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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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 Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:13 pm Report: Fetuses Do Not Feel Pain Until Late Pregnancy |
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Report: Fetuses Do Not Feel Pain Until Late Pregnancy
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
A review of medical evidence has found that fetuses likely don't feel pain until the final months of pregnancy, a powerful challenge to abortion opponents who hope that discussions about fetal pain will make women think twice about ending pregnancies.
Critics angrily disputed the findings and claimed the report is biased.
"They have literally stuck their hands into a hornet's nest," said Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, a fetal pain (search) researcher at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who believes fetuses as young as 20 weeks old feel pain. "This is going to inflame a lot of scientists who are very, very concerned and are far more knowledgeable in this area than the authors appear to be. This is not the last word -- definitely not."
The review by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco comes as advocates are pushing for fetal pain laws (search) aimed at curtailing abortion. Proposed federal legislation would require doctors to provide fetal pain information to women seeking abortions when fetuses are at least 20 weeks old, and to offer women fetal anesthesia (search) at that stage of the pregnancy. A handful of states have enacted similar measures.
But the report, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, says that offering fetal pain relief during abortions in the fifth or sixth months of pregnancy is misguided and might result in unacceptable health risks to women.
Dr. Nancy Chescheir, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University and a board director at the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine (search), said the article "will help to develop some consensus" on when fetuses feel pain. "To date, there hasn't been any."
The researchers reviewed dozens of studies and medical reports and said the data indicate that fetuses likely are incapable of feeling pain until around the seventh month of pregnancy, when they are about 28 weeks old.
While brain structures involved in feeling pain begin forming much earlier, research indicates they likely do not function until the pregnancy's final stages, said the report's senior author, UCSF obstetric anesthesiologist Dr. Mark Rosen.
Based on the evidence, discussions of fetal pain for abortions performed before the end of the second trimester should not be mandatory, the researchers said.
The authors include the administrator of a UCSF abortion clinic, but the researchers dispute the claim that the report is biased.
Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, JAMA's editor-in-chief, said the decision to publish the review was not politically motivated.
"Oh, please," DeAngelis said. "If I had a political agenda, I wouldn't pick fetal pain."
JAMA does not publish "politically motivated science. We publish data-based, evidence-based science," DeAngelis said.
The measure pending in Congress would affect about 18,000 U.S. abortions a year performed in the fifth month of pregnancy or later, said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. He said the review is slanted.
But Rosen said the researchers "tried to review the literature in an unbiased fashion. This was a multidisciplinary effort by experts on anesthesia, neuroanatomy, obstetrics and neonatal development."
Rosen also said that administering anesthesia or painkillers to the fetus could pose health risks to the mother.
When doctors operate on fetuses to correct defects before birth, general anesthesia is given to the mother primarily to immobilize the fetus and to make the uterus relax, Rosen said. Anesthesia during fetal surgery increases the mother's risks for breathing problems and bleeding from a relaxed uterus, the researchers said.
Rosen said those risks are medically acceptable when the goal is to save the fetus but there's not enough evidence to show any benefit from fetus-directed anesthesia during an abortion.
Administering anesthesia directly to the fetus is also sometimes done but generally to reduce the release of potentially harmful fetal stress hormones (search), Rosen said. There is little research on its effects, the authors said.
Anand, the researcher from Arkansas, said the authors excluded or minimized evidence suggesting fetal pain sensation begins in the second trimester and wrongly assume that fetuses' brains sense pain in the same way as adult brains.
While Anand has testified as an expert witness for the government in court cases opposing some late-term abortions, he said he is not anti-abortion and that his views are based on years of fetal pain research.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:21 pm |
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Doesn't change the fact that it's life, and that abortion is murder of that life.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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IntrepidIsMe
Pimp Handed
Joined: 14 Jun 2002
Posts: 13057
Location: New York
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| Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:21 pm |
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This is interesting, but it doesn't really change the fact that people who support abortion are morally deficient.
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"Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
-Wuthering Heights
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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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| Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:23 pm |
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IMO, it's inconclusive. Very much so.
-------signature-------
Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with our scars
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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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| Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:25 pm |
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IMO the study is rather pointless  .
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Alucard
Vampire
Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 2780
Location: Caaaaaanada
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| Tue Aug 23, 2005 8:44 pm |
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I agree Puck, it has no point
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Tue Aug 23, 2005 8:55 pm |
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| Puck wrote: | | IMO the study is rather pointless . |
Well, of course it is! But when the liberals get a hold of anything about a fetus, they have to drive it home like it matters, [sarcasm]because we HAVE to allow abortions![/sarcasm]
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Founder
Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 12755
Location: Gamma Quadrant
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| Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:48 pm |
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"They don't feel pain! So its ok to brutally murder them!"
Wow....abortion supporters are really reaching for a moral reason to allow this....
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Tue Aug 23, 2005 10:00 pm |
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| Founder wrote: | "They don't feel pain! So its ok to brutally murder them!"
Wow....abortion supporters are really reaching for a moral reason to allow this.... |
It's very much like Terri Shiavo. It turned out that she didn't feel pain AND she could not speak for herself, and yet we could still kill her? Horrifying stuff, the baby murder supporters believe.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Birdy
Socialist
Joined: 20 Sep 2004
Posts: 13502
Location: Here.
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 8:02 am |
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Well, this discovery triggers a nice discussion,  
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Nosce te ipsum
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PrankishSmart
Rear Admiral
Joined: 29 Apr 2002
Posts: 4779
Location: Hobart, Australia.
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 9:45 am |
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| Republican_Man wrote: | | Puck wrote: | | IMO the study is rather pointless . |
Well, of course it is! But when the liberals get a hold of anything about a fetus, they have to drive it home like it matters, [sarcasm]because we HAVE to allow abortions![/sarcasm] |
Republican's on the other hand are all for saving the fetus at the expense of the mother's choice. But when it comes to something like the death penalty, they are all for it 
You and I sir will never be a mother to a child, so I think the abortion debate is pointless because we will never know what a mother has to go through in different circumstances. I do think the mother deserves a choice.
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webtaz99
Commodore
Joined: 13 Nov 2003
Posts: 1229
Location: The Other Side
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:02 am |
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A) Anything with a spinal column feels pain.
B) EVEN IF fetuses don't, that's no excuse to murder them.
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"History is made at night! Character is who you are in the dark." (Lord John Whorfin)
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LightningBoy
Commodore
Joined: 09 Mar 2003
Posts: 1446
Location: Minnesota, U.S.A.
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:14 pm |
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| PrankishSmart wrote: | | Republican_Man wrote: | | Puck wrote: | | IMO the study is rather pointless . |
Well, of course it is! But when the liberals get a hold of anything about a fetus, they have to drive it home like it matters, [sarcasm]because we HAVE to allow abortions![/sarcasm] |
Republican's on the other hand are all for saving the fetus at the expense of the mother's choice. But when it comes to something like the death penalty, they are all for it
You and I sir will never be a mother to a child, so I think the abortion debate is pointless because we will never know what a mother has to go through in different circumstances. I do think the mother deserves a choice. |
As far as i'm conserned, the woman HAD her choice. She CHOSE to have sex.
Woman's rights, my ass... I've never heard of the right to murder. At least with the death penalty, which I am also against, you're bringing justice to someone, and eliminating a monster, not an innocent baby.
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PrankishSmart
Rear Admiral
Joined: 29 Apr 2002
Posts: 4779
Location: Hobart, Australia.
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:28 pm |
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| LightningBoy wrote: |
As far as i'm conserned, the woman HAD her choice. She CHOSE to have sex. |
Women who get raped don't have a choice. Now your turning around and basically saying she HAS to carry the fetus to term, denying her right of choice even though she was the victim to begin with?
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LightningBoy
Commodore
Joined: 09 Mar 2003
Posts: 1446
Location: Minnesota, U.S.A.
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:07 pm |
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| PrankishSmart wrote: | | LightningBoy wrote: |
As far as i'm conserned, the woman HAD her choice. She CHOSE to have sex. |
Women who get raped don't have a choice. Now your turning around and basically saying she HAS to carry the fetus to term, denying her right of choice even though she was the victim to begin with? |
Well, now you're bringing up the most extreme examples...
As for that, I still don't see why a woman who got raped has the right to murder an innocent person... Yes, she was a victim, and yes, I am denying her the CHOICE to MURDER!
I frankly don't care what you went through, nobody has the right to murder an innocent life.
Wanna give that woman choice, let her CHOOSE to carry a gun to prevent rape from happening.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:25 pm |
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LightningBoy's made good points that are so true. Now, as to the support of the death penalty--which I only support for treason and terrorism--and abortion, there is a DIFFERENCE.
1. The person whose getting the death penalty CHOSE to do what he/she did, and did murder or rape and so deserves the maximum punishment--whatever that may be.
2. A BABY, on the other hand, did NOT make the choice to be born--the mother did, in most cases, and the BABY is life. It is MURDER to kill an innocent life, even if it's in the womb. What crime did the baby commit except for being conceived? NOTHING, and therefore does NOT deserve the punishment of NOT having life outside the womb.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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LightningBoy
Commodore
Joined: 09 Mar 2003
Posts: 1446
Location: Minnesota, U.S.A.
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:07 pm |
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| Republican_Man wrote: | | the death penalty--which I only support for treason and terrorism |
Well, in those cases, why not ship them to Gitmo? Cause then it's not US soil.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:19 pm |
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| LightningBoy wrote: | | Republican_Man wrote: | | the death penalty--which I only support for treason and terrorism |
Well, in those cases, why not ship them to Gitmo? Cause then it's not US soil. |
Because it's like a hotel down there (as Rush Limbaugh calls it, "Club Gitmo"). For terrorist acts committed ON US soil, they should get the death penalty. However, those that don't should get what's done to them now.
-------signature-------
"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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LightningBoy
Commodore
Joined: 09 Mar 2003
Posts: 1446
Location: Minnesota, U.S.A.
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:44 pm |
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| Republican_Man wrote: | | LightningBoy wrote: | | Republican_Man wrote: | | the death penalty--which I only support for treason and terrorism |
Well, in those cases, why not ship them to Gitmo? Cause then it's not US soil. |
Because it's like a hotel down there (as Rush Limbaugh calls it, "Club Gitmo"). For terrorist acts committed ON US soil, they should get the death penalty. However, those that don't should get what's done to them now. |
My point was that if you outlaw DP in the US, you can still ship the worst of crinimals to Gitmo and execute them there, since it technically isn't US soil.
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
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| Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:50 pm |
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| LightningBoy wrote: | | Republican_Man wrote: | | LightningBoy wrote: | | Republican_Man wrote: | | the death penalty--which I only support for treason and terrorism |
Well, in those cases, why not ship them to Gitmo? Cause then it's not US soil. |
Because it's like a hotel down there (as Rush Limbaugh calls it, "Club Gitmo"). For terrorist acts committed ON US soil, they should get the death penalty. However, those that don't should get what's done to them now. |
My point was that if you outlaw DP in the US, you can still ship the worst of crinimals to Gitmo and execute them there, since it technically isn't US soil. |
Oh, okay, I see. However, technically it is. If I were born in a US military base in Africa, I would have been born on US soil and be a legal citizen, as opposed to if I was born in France but NOT at a US base.
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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PrankishSmart
Rear Admiral
Joined: 29 Apr 2002
Posts: 4779
Location: Hobart, Australia.
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| Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:17 am |
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| LightningBoy wrote: | | PrankishSmart wrote: | | LightningBoy wrote: |
As far as i'm conserned, the woman HAD her choice. She CHOSE to have sex. |
Women who get raped don't have a choice. Now your turning around and basically saying she HAS to carry the fetus to term, denying her right of choice even though she was the victim to begin with? |
Well, now you're bringing up the most extreme examples...
As for that, I still don't see why a woman who got raped has the right to murder an innocent person... Yes, she was a victim, and yes, I am denying her the CHOICE to MURDER!
I frankly don't care what you went through, nobody has the right to murder an innocent life.
Wanna give that woman choice, let her CHOOSE to carry a gun to prevent rape from happening. |
Abortion is often used in extreme circumstances. I think it should only be a choice if the situation is not just the female using abortion as birth control, and abortion is only used early in the pregnancy. That would not be a stretch any further than the 72 hour morning after pill.
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PrankishSmart
Rear Admiral
Joined: 29 Apr 2002
Posts: 4779
Location: Hobart, Australia.
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| Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:21 am |
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| Republican_Man wrote: | LightningBoy's made good points that are so true. Now, as to the support of the death penalty--which I only support for treason and terrorism--and abortion, there is a DIFFERENCE.
1. The person whose getting the death penalty CHOSE to do what he/she did, and did murder or rape and so deserves the maximum punishment--whatever that may be.
2. A BABY, on the other hand, did NOT make the choice to be born--the mother did, in most cases, and the BABY is life. It is MURDER to kill an innocent life, even if it's in the womb. What crime did the baby commit except for being conceived? NOTHING, and therefore does NOT deserve the punishment of NOT having life outside the womb. |
I dunno I think life imprisionment would be more effective punishment. A baby is only a baby after it is born. Before it is born it is a fetus, and it could be debateable if it is life as a fetus.
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LightningBoy
Commodore
Joined: 09 Mar 2003
Posts: 1446
Location: Minnesota, U.S.A.
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| Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:28 am |
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| PrankishSmart wrote: | | it could be debateable if it is life as a fetus. |
Human:
A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.
Life:
The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.
Therefore, I would say a fetus fits both of those, therefore it IS a human life.
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