I'm not sure how a fetus at 20 weeks or 22 weeks processes and understands pain.

24 weeks:

24 weeks - Seen here at six months, the unborn child is covered with a fine, downy hair called lanugo. Its tender skin is protected by a waxy substance called vernix. Some of this substance may still be on the child's skin at birth at which time it will be quickly absorbed. The child practices breathing by inhaling amnionic fluid into developing lungs.

Illustration of partial-birth abortion performed
at 24 weeks gestational age.

Letter from Anthony P. Levatino, M.D., J.D., former abortionist, explaining that the images shown above "accurately depict" the partial-birth abortion method, and that "the images are size-appropriate to a fetus of approximately 24 weeks gestation." -- March 4, 2003

D & E (Dismemberment) Abortion

30 weeks

Week 30 The fetus is usually capable of living outside the womb and would be considered premature at birth. For several months, the umbilical cord has been the baby's lifeline to the mother. Nourishment is transferred from the mother's blood, through the placenta, and into the umbilical cord to the fetus. If the mother ingests any toxic substances, such as drugs or alcohol, the baby receives these as well.

Let’s review the milestones of a person’s life before they are born:
· By the seventh day of life, the new person is planted in the uterus, home for the next nine months.
· By day 17, the blood cells and the heart are formed.
· By day 24, there is a heartbeat.
· By six weeks, the child’s nervous system is controlling their body. He or she now looks distinctly human. Throughout pregnancy the child is mostly in control--even to what day they will be born.
· By day 45, the baby has his own brain waves, which he will keep for life.
· By seven weeks, he has all the internal organs of an adult (though he weighs only one-thirtieth of an ounce and is less than one inch long.)
· By eight weeks, all external organs are formed, by nine to ten weeks, he can drink and breath amniotic fluid.
· From this age on is just a matter of time for growth. Before he is born, he can suck his thumb, cry (if he had air), and recognize his mother's voice and heartbeat.
· By the fourth month the child weighs about 5 ounces and is between 6 and 7 inches long. He has developing fingernails and eyelashes, and already has unique fingerprints that will remain the same for the rest of his life.
· At 32 weeks of gestation - two months before a baby is considered fully prepared for the world, or "at term" - a fetus is behaving almost exactly as a newborn. And it continues to do so for the next 12 weeks.
· By nine weeks, a developing fetus can hiccup and react to loud noises. By the end of the 2nd trimester it can hear.
· Just as adults do, the fetus experiences the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep of dreams.
· The fetus savors its mother's meals, first picking up the food tastes of a culture in the womb.
· Among other mental feats, the fetus can distinguish between the voice of Mom and that of a stranger, and respond to a familiar story read to it.
· Before the first trimester is over, it yawns, sucks, and swallows, as well as feels and smells. By the end of the second trimester, he or she can hear; toward the end of pregnancy, can see.

 

MANY HAVE DUBBED THE PICTURE BELOW “THE HAND OF HOPE”

THE HAND OF HOPE - Samuel Armas before birth

The photo above was taken by Michael Clancy. It is protected by U.S. Copyright Law.
Visit Mr. Clancy's website. Used with permission.

How many people have heard of Samuel Armas? Telling his
story would be another example of how to impress people
with the truth that the unborn are just as human as we are.  
Samuel was operated on at 21-weeks gestation in utero for
a spinal cord defect.  Pictures of his hand grasping the
surgeons (above) are among the most powerful and
unforgettable in recent years.

He was born on Thursday, Dec. 2, 1999 weighing 5 lbs,
11 oz. Samuel’s mom, Julie later wrote, “He was born at
36 weeks but came into the world screaming his head off!
He did not have to spend any time in a neonatal unit and
came home with us on Monday, Dec. 6.”

The Armas story and his pictures should be part of every Pro-Life Educational program. Students will have a personal story of “Life Before Birth” that simply cannot be denied or forgotten.


Here's a good link: Foetuses may develop consciousness long before the legal age limit for abortions, one of Britain's leading brain scientists has said:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/860795/posts

One False objection the Roe court had to the unborn as a person interpretation is the lack of precedent to support it. But there was a federal court precedent for the unborn as a person reading of the Fourteenth Amendment just 3 years before Roe v. Wade, though this fact was virtually ignored by Justice Harry Blackmun and the Roe Court.

From Constitutional Persons: An Exchange on Abortion

The common law basis of our system embodied in the principle of stare decisis and the just requirements of consistency in applying the law demand a respect for precedent. To this objection I offer two replies. First, there was a federal court precedent for the unborn person reading of Fourteenth Amendment before Roe v. Wade, though this fact was virtually ignored by Justice Harry Blackmun and the Roe Court.

In Steinberg v. Brown (1970) a three-judge federal district court upheld an anti-abortion statute, stating that privacy rights "must inevitably fall in conflict with express provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."

After relating the biological facts of fetal development, the court stated that "those decisions which strike down state abortion statutes by equating contraception and abortion pay no attention to the facts of biology."

"Once new life has commenced," the court wrote, "the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose upon the state the duty of safeguarding it."

Yet in commenting on the unborn person argument in Roe, Justice Blackmun wrote that "the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." He did so despite the fact that he had cited the case just five paragraphs earlier!

The failure of both appellees and the Court to treat this case is both unfortunate and inexplicable. Second, while our system is based upon a reasonable and healthy respect for precedent, this has never prevented the Court from revisiting and modifying precedent when the erroneous foundation and unjust results of that precedent become manifest. Such is the case with respect to abortion and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Pro-Choice Advocates Agree that Abortion Kills Humans.
http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/casey/ch3.html#S4

Many abortion advocates have agreed that abortion kills human life: A 1963 Planned Parenthood brochure says that life begins at conception: This is a direct quote "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun."

Similarly, Dr. Mary Calderone, former director of Planned Parenthood has stated that "abortion is the taking of a human life"

Dr. Magda Denes who performed two years of research in an abortion facility and compiled her results told a Chicago newspaper "There wasn’t an (abortion) doctor who at one time or another in the questioning did not say ‘this is murder.’"

When does life begin?
We have ABSOLUTE Irrefutable truth, Scientific proof
http://www.roevwade.org/upl39.html

* In 1981, a US Senate committee held hearings on when human life begins. Speaking on behalf of the scientific community was a group of internationally known geneticists and biologists who had the same story to tell, namely, that human life begins at conception - and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony.

Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School, gave confirming testimony, supported by references from over 20 embryology and other medical textbooks that human life begins at conception.

* "The Father of Modern Genetics" Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers: "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence. Human life begins at conception "

* Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, added: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."

Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."

* Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the "Father of In Vitro Fertilization" notes, "Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind." And on the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, "To deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for legalizing abortion."

* Professor Eugene Diamond on the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade: "...either the justices were fed a backwoods biology or they were pretending ignorance about a scientific certainty."

11 posted on 04/06/2004 7:33:57 PM PDT by cpforlife.org (The Missing Key of the Pro-Life Movement is at www.CpForLife.org)
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To: cpforlife.org
thanks.
12 posted on 04/06/2004 9:10:54 PM PDT by Askel5 ((watch the html and pre tags ... I can't read any flags at present))
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To: cpforlife.org
bump
13 posted on 04/06/2004 10:20:38 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
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To: cpforlife.org; MHGinTN; Coleus; trussell; kayak; JulieRNR21
"Doctor testifies in abortion case that fetuses feel pain after 20 weeks" -- and any person with a heart, soul, brain will feel that pain with them.

A woman has to have quite a disconnect to do this to her baby.

Thanks for the ping, it's just that it does hurt. Prayer bump. . .

14 posted on 04/07/2004 1:15:27 AM PDT by cyn (www.terrisfight.org)
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To: Guillermo
Sadly, there are quite a few who put human life even below animal life.
15 posted on 04/07/2004 4:54:54 AM PDT by AMDG&BVMH (')
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To: george wythe
"The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists "

Thanks. I had forgotten that. I hope that is in the briefs to the court in this case!

It makes these abortionists all the more inhuman as well as inhumane. They don't even want to read the research to find out if there is pain or not. Willful moral blindness . . .
16 posted on 04/07/2004 5:00:11 AM PDT by AMDG&BVMH (')
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To: Guillermo
"boycotts of McDonald's and KFC"

Now here is an issue for the environmentalists, and I think I've read some of them are actually on it.

The constant dosing of women with hormones in birth control pills (not to mention the mega-doses contemplated in the "morning after" pill) ultimately, via urine, go into the water supply, where there is concern that they are damaging fish and hence the food chain. Hence, even boys and men are getting too many estrogens, which affect aspects of masculinity including sperm count and viability. This is in addition to the estrogen horomones fed to meat animals for enhanced growth; I am against that, and in favor of sustainable animal production, e.g. on family farms.

"It's not nice to fool mother nature." ;)

17 posted on 04/07/2004 7:31:44 AM PDT by AMDG&BVMH (')
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To: cpforlife.org
I was very disturbed after watching an abortion on tape. The ultrasound grainy images were recorded while the fetus was being killed.

It was a 4 month fetus, and the little fellow fought against the "medical" tools and hid in a corner of the uterus.

Can you imagine how painful it would be for a 7-month fetus? I can't even think about this without getting depressed.

18 posted on 04/07/2004 8:30:31 AM PDT by george wythe
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To: george wythe
My husband once broke his little toe while playing with our kids. He said it didn't hurt. Using the logic that the ACLU is using, I suppose it's safe to say that breaking a toe doesn't hurt, because it doesn't ALWAYS hurt.
I'm sorry, but if it's LIKELY that it hurts then that's good enough for me.
19 posted on 04/12/2004 12:13:46 PM PDT by NJinks
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To: NJinks

a friend of the family gave birth to her daughter 4 months after conception.... she, although is not fully developed, only had to be on an oxygen tank for 2-4 days- she's doing wonderful... she cried when they took blood and ran tests.... so they wanna tell me they don't feel anything? the doctors said she was the youngest patient they've ever worked on....


20 posted on 10/05/2006 8:13:03 AM PDT by prolifeandproud (this is directed to the unbelievers)
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