{"id":217219,"date":"2020-01-20T16:48:36","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T22:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=217219"},"modified":"2020-01-20T16:51:28","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T22:51:28","slug":"pro-abortion-researcher-preborn-pain-earlier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pro-abortion-researcher-preborn-pain-earlier\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-abortion researcher admits: Preborn babies feel pain far earlier than we thought"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The value of a human life should never be predicated on whether or not that human being has the capacity to feel pain. Unfortunately, in the debate over abortion, many abortion supporters argue that preborn children don’t feel pain until 24 weeks, and possibly even later — which, to them, means that there should be no real moral qualms with ending those lives (or any lives, for that matter) in the womb.<\/p>\n

As previously reported<\/a> by Live Action News, Maureen Condic, Ph.D., at the time an associate professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah, testified before Congress in April 2017 that “the overall organization of the [embryonic] nervous system is established by four weeks” and the “neural circuitry responsible for the most primitive response to pain, the spinal reflex, is in place by eight weeks<\/strong> of development.” (emphasis added)<\/p>\n

Now, two researchers seem to be reinforcing Condic’s statements, revealing that children in the womb may actually feel pain far, far earlier than commonly thought. What’s more surprising is that one researcher who once claimed this was not the case has changed his tune.<\/p>\n

“The consensus is no longer tenable”<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the UK’s Daily Mail<\/a>, British professor Stuart Derbyshire — an abortion supporter who was once a consultant for \u00a0Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocacy groups — claimed in 2006 that there was “good evidence that fetuses cannot experience pain.” Today, while he still supports abortion, he believes — along with his American co-researcher, John C. Bockmann (who apparently does not share Derbyshire’s pro-abortion position) — that several studies call into question the current 24-week pain ‘consensus.’<\/p>\n

The authors write in their study, published<\/a> in the BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics:<\/p>\n

… We argue that abortions before 13 weeks\u2019 gestation do not involve any meaningful likelihood of pain for the fetus….\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Arguably, there never was a consensus that fetal pain is not possible before 24 weeks. Many papers discussing fetal pain have speculated a lower limit for fetal pain under 20 weeks\u2019 gestation We note in passing that vote counting and consensus is perhaps not the best way to decide scientific disputes. Regardless of whether there ever was a consensus, however, it is now clear that the consensus is no longer tenable<\/strong>….<\/em><\/p>\n

[C]urrent neuroscientific evidence undermines the necessity of the cortex for pain experience. Even if the cortex is deemed necessary for pain experience, there is now good evidence that thalamic projections into the subplate, which emerge around 12 weeks\u2019 gestation, are functional and equivalent to thalamocortical projections that emerge around 24 weeks\u2019 gestation. Thus, current neuroscientific evidence supports the possibility of fetal pain before the \u201cconsensus\u201d cut-off of 24 weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n