[Vision2020] The Fetus as a Person

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings:

Some of those poor Republican senators simply cannot get their facts straight.  Their fascination for "fringe science" (concluding for example that gays make bad parents) is also amazing.

I trust that the American voters will find Sen. Brownback, the sponsor of this legislation, woefully unqualified to be president.

With regard to fetuses feeling pain, I reprint my post from seven short months ago.  

April 16, 2006

Greetings: 
 
Thanks to Chasuk for posting the link to the article below.  I had seen similar 
studies and conclusions before.  
 
Animal Rights philosophers have always charged those who support value of 
persons as a form of specieism, but, as I have shown, there are some persons who do not belong to the human species.  Nevertheless, these people do have a point: why should significant mental life be the sole criteria for a being's value? 
 
The humane treatment of animals was one of the great achievements of 19th 
Century reformers influenced by utilitarianism.  One of the results of the 
passing the first laws protecting animals from unnecessary pain was that English 
politicians then realized that they were inflicting unnecessary pain on child 
workers!  What a sad irony: the working age for human beings was raised because of legislation designed to protect animals. 
 
If we say that we now should protect all lives that experience pain, then I, and 
all the other vegetarians, are completely OK with this, but of course such laws 
would not pass for the indefinite future.  Now we have good evidence that 
fetuses don't feel pain until the same period as their significant mental lives 
begin, so the cut-off point is still the same and current laws are morally and 
legally sound. 
 
Nick Gier 
 
Fetuses Can't Feel Pain, Expert Says in British Medical Journal 
>From Bloomberg.com 
 
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Fetuses can't feel pain, according to a commentary by a 
psychologist in tomorrow's issue of the British Medical Journal, which suggests 
doctors won't need to sedate an unborn child before conducting an abortion. 
 
The nerve connections necessary for processing pain aren't complete before 26 
weeks' gestation, said Stuart Derbyshire, a senior psychologist at the 
University of Birmingham in England. Using painkillers before that stage is 
scientifically unsound and may put women at unnecessary risk, he found in a 
clinical review. 
 
``The absence of pain in the fetus doesn't resolve the morality of abortion, but 
does argue against legal and clinical efforts to prevent such pain during an 
abortion,'' Derbyshire said. ``A mandate to provide pain relief before an 
abortion may expose women to inappropriate interventions, risks and distress.'' 
 
Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or 
potential tissue damage, according to the International Association for the 
Study of Pain. It's a conscious experience, not only a response to stimuli. 
 
As pain is subjective, each individual uses the word differently based on his or 
her experience related to injury earlier in life. The limited neural system of 
fetuses can't support such cognitive, affective and evaluative experiences, 
Derbyshire said. 
 
Derbyshire examined neurological and psychological evidence to support a concept 
of fetal pain, which is the basis for proposed U.S. legislation that requires 
tranquilizing a fetus of more than 22 weeks before an abortion. Fetuses are 
capable of responding to pain stimuli, though they don't feel it, he said. 
 
The unborn baby also needs to develop its mind in addition to its brain to 
accommodate the subjectivity of pain, Derbyshire said. Development of the mind 
occurs after birth through the infant's actions and interactions with its 
parents necessary to the development of pain experience, he said. 
 
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