No foetal pain before 24 weeks so OK to abort....?

[StableButDeluded]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10403496.stm

I'm a bit about this. Just because they supposedly can't feel pain still doesn't necessarily make it OK. It just doesn't sit right with me that doctors can be aborting a baby of 24 weeks in one part of a hospital and saving the life of another baby that was born at 24 weeks in another.

I still think that with all the medical advances that now enable premature babies of this age to survive, the abortion time limit should be lowered, apart from in exceptional circumstances. Pain or no pain.

I didn't say I agreed with it, I said it was interesting.
Is it such a leap to say 'well if they can't feel anything how can it be wrong?' for adults as well as the unborn. Do we place a lower value on children who have not had a chance of life yet than those at the end of their natural lives?

I had an amnio for DS. We took it knowing that if it was positive I would have to take that decision. I was lucky (as was he). I weep for those parents who have to go through this horrible experience - but I'm also reminded of the little boy down the road whose parents were told he would not live beyond day one.

Mothers in particular, are vilified whatever their choices and no more so than on the subject of abortion - it's always 'the woman's right to choose' and to be condemned for it. Mothers of disabled children face daily judging - I've even seen it on Mumsnet recently. It's ludicrous that as a support network for women we cannot have an intelligent debate about anything without people crying foul and it descending into namecalling (that was not directed at anyone btw)

It just makes me really angry, for the babies and for the women involved.

I don't, personally, believe that pregnancy is all that linear, that on the dot at six weeks the heart starts beating, I think it's probably more fluid than that. I think perhaps, some babies feel no pain at 23 weeks, and others do. Perhaps babies will severe problems develop less quickly so they are less likely to have any sensorial developments?

Anyway, please don't be offended by me, whatever anyone decides, is their decision (and that of their partner hopefully), I was just saying it was an interesting allegory.

Women HAVE got a choice, its called contraception there is no excuse unless there is a medical reason. Kids are taught about it at school so ignorance is no excuse and neither is cost - its free.

It makes me fucking SICK !

Contraception does fail though OnEdge. And to be fair on this - men have a choice and a role in providing contraception as well.

But if they can't feel pain it must make those women I know who have had to undergo late terminations for medical reasons feel a little less traumatised by the experience so I think it is relevant.

they used to think that disabled babies didn't feel pain, they do, just like non disbaled so sorry whomoved that is wrong imo

'They used to think' is not the same as this. This is scientific evidence that the neural pathways are not connected - it is impossible for them to feel pain.

but do people really kid themselves that just because a baby( I will say baby as we are talking late ) is disabled they don't feel pain??

Do you really think that all women who have terminations for non medical reasons do it because their contraception failed?

My freind had one because she wanted to go travelling

I don't believe a baby/foetus that does summer-salts can't feel pleasure/pain.

Going through a late termination is very traumatic, I would think most people have very serious reasons for having one such as severe birth defects. I am pretty sure most of them have to labour and give birth after about 16 weeks.

For those who would 'never have a termination' can you honestly say you would go ahead with a baby with harlequin itcyiosis (very serious skin disease) or anencephaly? Even if you would, surely you would not want to force other mothers to do the same..

Termination is very sad and the loss of a life but having a baby who will suffer and probably die is also very sad.

minipie - one word - adoption.

Terminating a perfectly healthy pregnancy because you want to go travelling is fucking outrageous and most definately an argument against terminations.

Her mental or physical health had nothing to do with it and why should it come first?

Does an unborn child have no right to live?

If you abort a baby at 24 weeks it seems acceptable.

If you killed a baby that had been born at 24 weeks it is murder.

the only difference is that it is outside of the womb.

Killing perfectly healthy foetus/babies is unacceptable.

If the mother has been raped, or the baby has a medical condition such as jellybeans mentions then that is different.

LynetteScavo - you're not a neuroscientist I take it?

I don't like late abortion. I think abortion should be safe, legal and rare (to paraphrase Bill Clinton).

Your example is extremely unusual. The reasons women have late abortions are not generally frivolous - read [http://www.globalsafeabortion.org/library_resources/4098f70f-e0d2-4aee-8587-4337414545ec_late_abort ion.pdf this study]] if you can - I appreciate this must be very distressing for you as a subject though.

link

I don't think the pain issue is at the crux of the abortion debate, but I do think it's significant. For most of us, some kind of life does begin at conception, but we don't think an embryo is as fully 'life' as a foetus, or a foetus as a newborn. Pregnancy is a process of growing towards meaningful life, with no defined transition from 'just a bunch of cells' to 'a baby'. Of course women call their wanted pregnancies babies and their unwanted pregnancies foetuses - I've done it myself - but that doesn't mean that calling a foetus a foetus is somehow mendacious, or not honouring those of us who have lost children before birth.

I used to work in an abortion clinic, and I wish I could tell you that every one of those abortion were for what would be considered 'good' reasons. Of course they weren't. (Though the number due to women who couldn't be arsed with contraception/want a holiday instead is very low, I promise you.) A few women I recall seemed to me absolutely selfish, irresponsible, callous - though those qualities didn't make me think it was a great idea for them to become mothers, either.

However, one thing that always struck me was how many women in abortion clinics will tell you that they themselves don't approve of abortion, but in THEIR case it's different, they really have no choice... It is, of course, very easy to disapprove of other people's choices if you don't have to walk in their shoes.

"Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God."

Doc I want to go travelling, this pregnancy really is a pain in the arse right now.

OK then love hop on the table, wont take long!

I was a scrub nurse and have assisted surgeons carrying out terminations.

Its fetacide.

I had to clean the remains out of a plastic tube.

I think maybe for various reasons, I may have had real exposure to this, firstly loosing a 22 week old "foetus" and secondly in Theatres so I have seen through the looking glass, and have witnessed the full reality of it.

Its not the same as for a lady who goes to sleep and wakes up and its all over.

In reality it is horrific.

I am anti - I just don't agree with it.
My DD 12 was born at 37 weeks with amedical problem and I was told by several consultants that newborns do not feel pain.
I could see from the way she reacted and other babies on the wards that this could just not be the case.
Medical science is moving on so fast I'm sure opinion will change again and again on this subject.
I agree with WMMC that it is a scary future when it becomes so easy to take a life - be it young, elderly or disabled.

If newborns dont feel pain then why do they scream when they have a heel prick performed?

I wasnt aware of how anti I was until tonight.

Going to stop now. getting too emotional, think it has been building up for a few years and splurged out on MN

OnEdge, I have also been in theatre and examined foetal remains and I understand the strength of your feelings. I have also been a pregnant schoolgirl who needed an abortion. I have been a woman who has lost a much longed-for unborn child. I have given birth. I am an adoptive mother. All of these experiences have given rise to many strong feelings about the subject, sometimes conflicting. But I have also known and talked to so many women in so many really difficult life situations, for whom abortion was an option that truly was better than the alternative.

Adoption is not an easy alternative. Adoption is traumatic, for both mother and child, and gives children a very far from ideal start in life.

As for "It is a scary future when it becomes so easy to take a life": abortion is a fact of life, throughout history and across the world. Talk to your mothers! Mine certainly had an abortion; her mother had an abortion; probably her mother too. It just used to be seedy and dangerous, and now it is legal. We would all rather have a world without abortion, but that's not going to happen, so our challenge is to reduce it as far as possible and make it safe.

How do they know that the baby feels no pain before 24 weeks? What tests have they done on babies under 24 weeks to prove this?

I mean, it's just so convinient - limit is 24 weeks, has been for however long and oh look at our reseach, just so happens that the baby can't feel anything before - 24 weeks - ah, the limit - what a stroke of 'luck' that coincidence is.

I think, whether you are prochoice for the mother or not, the idea that the baby feels pain during what is done is just too horrible for people to think about. So they maintain that the baby feels no pain, because then it is not something they have to think about. And not calling it a baby helps to distance yourself from it as well. It's a perfectly understandable way of coping with what is being done.

Hester

I have talked to my mum, and she never had an abortion. No need, because she didn`t have unprotected sex before she got married.

I have always ensured that I have had protected sex, even when I was a schoolgirl, so I have not had the need to terminate a healthy pregnancy.

That is why neither of us had abortions.

I dont know how old you are, I am 40, and sex education was in the school cirriculum way before I went. So I listened, and ensured that I didn`t get pregnant. There is nothing special there. I havnt had any special treatment, I am from a working class background, brought up on a council estate.