Originally published September 14 2005
Abortion debate threatens to flare with review on whether fetuses feel pain
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new review of medical evidence by researchers at the University of California in San Francisco found that fetuses do not feel pain until the final months of pregnancy, but Ireland Online reports that critics think the new review is biased and will stir up a heated debate in pro- and anti-abortion circles.
A review of medical evidence has found that foetuses do not feel pain until the final months of pregnancy -- a powerful challenge to abortion opponents who hope that discussions about foetal pain will make women think twice.
"They have literally stuck their hands into a hornets' nest," said Dr Kanwaljeet Anand, a foetal pain researcher at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who believes foetuses as young as 20 weeks old feel pain.
Proposed federal legislation would require doctors to provide foetal pain information to women seeking abortions when foetuses are at least 20 weeks old, and to offer women foetal anaesthesia 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 foetal 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 gynaecology at Vanderbilt University and a board director at the Society of Maternal-Foetal Medicine, said the article "will help to develop some consensus" on when foetuses feel pain.
We publish data-based, evidence-based science," DeAngelis said.
When doctors operate on fetuses to correct defects before birth, general anaesthesia is given to the mother primarily to immobilise the foetus and to make the uterus relax, Rosen said.
Administering anaesthesia directly to the foetus is also sometimes done but generally to reduce the release of potentially harmful foetal stress hormones, Rosen said.
Anand, the researcher from Arkansas, said the authors excluded or minimised evidence suggesting foetal pain sensation begins in the second trimester and wrongly assume that foetuses' brains sense pain in the same way as adult brains.
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