Doctor: Fetus Feels Pain After 20 Weeks

AP via Yahoo ^ | 6 April 2004 | KEVIN O'HANLON

[Torie]

Man, what a chart. Good job. It is useful in furthering the debate in my mind about the second trimester. I already have fixed opinions about the first and third trimesters as you know.

[edsheppa]

The parts of the brain required for consciousness are developed post-natal

No one knows what consciousness is, so claiming specific brain requirements for it is ridiculous.

[tortoise]

No one knows what consciousness is, so claiming specific brain requirements for it is ridiculous.

Correction: YOU don't know what consciousness is.

Don't assume the rest of the population is as ignorant or ill-educated as you are.

[tortoise]

This is garbage science.

Because everyone knows you're the expert on these things. Boy, I really dodged a bullet there. Your assertion sounds so authoritative standing there all by its lonesome. Hmm... I feel the sudden urge to drink Koolaid...

[tortoise]

You realize that the chart says nothing about higher brain function. Myelination only occurs in the basic systems i.e. the "reptilian" parts of the brain, the parts required to operate a body at a life support level. The fetus would have an awareness of pain in the same sense that a fish has awareness of pain, probably something more akin to the organism having an abstract awareness of damage and reacting to it. We know a lot more about cognitive function in brains than most people think we do.

None of which matters because whether or not a fetus is conscious of pain or can sense pain doesn't make abortion right or wrong. Abortion being wrong has nothing to do with whether or not a fetus "feels pain" in the hypothetical or otherwise, which is why I think this is a stupid argument even if it did have merit.

[Torie]

John is going for those who swing on this issue, and refuse to a take an absolutist stand. He is a big tent fellow, because he wants more folks in his tent, to move the ball in his direction. Not a bad approach. I try to do that myself, on occasion.

[Torie]

John is an expert on these things. He has put in the time. This issue is his passion, and he has sunk his teeth into it, and refuses to let go, sort of like a Gila Monster. Granted, he might be wrong, but he is not ignorant on this issue.

[tortoise]

This issue is his passion, and he has sunk his teeth into it, and refuses to let go, sort of like a Gila Monster. Granted, he might be wrong, but he is not ignorant on this issue.

Fair enough. This isn't a major issue for me -- I have bigger fish to fry -- and was drawn in by the poor science in the article. Of course, it is the bad mathematics on FR occasionally that *really* drives me nuts.

[Torie]

The economics offer sucks too, and as far as statistics goes, oh the horror.

[Torie]

offer = often

[edsheppa]

ignorant or ill-educated as you are.

I'm neither. I have a particular interest in consciousness studies and I know the state of knowledge.

[newgeezer]

Those that would not make provision for forced conception (rape) need a little introspection.

If we justify killing a rape baby, any argument against abortion on demand becomes ridiculous.

It makes no sense to link the baby's rights to how it was conceived -- as if a consentual-sex baby is human, and a rape/incest baby is subhuman.

[AMDG&BVMH]

"It makes no sense to link the baby's rights to how it was conceived -- as if a consentual-sex baby is human, and a rape/incest baby is subhuman."

Yes, that is the correct moral position, and as you say, more convincing in the long run because it is based upon the humanity of the baby -- rather than utilitarian arguments.

We prob. all agree that in the mean time, it would be better off if the other abortions were not allowed. But one has to be careful in presenting the argument, not to discredit the right of all babies to be born. There are certainly differences within the right to life movement regarding strategy and tactics.

E.G. the major right to life groups have distanced themselves from taking a position on the abortafacient aspects of some contraception, leaving the pro-abortion side to define contraception, even when it is actually abortafacient. Re the morning after pill. The debate is posed -- if contraception is ok (including IUDs which are abortafacient, and hormonal pills which can be . . .) then morning after "contraception" is just one more right the woman should have.

But there again, it will hurt women. Imagine taking a mega-dose of hormones, the morning after, "just to be sure". The easier it is to come by, the more frequently it will be used for insurance. Women's bodies are not supposed to be hit with these extra hormones on an on-going basis. So using the utilitarian argument, women are going to be hurting their bodies . . .

[jwalsh07]

The parts of the brain required for consciousness are developed post-natal (there are good practical reasons that things work this way in nature), and the only part of the brain that is really even online in a fetus is the most low-level reptilian parts that are essential to running basic life support.

Will you be defending this garbage any time soon?

By the way, ad hominems are programmed to melt right off my screen. Save the bandwidth.

[tortoise]

Will you be defending this garbage any time soon?

I already did, but I'll elucidate (with references) for your benefit. The only part of the brain that is fully functional at birth is the brain stem. Synapse and myelin formation in the rest of the brain doesn't happen until after birth. Since synapses are the building blocks for intelligence and perception, and myelin is required for the neurons to even function meaningfully, I think it is safe to say that the higher brain functions are "offline" at birth. The brain stem is the only part of the brain that fully develops myelin and synapses prior to birth, largely because it needs to function since it acts as the low-level life support control system, same as it does in all animals.

I'll start, with a link to the Max Planck Institute, Department of Neurogenetics. From http://nave.em.mpg.de/myelin/

"All myelin protein genes are developmentally and cell type-specifically regulated and coordinately expressed during the postnatal period of active myelination."

The above is a bit hard to read unless you know what you are reading, so here is a more general description. Picking one of numerous sources at random (in this case, a Swiss medical NGO - www.hon.ch/Dossier/MotherChild/postnatal/brain_dev.html):

"the brain of a newborn baby is still very much a work-in-progress. It is small - 25% of its adult size & weight - and strikingly uneven in its maturity. By birth, only the lower portions of the nervous system (the spinal cord and brain stem) are very well developed, whereas the higher regions (the limbic system and cerebral cortex) are still rather primitive.
The lower brain is therefore largely in control of a newborn's behaviour (cf. reflexes ), while the cerebral cortex is still quite immature. As the highest, most recently evolved part of the brain, the cerebral cortex is responsible for all of our conscious thoughts, feelings, memories, and voluntary actions.

Although all of the neurones in the cortex are produced before birth, they are poorly connected. In contrast to the brain stem and spinal cord, the cerebral cortex produces most of its synaptic connections (connections between neurones) after birth, in a massive burst of synapse formation known as the exuberant period . At its peak, the cerebral cortex creates an astonishing two million new synapses every second. With these new connections come a baby's many mental milestones, such as colour vision, a pincer grasp, or a strong attachment to his parents."

These are general, but I can go on at length in gross detail if required. Nowhere on the web can I find any medical sites that say anything other than that the higher parts of the brain are non-functional at birth. I thought this was pretty much common knowledge and I am surprised that it is even being questioned. You could have used Google and been buried in an avalanche of medical references on neurological and cognitive development that assert this.

[Torie]

The fetus, and then the baby, and then the child, and then the teenager, and then the young adult, and then the middle aged adult, and then the late middle aged adult, at the full strength of his or her mental powers, and then the declining adult thereafter, are all works in progress. The issue is what the law should allow the mother to kill. In my mind, if a fetus looks sort of like a human, and feels pain, with the synapses sort of working like a nascent human, and moves a bit, I don't feel comfortable in the law saying a mother can kill it. That is particularly and inconvertibility true in my mind, if such fetus could survive and become a strapping young man or nubile young women in time, if only allowed a final exit from the mother who is willing to kill it. Your mileage may vary. On this one, I am hard wiring, and I don't need the Bible or any other religious text to help me find my way. It is from my heart, and my mind.

[tortoise]

The issue is what the law should allow the mother to kill. In my mind, if a fetus looks sort of like a human, and feels pain, with the synapses sort of working like a nascent human, and moves a bit, I don't feel comfortable in the law saying a mother can kill it.

It isn't like I'm disagreeing with you here. I'm uncomfortable with it too, and for reasons that have nothing to do with religion when you get right down to it. This is a complicated issue, and I believe the logical implications alone are sufficient justification to generally be against this. Yes, I know that a newborn doesn't really have any cognitive function as a fact of science, but there are some very ugly game theoretic implications if you automatically equate the life of a newborn to, say, a rat.

This happens to me a lot on FR. I'll note that something is factually incorrect and people automatically assume that I'm on the opposite side of the issue of whoever asserted the false information to begin with, when often that isn't the case. I bring things like this up because it weakens and discredits positions that I may happen to agree with. Over the long run, arguments are won because they are essentially correct in every aspect, such that the opposition has no choice but to cede ground in a war of attrition.

[Torie]

We are indeed making progress, at least between the two of us, and I find that at the moment satifying enough. Thanks.

[jwalsh07]

I already did, but I'll elucidate (with references) for your benefit

You didn't elucidate, you punted.

You simply changed the argument from one that states 'there is no consciousness pre natally' to one that states there is more consciousness post natally.

In order for you to argue that consciousness is not present pre natally you must demonstrate that which is false which is why you punted.

I already posted a chart for you with footnotes demonstrating that the unborn experience sensations of taste, pain and reaction to other stimulus. All evidence of levels of consciousness.

Consciousness, like life is a continuum and neither you nor anybody else has a consciousness measuring tool to determine when it turns on sufficiently to move from "reptile" to human. Claiming you do is garbage science.

[tortoise]

I already posted a chart for you with footnotes demonstrating that the unborn experience sensations of taste, pain and reaction to other stimulus. All evidence of levels of consciousness.

A lizard has all the same experiences and reactions without any real higher brain, never mind higher brain function. It comes from the brain stem. Which, as the wide swath of medical literature will tell you, is the only part of the human brain that is functioning at birth. Most animals get by on not much more than a brain stem their entire lives.

Do you deny that the brain stem is the only functional part of the brain at birth? If so, you'll have to back that up because the medical literature goes against you. Everything attributable to a fetus fits within the normal functioning of the brain stem. And a fetus exhibits nothing that is considered to be the sole domain of the higher brain regions.