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Of course they feel pain!

Thread by NYer.

Abortion, Again: Do Babies Feel Pain?

Nebraska heats this topic up again. Embarrassed about being the late-term abortion capital of the United States, Nebraska changed the law:

Can an unborn child feel pain?

That question will dominate the abortion debate in America for the next several years thanks to Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska. Last week, Heineman signed the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act into law, banning abortions in Nebraska at and after 20 weeks based on growing scientific evidence that an unborn child at that age can feel pain.

The legislation was enacted as a defensive measure. After the murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller, a physician named LeRoy Carhart declared his intention to carry on Tiller's work at his Bellevue, Neb., clinic. State legislators did not want Nebraska to become the country's late-term abortion capital -- so they voted 44-5 to stop him.

The new law will probably spark a Supreme Court showdown, because it directly challenges one of the key tenets of Roe v. Wade -- that "viability" (the point at which an unborn child can survive outside the womb, generally held to be at 22 to 24 weeks) is the threshold at which states can ban abortion. In defending the law, Nebraska will ask the high court to take into account scientific research since Roe and push the legal threshold back further.

I have written about this before, from a very personal place. My sons were born at 24 weeks, could feel pain, and felt pain more than the doctors and nurses wanted to admit. Not long after my son left the NICU, the hospital changed a policy on heel sticks (given repeatedly and daily without anesthesia) because they were so painful to the child.

This was a "duh" decision to me: I saw my sons silently scream and writhe to get away (they were intubated) every day during the procedure. Of course they felt pain. Only a moron couldn't see that self-evident fact.

Do babies feel pain en utero? Yes. For years, doctors have noted that babies avoid ultrasound. No one quite knows why, but it's suspected that the ultrasound waves are at the very least, uncomfortable to them. So, ultrasounds, while performed routinely, are carefully meted out by the best professionals, because they do know that ultrasounds stunt growth and interfere in other ways. If the baby avoids it, there must be a reason.

My thought is that unborn babies are more, not less, sensitive to pain. It just makes sense. Their nervous systems are raw and unrefined. They live in a fluid-filled cushion bubble for heaven's sake. I figure it's because the insulation deadens the sensations--the sound, touch, sight, etc.--needfully. The experiences would be too intense otherwise.

The fact is, it makes sense that these tiny humans feel acutely. And anyone who has seen a tiny baby, with a beating heart, cannot fathom that they don't feel pain. It is an exercise in denial to haughtily imagine that they are little lumps of protoplasm feeling, learning, expressing nothing.

It is inconvenient to imagine a baby as a mini-human. If the baby is a mini-human, the baby has civil rights and should be protected.

As the science gets more refined, I expect that people are going to be horrified at what has happened to unborn children. Or, they'll sink deeper into their denial--no one wants to perceive himself as a murderer, little less a pain-inflicting murderer.

Canada has banned euthanasia, for now.

Thread by GonzoII.

Breaking [Yesterday]: Euthanasia Bill Defeated in Canada 228 - 59

OTTAWA, Ontario, April 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Canadian Parliament overwhelmingly defeated today the private members bill seeking to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The House of Commons rejected Bill C-384, proposed by Member of Parliament Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l'Île, BQ), by a vote of 228 to 59, with two additional members noting immediately afterwards that they mistakenly voted for the bill when they had intended to vote against it.

In a point of order after the vote, Conservative Member and Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Stephen Fletcher, wished it to be recorded that he abstained from the vote. Fletcher urged that all possible support be given to patients in need, but also stressed that he believed "the individual is ultimately responsible" for his fate. Fletcher is a quadriplegic MP confined to a special motorized wheel chair.

Lalonde's campaign to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide began in 2005 when she first introduced her bill into the House of Commons. Her first two attempts failed when her private members bills were shut down by the 2006 and 2008 federal elections.

This round, her third attempt, began when she introduced Bill C-384 into the House of Commons on May 13th, 2009. The bill received first reading with an hour of debate in October, but Lalonde has delayed a vote by trading back second reading three times. It was also delayed by the government's decision to prorogue Parliament late last year, which meant the bill had to undergo first reading again. The first hour of debate was March 16th and the second hour took place yesterday.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told LifeSiteNews that the defeat of Lalonde's bill means that Canada should now move on to finding better ways of offering true health care to Canada's vulnerable patients.

"Now that the bill's defeated, this gives us the chance in Canada to continue to improve care for the vulnerable, to examine issues around elder abuse and how to prevent elder abuse in Canada, to look at issues around suicide prevention, and ... to ask Canadians to make sure that people with disabilities are offered true dignity and equality in Canada," he said. "This is the way Canada needs to be going, not to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide."

He did stress, however, that "there's always a need for vigilance on the euthanasia issue." "There will be another bill in the next Parliament," he predicted. "That's just what's going on. Our goal is to get ready for the next battle, which will be in a couple years after the next election."