Posted on 08/24/2005 2:35:39 PM PDT by neverdem
Taking on one of the most highly charged questions in the abortion debate, a team of doctors has concluded that fetuses probably cannot feel pain in the first six months of gestation and therefore do not need anesthesia during abortions.
Their report, being published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is based on a review of several hundred scientific papers, and it says that nerve connections in the brain are unlikely to have developed enough for the fetus to feel pain before 29 weeks.
The finding poses a direct challenge to proposed federal and state laws that would compel doctors to tell women having abortions at 20 weeks or later that their fetuses can feel pain and to offer them anesthesia specifically for the fetus.
About 1.3 million abortions a year are performed in the United States, 1.4 percent of them at 21 weeks or later.
Bills requiring that women be warned about fetal pain have been introduced in the House and Senate and in 19 states, and recently passed in Georgia, Arkansas and Minnesota. The bills are supported by many anti-abortion groups. But advocates for abortion rights say the real purpose of the measures is to discourage women from seeking abortions. It is too soon to tell what effect the new laws are having in abortion clinics.
The finding was considered persuasive by many scientists but is unlikely to settle the controversy. Most scientists agree that fetuses probably do not feel pain in the first trimester, but there remains wide disagreement over when, in later pregnancy, the fetal brain is sufficiently developed for pain to register. Some think that, with the current state of knowledge, it is impossible to know for sure. In Britain, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said that fetuses probably...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"probably"
Are you sick to your stomach yet?
YOU ARE KILLING BABIES, and what concerns you is whether or not you should give them something for the pain?
"Hi, I am mom, and I want to kill my baby. But I would feel really bad about it if I thought my child would be in much pain before he died. So could you assure me that this will be a painless murder?"
Nest it will be 40 weeks feel no pain.
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! 29 WEEKS?! I'm no math genius, but that's 2 months short of full term. These guys are insane.
I was born 2 months premature. Hmm. Kind of unsettling.
Yes, what really bothers me is how raving the left is getting about them, as the numbers rise they actually approve it more, almost like they cheer that more people are getting them without really thinking about what that total number truly represents.
Yes, I once, so very unfortunately, went with my sister to a planned parenthood. She was getting an Rh test (or something of the sort) and I could hear, while sitting in a room FULL of young girls, the machinery of death. They gave my sister a number (they dont use names)and we waited. Within 15 minutes I was physically, violently ill. I couldn't stay, I had to leave. I could feel the deception and evil all around. I still feel dirty.
The sort of "doctor" that vivisected Jews for the Nazis apperently did not go extinct with that ideology, but walk among us today.
Doncha just love "studies"? WHenever I see a news article that says "study finds" I am immediately suspicious.
"probably"
You done took the word out of my mouth!
No direct research, simply a "poll" of papers - the old "if enough people say it, it must be true." As Limbaugh said today, there are plenty of preemies born earlier than 29 weeks and it would be a simple test to see if they felt pain. Or would the "trauma" of birth magically complete the brain connections? I doubt it.
Disgusting. I recently read an article in the mainstream press where "Mom" was concerned that her son (she even knew the sex) would feel pain - however, she seemed completely at ease with the idea of killing him.
There was a time when pro-life activists thought that once women knew this was a baby, a child, a human life (something the pro-abortion crowd initially tried to deny), they would be horrified and abortion would stop immediately.
Now, of course, we know that they simply don't care. They know they're killing a child. But that's groovy, because their "boyfriend" didn't want the child, or their next promotion is coming up and their boss wouldn't like it, or ....well, whatever trivial excuse they're using for murder this week. They and their "doctors" know they're killing a child, and they just don't care.
No kidding, one daughter was born at 28 weeks, and while the first 10 days were on a ventilator, she's fine.
< /anger & sarcasm >
I've seen the video of a baby being aborted, on ultrasound.
No PH D'ick id going to tell me that that baby didn't feel it.
Shame.
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