Posted on 01/31/2019 5:41:19 AM PST by Heartlander
Fetuses not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than do adults
- Michael Egnor
Much of pro-abortion advocacy is science denial — the deliberate misrepresentation of science to advance an ideological agenda. Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University, wrote a misleading essay on that theme in the New York Times, “Science won’t end this debate” (January 22, 2019):
It was perhaps, at first glance, an unusual feature of the 2019 March for Life that it downplayed what many have come to think of as the central claim of the anti-abortion movement: that the unborn have a constitutional right to life… Instead, march organizers focused on proclaiming that science was on their side. They circulated material on “when human life begins,” whether abortions are ever medically necessary, and when fetal life becomes viable. They praised legal restrictions based on what science supposedly says about fetal pain.
The pro-life movement has always been clear about its core argument: Human life begins at fertilization and all humans have a right to life. The legal and moral facts about early human life derive from this scientific fact: Life begins when the sperm fertilizes the egg. The facts of human conception — the facts of life — have been established scientifically since the mid-18th century. Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799), 18th-century biologist and Catholic priest, was the first to note that the fertilization and thus the beginning of a new organism occurred with the union of the sperm with the egg. At fertilization, a new human life begins. There is no scientific debate about that; there are merely those who acknowledge the science and those who out of ignorance misunderstand or out of dishonesty deliberately misrepresent it. Zeigler, a well-educated woman, would be in the latter category.
The science of fetal pain is also well established. The core of the abortionists’ argument against the fact that young fetuses in the womb feel pain is the immaturity of the thalamocortical connections in the fetal nervous system. Because of this neurological immaturity, pro-abortionists claim, fetuses cannot feel pain. This claim is, however, a profound misrepresentation of neuroscience and embryology. Thalamocortical projections continue to mature throughout childhood and into early adult life—they are not fully mature until about 25 years of age. Yet children obviously feel pain, so the immaturity of thalamocortical projections does not in any way preclude the experience of pain.
In fact, pain is unlike any other sensory modality in that pain appears to enter consciousness awareness at subcortical (probably thalamic) levels. The cerebral cortex is not necessary to experience pain — it appears to modulate the experience of pain. Furthermore, cortical modulation of pain serves to diminish the severity of the pain. Decorticate animals (animals whose cerebral cortex has been removed) appear to experience pain more intensely than corticate animals do.
Babies obviously experience pain, and indeed appear to experience it more intensely than do adults. A bit of intestinal gas or a needle prick to draw blood can cause an infant to scream in agony. This extreme sensitivity to pain in young fetuses and babies is well-recognized in medical science1-3 and forms the basis for the anesthetic management of fetuses and young infants.
To summarize, the immature nervous system is exquisitely sensitive to pain. Mature cortical connections, such as in adults, diminish the experience of pain. Fetuses thus not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than do adults.
This is widely recognized in medical and scientific studies of fetal physiology. Pain medications for unborn children are routinely administered during fetal surgery and physiochemical stress is well-documented in fetuses as early as 18 weeks of gestation.4 There is evidence that extreme sensitivity to pain is evident not later than 15 weeks of gestation. Babies in the middle trimester of gestation cringe and try to escape painful surgical (and abortive) procedures, and often open their mouths, appearing to scream.
Ziegler, an abortion proponent, characteristically misrepresents embryology and neuroscience in an effort to buttress her ideology. Ironically, she quotes Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, who observed that “The abortion debate isn’t settled, but the underlying science is.” Zeigler dismisses Mancini’s point, but Mancini is exactly right.
The scientific questions about the beginning of human life and the experience of pain in fetal life have long been answered. Human life begins at fertilization of the egg by the sperm, and fetuses beyond the first trimester experience pain intensely, probably more intensely than do adults. There is no actual scientific debate about these issues.
The debate is whether we, as a nation, should protect human life in the womb. That fetuses are fully human and fully alive, there is no honest public debate.
1 Badr LK et al., Determinants of Premature Infant Pain Responses to Heel Sticks, Pediatric Nursing 36, 129, 2010.2 Brusseau R and Bulich LA, Anesthesia for fetal intervention, in Essential Clinical Anesthesia, Charles Vacanti, Pankaj Sikka, Richard Urman, Mark Dershwitz, B. Scott Segal, Eds., Cambridge University Press, NY; July 2011; 772-776.
3 Greco C and Khojasteh S, Pediatric, Infant and Fetal Pain, Case Studies in Pain Management, Alan David Kaye and Rinoo V. Shah, Eds., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 379.
4 Sekulic S et al., Appearance of fetal pain could be associated with maturation of the mesodiencephalic structures. J Pain Res. 9, 1031, 2016
Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon, professor of Neurological Surgery and Pediatrics and Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Neurological Surgery, Stonybrook School of Medicine
Pro-abortion science: the fetus is a cancerous lump of cells until exposure to outside air, when it magically transforms into a human being. Killing a cancerous lump is called reproductive rights.
My girl friend was adopted as a baby. She found her real mother a few years ago. Mother broke down crying because all her life she felt remorse for giving up her child. What kind of remorse and inability for happiness would she have had if she killed her baby?
We should be clear about something, this is basic biology, not just the thoughts of the pro-life movement. If I come across a freshly covered nest of sea turtle eggs and I dig them up to make an omelet I'm going to jail if caught and bigtime fines. Aren't they (using their logic) just potential sea turtles? These people have ripped the mask off and look just like Satan.
Rush said it well yesterday, President Trump needs to address the recent laws passed in NY state and make the dems on national TV stand up and applaud it.
Planned parenthood doesn’t tell you that side. Their source of income depends on encouraging women to get abortions, telling them they’ll feel wonderful. When the depression sets in later about what they’ve done, as is often the case, PP ignores them.
That mom did an incredible thing bringing a baby into the world!
God bless her
Long ago , early in the abortion debates, one thing became very apparent. When someone said they were “pro choice”, it essentially defined that person. If a person was able to “mold” there conscience to accept the wholesale killing of pre born human life, then they are capable of any abomination and deceit. Have found it extremely wise never to trust such people in any matter of importance and to have only the most superficial relationship that is absolutely necessary with such people.
It would be only reasonable to re-decide it in light of all the new information - if just on that fact alone.
The pro-aborts have been very successful at hiding what abortion really is.
The biggest thing they fear is widespread public knowledge about the little unborn babies.
In utero:
Ductus arteriosus - open
Foramen ovale - open
~~~~~~~~
After launch down birth canal:
Ductus arteriosus - closed
Foramen ovale - closed
That’s about it.
The total denial of science. babies are human from conception . . . Any attempt to murder them is first degree murder.
There have to be enough moral people in our land to give a rip about any of this before it will change. It came out 4 years ago about the trade in fetal bodies and pieces, it came out about the horrific practice of Kermit Gosnell, and now we have open lobbying and legislative approval for infanticide.
But, we can have a moral people or majority and still get ripped off in elections and have censorship by the media. So what comes after that?????
As if the moral arguments were not enough, a dose of birth control or a condom is about $.50. An abortion is about $1,000, more if there are complications.
State governments are saying taxpayer-funded abortion is a right. At some point there’ll be a tax revolt– cold, or increasingly likely, hot– and the baby-killers will nowhere to go. They’re frantic (and frankly dangerous) because the position is untenable.
‘President Trump needs to address the recent laws passed in NY state and make the dems on national TV stand up and applaud it.’
neither Trump nor any politician wants any part of this mess; they know it is all too easy to be portrayed as unpresentable hayseeds to the cosmopolitan public, which is manipulated by a slick and savvy media...the fact that there are both otherwise intelligent freethinkers and churchgoers who will not support the abolition of Roe v Wade speaks volumes about the political quandary...
‘If a person was able to “mold” there conscience to accept the wholesale killing of pre born human life, then they are capable of any abomination and deceit.’
what about those who claim the mantle of ‘pro-life’, but when polled, refuse to abolish legalized abortion...?
One needs to discern people. Some readily admit to being evil. Others by their ignorance and core stupidity are de facto evil. Best to avoid both.
There is a TV show called ‘Multiples’ narrated by Courtney Cox of Friends fame that was shown on Discovery channel a few years back. It should be required watching for every middle schooler, political candidate and woman contemplating an abortion. I was surprised the Left let it be shown.
Is it on youtube?
Don’t know, but it would be worth a search. There was another similar show also on Discovery that did a great job of showing the whole nine month from conception through birth, but I don’t remember the name. Both have great actual in vitro photography mixed with great CGI.
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