New Evidence in Prenatal Development Ignored

Submitted by admin on Thu, 2008/10/02 - 1:50pm

Pain Experience of a Fetus Might Be Even Worse Than Adult Pain

Toronto, Canada (October 2, 2008) – The politics of abortion have distorted the science of fetal pain, causing a potential conflict with modern pediatric medicine, according to neurologist and University of Toronto lecturer Dr. Paul Ranalli last night. He was speaking to a gathering of 100 people for the deVeber Institute's Annual General Meeting at St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto.

"An unborn child is likely capable of feeling pain from the middle point of pregnancy", Dr. Ranalli said. New understandings and evidence accumulated over the past two decades show that by the 20th week of gestation, the fetus possesses everything necessary for the fetus to feel pain. However, the systems that help adults inhibit pain are not developed until well after this time period. Therefore it is possible that the fetus may be experiencing extreme pain during an abortion without the internal coping mechanisms that we take for granted.

Moreover, Dr. Ranalli pointed out that research reviews and guidelines from abortion providers in the United Kingdom and France have called for separate anaesthesia to be given to the fetus to protect it from pain during second trimester abortions.

In North America, however, there is much denial of the subject, according to Dr. Ranalli. A review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2005 purported to claim that a fetus could not feel pain until 29 weeks. The report was criticized for potential bias when two of its authors were found to have links to abortion practice, including the lead author, a former advocate for the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). The report's conclusion would imply that premature babies born from the time of viability, currently 23 weeks, would be unable to feel pain for the first 6 weeks of their lives, a concept that was abandoned as barbaric over 25 years ago.

Nevertheless, the article continues to be cited by many as authoritative, a practice Dr. Ranalli believes is intended to provide moral cover for abortion providers. Dr. Ranalli described the article's conclusions as "so ghastly, the effect would be would be to set back the humane modern practice of child-centered pediatric medicine 20 years."

The deVeber Institute is an independent Toronto-based research Institute, which carries out interdisciplinary research in bioethical issues around life issues. Dr. Ranalli is an Advisory Council member of the Institute.