Abortion, Again: Do Babies Feel Pain?

RW News ^ | April 20, 2010 | Melissa Clouthier

[NYer]

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.

[xzins]

Avoth's post #5:

Although I’m a Conservative, I have no problem with abortion as long as I’m not paying for it for a bunch of reasons.

So I have a few questions for the anti-abortion crowd:

Are any of you old enough to recall the days when young girls got their abortions in the back alley? Would you like to return to those days? Is there some other way to deal with behavior that we find morally reprehensible because your current methods not only aren’t working, they’re backfiring and giving our enemies ammunition to use against us?

Denouncing them, violence against them, etc., doesn’t work. And taking action after they’re already pregnant and contemplating/going for an abortion, e.g., urging them to deliver their babies and give them up for adoption, is like locking the barn door after the horse has left.

The anti-abortion crowd needs better solutions and more self-control because it’s not achieving the results it truly wants, i.e., people to act more responsibly regarding sex and conception.

Avoth, no true conservative can say: "I have no problem with abortion..." any more than they can say "I have no problem with government confiscating guns."

Both deal with "conserving" the right to life and never allowing that right to be watered down.

I suspect you aren't a conservative, but are probably some variety of liberal or pro-choice liberatarian who has up to now escaped detection of pro-life Free Republic.

YOU have no problem with ABORTION!!!???

So far as I'm concerned, such comments on Free Republic constitute "trolling" for reactivity from conservatives. In short: troll.

[Christian_Capitalist]

Um, we are, actually.

Well, not right as I type this, no.
But most of the rest of the time.

[mlizzy]

You’re right. It’s very difficult to build bridges during a war. As an individual, obviously you can reach out to the people you know. As a group, I don’t have any good ideas.

There is something that my husband and I both do (which I neglected to mention), and I've suggested it to others, and that is to keep the pro-life t-shirts ON in day-to-day living that one wears at Life marches. The ones we wear say CHOOSE LIFE on them and they are on bright green t-shirts (picture shown). We end up wearing these to water polo matches, when we go out for walks or jogs, even to Whole Foods (my husband received a 30-second or so glare from one older shopper who I'm assuming didn't agree with the message). We don't really "plan" the wearing of these shirts usually; they just come up next in the closet, and we don't pass them by.

I contribute to the Just One Life movement. It’s not much, but it’s something.

I read about Just One Life. I see they are from Israel and assist Israeli families. Are you from Israel? There are organizations like that in America, too. I had a link on one (that I misplaced) that is run by nuns in New York I believe. Anyway, the more of these organizations, the better ... as you well know. :)

[reagan_fanatic]

Pro-lifers will win this fight as long as we emphasise education and knowledge (the daily advances in science have had a tremendous effect on attitudes towards abortion, especially advances in ultrasound.)

As far as I'm concerned, though, until the day that science can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a fetus isn't a human being and feels no pain, an abortion should be considered an act of murder. Period.

[Theophilus]

Song of Solomon 6
10 Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?

And if that does not turn you on, think of what our good friend Keynes has to say about makin babies.

"The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy." - John Maynard Keynes

Proverbs 5:18
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

[Emmett McCarthy]

I don’t care at all what “Republicans” say. Science has given us the information that the unborn child is a seperate and distinct human being - a person. And a person has constitutional rights and protections under the system established by our Founders. Anyone who clings to the notion that this grave and essential injustice can be covered with empty words like “choice” is ignorant. It can be willful ignorance or just stupidity, but the result is the same. Why would any right thinking person give a rip what someone says just because they’re a “Republican”? The “matching belt and shoes” country club crowd includes Rs and Ds of equal shallow character and intelligence.

[Christian_Capitalist]

Song of Solomon 6 ~~ 10 Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?

See, I knew that there couldn't be anything wrong with a married couple reading Song of Solomon together and... getting frisky.
Mrs. C_C seems to like it.

And if that does not turn you on, think of what our good friend Keynes has to say about makin babies. ~~ "The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy." - John Maynard Keynes

Other than begging the question, "what does he mean by excessive fecundity, harruph?!", you may have actually found something Keynes said, with which I agree. Congratulations, there's not much of that. ;-)

[Christian_Capitalist]

In the entertainment industry, we have to monitor closely to see that our position isn’t maligned. Check out how Law and Order SVU portrays pro-life types. One dimensional and bad. The advertisers should be contacted and told that a boycott will be pursued unless a more realistic approach is taken.

Appropo of nothing, I will note that I liked it when "Law & Order" (The Original Series) was casting the hot young part-Cherokee beauty model Angie Harmon as the designated "Pro-Life Conservative" for the series.

Assistant DA "Abbie Carmichael", one-time image of "Pro-Lifers" on Law & Order.
(Sadly, she's not any more).

[Emmett McCarthy]

I’m glad to know that. I didn’t follow each and every post on this thing and some posts (including some of my own) were addressed to “all” which can, at least for me, lead to some confusion.

[Emmett McCarthy]

A good and wise suggestion. Thank you.

The Republicans who support abortion are shallow and, thankfully, going the way of the dinosaurs. The young people, the ones who realize that fully 1/3 of their generation are missing because they were never allowed to be born, are moving steadily into the pro-life position. Yes, we need to use that force to change laws - especially at the state level where the legislators are far more susceptible to citizen pressure - and let those laws be part of the means to challenge this “ruling of the dark ages” that is Roe. I have some personal means by which I try to change or open hearts and minds. “A Dream A Lot Like Mine” at http://emmettgrayson.com is one of my songs which has gotten some surprisingly (to me) positive response. I even had an old time “lib lady” songwriter friend who was willing to give her time and talents to play a benefit show for an agency which only provides alternatives to abortion. She told me, “If I say I’m pro-choice, I need to recognize that “choice” means there’s more than one option and help to support that”. That is a seemingly small thing - and may or may not have anything to do with what she heard in my song - but it is a step in the right direction.

[F.J. Mitchell]

They have nerves,they have a brain.
Of course they feel pain!

[Theophilus]

beauty model

I think we can agree with The Bard that beauty is a gift from God designed to motivate procreation in order to preserve beauty!

I'm thrilled to see that Mrs Harmon has increased the wealth via three daughters; Finley Faith (born October 14, 2003 in Dallas, Texas), Avery Grace (born June 22, 2005, also in Dallas), and Emery Hope (born December 18, 2008). I'm sure they are as lovely as their mom.

Shakespeare's Sonnets:

I

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

II

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a totter'd weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

III

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.

[F.J. Mitchell]

So you believe that if those 50 million (and counting) abortions over these 30 years had not happened, 50 million women would have died giving birth?

[Alamo-Girl]

avoth is no more.

[wagglebee]

avoth is no more.

Well, FR has it's own brand of abortion and since avoth didn't have to pay for it then he/she shouldn't have a problem with it.

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL!