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Fetuses Don't Feel Pain Before 24 Weeks, Experts Say

1 year ago
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A new report out of the U.K. bolsters evidence that fetuses don't feel pain before 24 weeks.

Most doctors are using the conclusion to confirm the legitimacy of current abortion limits in the country, while anti-abortion advocates are suggesting that the review was marred by biases.

The analysis of prior research, done by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, found that the brain's nerve connections are inadequately established to process pain before 24 weeks.

Furthermore, the womb environment is akin to unconsciousness, leaving fetuses "undeveloped and sedated."

The RCOG publication is a blow to those advocating for restrictions on late-term abortions, which are legal in the U.K. if a fetus is severely deformed or a woman is suffering serious complications.

"I think both reports tell us more about the RCOG's willing acceptance of late abortion than the reality of the scientific and ethical issues at stake," Josephine Quintavalle, with U.K. advocacy group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, told the Guardian.

Here in the U.S, the analysis offers evidence that contradicts a Nebraska law enacted earlier this year, which bans abortions beyond 20 weeks on the basis that fetuses can experience pain.



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dc walker

.what if all the 42 million abortions last year around the world (google stats) were the best and the brightest and those that were allowed to be born were the dumbest and the dullest what will happen to the next generation???

June 25 2010 at 1:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ettu

I have been a Right leaning Moderate since I reached voting age 51 years ago. I have always supported the PRO-CHOICE issue, BUT ONLY WITHIN THE FIRST TRIMESTER. I believe Roe v Wade will NEVER be overturned, unless this Country wants to see a vast mob of angry women sitting at the steps to the Supreme Court, demanding reinstatement. There is no reason a woman cannot decide what she wants to do within three months. Unless her life becomes endangered later in the pregnancy, it should be required she continue her pregnancy to term. To allow such late term abortions, such as performed by that doctor who was murdered by a fanatic, should be considered murder, and to allow it is to place a horrific burden on those having to terminate a later term pregnancy.

My heart goes out to the millions of abused, neglected, unhugged and unloved, hurting and hungry, unwanted children that inhabit the globe. I would much prefer women who cannot/will not support, love, and nurture a child to adulthood, abort that fetus within the 1st trimester, rather than condemn a baby to a childhood in Hades.

June 25 2010 at 11:57 AM Report abuse +2 rate up rate down Reply

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