On Tuesday, the House Subcommittee on the Constitution began
hearings on the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act (UCPAA). The
legislation would require abortion providers to tell women who come
to them for late-term abortions that the fetus might feel pain and
that the woman has a right to ask that the fetus be anaesthetized
for the procedure. Although evidence suggests that the unborn child
feels pain by the age of 20 weeks (if not sooner), abortionists are
not required to provide women with the information that the fetus
might suffer pain during an abortion procedure, pain which could be
eliminated by dispensing anesthesia directly to the fetus.
For over 30 years, significant advances have been made in
palliative care, helping to treat patients who are dying so that
they do not suffer needlessly. Without resorting to extremes like
assisted suicide, palliative and hospice care have been able to
provide care for patients so that they can live as comfortably as
possible despite serious disease and illness.
The Journal of the American Medical Association
recently published the results of a meta-study that surveyed over
2,000 studies on fetal pain. While the authors of the study
concluded that fetal anesthesia should be administered during fetal
surgeries, they did not recommend the same for fetal surgeries
which will result in the intended demise of the fetus. They
reasoned that the child being aborted wouldn’t survive to
experience or remember the effects of any possible pain, but the
child who was intended to live might recall the extreme experience
of pain and be seriously affected by it.
If we were to apply this same reasoning to the patient
population at large, palliative and hospice care wouldn’t exist.
After all, why ease someone’s pain if they’re “just going to
die?”
Science continues to confirm and reveal what every joyfully
expectant parent already knows: although in its earliest stages of
development, the unborn child is a member of the human species and
has unique experiences within the womb.
It’s telling that the JAMA article recommends only
giving this information to the mothers of children who will not be
aborted as the result of a surgical intervention. Regardless of the
outcome, true informed consent would require that the woman be
informed of the surgery as it relates to pain in the fetus. Yet the
researchers evidently think that the women who choose abortion
aren’t owed all of the relevant information, as if women weren’t
capable of handling the truth.
Pain is a complicated matter. Those opposed to UCPAA would
maintain that the fetus does not have a developed brain and
therefore is not capable of memory or processing the sense
experience of pain. At Tuesday’s hearing, Dr. Sunny Anand, a
leading expert on fetal pain, testified that human brains are well
developed prior to birth so they are probably capable of processing
the experience that causes pain. In addition, studies have shown
that conscious perception can occur without the cerebral cortex. He
concluded his testimony, “Based on the available scientific
evidence, we cannot dismiss the high likelihood of fetal pain
perception before the third trimester of human gestation.”
As early as six weeks from conception, the fetus begins to
develop sensory receptors on the face and the mouth. These spread
to cover the entire body by 20 weeks. Dr. Jean Wright, a specialist
in the care and anesthesia of critically ill infants and children,
explained in her testimony that these sensors cover the body more
densely than they do for an older child or adult. Hence, the fetus
could actually have a heightened awareness of the pain.
Dr. Wright also noted that the care of premature and seriously
ill infants has changed drastically over the past 25 years. These
infants were once operated upon and treated without anesthesia;
today standard procedures require that they receive anesthesia. But
Dr. Wright explicitly stated that there was never the
presumption that the child did not feel pain. Rather, they
theorized that the administration of anesthesia would cause
additional pain for the child. As studies revealed more about the
unborn child, they changed their practices and found that
administering anesthesia resulted in better outcomes and survival
rates since the patient was not submitted to the unnecessary stress
of pain that could be controlled by anesthesia.
These developments paralleled those that took place in the
fields of palliative medicine and hospice care.
Law professor Teresa Collett, the author of one of only two
existing legal papers on fetal pain, reminded hearing participants
of the testimony of Dr. Katharine Sheehan, a medical director for
Planned Parenthood of San Diego. Previously, Dr. Sheehan testified
that her clinic offered to administer the drug digoxin to induce
fetal demise prior to every abortion related to pregnancies that
had progressed to twenty-two weeks of gestation or more. Every one
of her patients had accepted the offer because it would
instantaneously kill the fetus before the abortion procedure was
completed and eliminate unnecessary pain.
In other words, even a doctor with a major abortion provider
like Planned Parenthood acknowledges that women want to know some
truth about their unborn child. Perhaps the day will dawn when
Planned Parenthood provides the whole truth. In the meantime, this
legislation would enforce a standard of care consistent with the
development in palliative medicine, a standard which has already
been recommended by major medical boards in Canada and Great
Britain.
Passing this legislation helps to bring to light the scientific
evidence that reveals the human face of the unborn child. That’s
why many abortion advocates don’t want women to have complete and
informed consent.
