Under a new law proposed in the state of Indiana, women seeking an abortion would hear from their doctors that human life begins at conception, and that their baby might be able to feel pain.
Current law in Indiana requires doctors to tell women about the age of their baby and its potential viability, and to offer to show an ultrasound of the child, and also provide information on risks and alternatives to abortion. The law would go farther than almost any other legislation in the country in requiring that women be fully informed about the act of abortion - only South Dakota has brought in a similar law, which has been blocked by court proceedings.
In August 2005 JAMA published a report that was actually a commentary on the authors' selection of existing medical literature, entitled, "A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence," in which the authors concluded that evidence regarding the capacity for fetal pain is limited but indicates that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester, and that little or no evidence addresses the effectiveness of direct fetal anesthetic or analgesic techniques.
Further, that limited or no data exists on the safety of such techniques for pregnant women in the context of abortion, and that anesthetic techniques currently used during fetal surgery are not directly applicable to abortion procedures.
Besides being a commentary on "selected" medical literature, JAMA either forgot to ask or conveniently never asked about any built-in study bias, and it turned out that the authors of the "pro-abortion" results had connections to the abortion industry (one author is an abortion clinic director, while the lead author - Susan J. Lee, a medical student - once worked for NARAL Pro-Choice America).
Other experts - many of them antiabortion activists - believe the fetus may feel pain as early as 13 weeks, when pain receptors are connected to a part of the brain that relays impulses, but not to the part responsible for processing sensory information.
The Indiana legislation appears to make sense: If we are going to allow mothers to kill their unborn children, the least we can do is make them aware of the possibility that their child may feel pain and also that their child is a living human being whose life has already begun. The only argument against such a position is a lack of "scientific proof" verses a "religious belief."
It would seem that a reasonable person can accept as fact that there may be a lack of scientific proof that life begins at conception, but on the other hand, lacking evidence of the contrary from valid scientific inquiry, why wouldn't that same reasonable person prefer to err on the side of caution, thereby erring on the side of life instead of taking a life? Failing to do so is by default arguing in favor of a culture of death - the abortion industry and their supporters.
Cross-posted: Hyscience
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