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.

[avoth]

“So it may be that your state decides to be pro choice...or maybe pro life....Who knows? It may also be that if your state goes pro life and the state next to you goes pro choice, then women will just travel to that state for the abortion.

Neither the pro lifers or choice side will like it but that is how laws are made in a democracy.”

Thanks for the respectful debate.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Then don’t post your bullsh^t lies and I won’t have to clean your clock - just all all the other posters here have. That’s about the best way to avoid each other. Like many others here, I’m smarter than you - and we don’t suffer fools here.

[avoth]

“Then don’t post your bullsh^t lies and I won’t have to clean your clock - just all all the other posters here have. That’s about the best way to avoid each other. Like many others here, I’m smarter than you - and we don’t suffer fools here.”

Wow....I’m so impressed.

[DejaJude]

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

I have known conservatives, and avoth, you are no conservative.

[avoth]

Yawn. Heard that line before.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Think the pro-choice movement is going to roll over and die?

The pro-life attitudes of the younger generation shows us that yes, in fact, the pro-abort crowd is going to roll over and die. I want to thank you for the back-up here too, sir!

[jhw61]

You can call youself a conservative all you want...your a CIN....Conservative in Name Only. Don’t tell me your Catholic too.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Go back to the kiddie pool, sonny.

[avoth]

like I would take any advice from someone like you.

Get real.

[avoth]

“You can call youself a conservative all you want...your a CIN....Conservative in Name Only. Don’t tell me your Catholic too.”

I guess I’m pretty lucky that I don’t give a d@mn what you think.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Fine - then shut up and get lost.

[jhw61]

A snippet from your first post on this thread....

“they’re backfiring and giving our enemies ammunition to use against us?”

“Our enemies”...your not on the conservative side in the slightest, you are the enemy to Pro-Life.

[Christian_Capitalist]

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?

Avoth -- abortion kills an unborn child.

That means that it's just different from issues like marijuana usage or gambling or prostitution or any other issue which we might find "morally reprehensible", but on which Prohibition fails -- well, as badly as Prohibition usually fails, when both parties are voluntarily seeking to engage in a mutually-desired (albeit immoral), non-violent transaction.

Marijuana doesn't kill anyone, though it may deaden the soul. And the same could be said for the other "personal vices" I've mentioned, as well.

But with Abortion, killing someone is the whole point of the operation!
If a human being doesn't get killed, the abortion didn't get done.

[P-Marlowe]

Yes, you’ve convinced me. Bye.

IBTZ

[mlizzy]

The anti-abortion crowd only needs to keep repeating that abortion is the killing of a child that otherwise would be, and that any mother who proceeds with an abortion, that is not directly threatening her own life, will at some point in time be regretful of her decision if she has any conscious at all.

How can a mother forget her baby? She either asks forgiveness and eventually heals post-abortion, or she goes into denial regarding the aftermath of her child's bloodbath, becomes harsh, embittered and lifeless herself. While the lost child of abortion is cared for by God, the pain of abortion for its mother lasts her lifetime. In addition to the senseless loss of an innocent baby's life, that's why abortion must cease and desist. Abortion hurts women. (And it hurts men too!)

"Abortion Trauma and Child Abuse" by Theresa Karminski Burke, Ph.D., & David C. Reardon, Ph.D.

"...Her destructive thoughts were like starving rabid animals, hounding, scratching, and gnawing at her conscience. They left her feeling bewildered, feeling crazy, and ashamed. She desperately yearned to silence these dangerous beasts in her mind."

[avoth]

Take your own advice.

[avoth]

““Our enemies”...your not on the conservative side in the slightest, you are the enemy to Pro-Life.”

Thanks. I was having trouble getting to sleep and you’ve bored me.

[avoth]

I have no issue with anything you’ve written. If I read you correctly, your issue with my post is that you found the term “morally reprehensible” to be a poor choice of words to describe the behavior of the pro-choice crowd. And I don’t have a problem with that either.

Obviously, the point I was trying to make was lost.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Keep coming around with your tripe and keep getting your pathetic head handed to you, if you like. It can be fun for us squashing the stupid.