LA Times/San Francisco Chronicle. December 7, 2006
House Republicans opposed to abortion rights failed Wednesday in their bid to pass a controversial measure that would have required women seeking abortions to be informed that some fetuses feel pain. The bill received majority support, 250-162. But that fell short of the two-thirds majority vote required under rules that limited debate.
Abortion rights supporters applauded the bill's failure as they prepared for the arrival of a Democratic Congress in which such measures almost assuredly will never see the light of day. The opponents also disputed the claim by the bill's backers that fetuses 20 weeks old or more experience pain. The bill has not been a top priority for anti-abortion activists. Their movement suffered a tougher loss earlier in the fall when a measure to strengthen parental consent laws was derailed in the Senate after passing the House. The fetal pain bill was sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.
The bill would have required that the women be offered the choice of having anesthesia administered to the fetus. NARAL Pro Choice America, one of the nation's leading abortion rights groups, was neutral on the bill. Other groups, including the National Abortion Federation, opposed it, arguing that the evidence that fetuses feel pain is inconclusive. "Requiring misleading mandated communication is an inappropriate and dangerous intrusion of Congress into private health care decisions," the heads of seven abortion rights groups and health care providers wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
CMDA Chief Executive Officer Dave Stevens, MD: I think excerpts from Representative Chris Smith floor speech in support of the Unborn Child Awareness Act which he co-sponsored, give the best commentary. He said:
"Not only is abortion violence against children but we now know that abortion is painful to the baby as well.
"In expert testimony provided to the Northern District of the US District Court in California during the partial birth abortion trials, Dr. Sunny Anand, Director of the Pain Neurobiology Lab at Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute said, ‘the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborn's or older children’.
"In testimony before the Virginia State Senate, Dr. Jean Wright of Emory University School of Medicine said, 'Aspects of pain architecture begin as early as six to seven weeks, mature and are identified by their anatomy, their physiology, and the coordination of responses so that by 20-22 weeks of gestation, the evidence reveals a developed system of pain perception and response. ... The ability to modulate or blunt the pain response does not develop until the last weeks of pregnancy and the first few weeks of infancy, leading us to believe that the pain perceived in the fetus is greater than that in the full-term infant’.
"Dr. Anand further describes before the court that the ‘highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero,’ while still in the womb, ‘from 20 to 30 weeks gestation. During this period, the epidermis is still very thin, leaving nerve fibers closer to the surface of the skin than in older neonates and adults.’
"He went on to explain that the pain inhibitory mechanisms, in other words fibers which dampen and modulate the experience of pain, do not begin to develop until 32 to 34 weeks of gestation. Thus, Dr. Anand concludes, a fetus 20 to 32 weeks of gestation would experience a much more intense pain than older infants or children or adults when these groups are subjected to similar types of injury.
"Dr. Anand points out on the question of fetal consciousness that more than 3 decades of research show that preterm infants are actively perceiving, learning and organizing information, and are constantly striving to regulate themselves, their environment and their experiences. All preterm infants actively approach and favor experiences that are developmentally supporting and actively avoiding experiences that are disruptive.
"Additionally, a recent British study measured blood flow and oxygen in the part of the brain that feels pain while blood was drawn during a heel lance. The results showed a surge of blood and oxygen in the sensory area of their brains, meaning the pain was processed in the higher levels of the brain, indicating that these little boys and girls do feel pain.
"Meanwhile 18,000 unborn children at 20 weeks or beyond are destroyed without the basic decency of pain relief. That means that twice every hour a baby is destroyed without pain alleviation by methods that include the D and E abortion.
"The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is a modest but necessary expansion of informed consent."
Dr. Anand is the leading authority on fetal pain in the U.S. Dr. Jean Wright is a CMDA member. Unfortunately, even this modest proposal failed.
Reproduced in the Link-Zone pages with the permission of the US based Christian Medical and Dental Associations
