Fetus May be Conscious Long Before Abortion Limit

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...oet10.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/03/10/ixhome.html


Foetuses 'may be conscious long before abortion limit'
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 10/03/2003)


Foetuses may develop consciousness long before the legal age limit for abortions, one of Britain's leading brain scientists has said.

Baroness Greenfield, a professor of neurology at Oxford University and the director of the Royal Institution, said there was evidence to suggest the conscious mind could develop before 24 weeks, the upper age where terminations are permitted.

Although she fell short of calling for changes in the abortion laws, she urged doctors and society to be cautious when assuming unborn babies lacked consciousness. "Is the foetus conscious? The answer is yes, but up to a point," she said.

"Given that we can't prove consciousness or not, we should be very cautious about being too gung ho and assuming something is not conscious. We should err on the side of caution."

Last year, a Daily Telegraph straw poll found many neurologists were concerned that foetuses could feel pain in the womb before 24 weeks after conception.

Many believed foetuses should be given anaesthetics during a late abortion, after 20 weeks. Some also believe pain relief should be given for keyhole surgery in the womb.

Abortions are allowed up to 24 weeks in Britain, but are rarely given so late. Around 90 per cent of the 175,000 planned terminations that take place each year in England and Wales are in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Around 1.5 per cent - or 2,600 - take place after the 20th week.

Terminations after 24 weeks are only allowed in exceptional circumstances if, for instance, the mother's life is threatened.

Lady Greenfield is sceptical of philosophers and doctors who argue that consciousness is "switched on" at some point during the brain's development.

She believes instead that there is a sliding scale of consciousness and that it develops gradually as neurons, or brain cells, make more and more connections with each other.

She told the British Fertility Society in London last week that she had serious concerns about foetal consciousness.

"The Home Office has legislation that applies to a mammal and they have now extended it to the octopus, a mollusc, because it can learn," she said. "If a mollusc can be attributed with being sentient, and now has Home Office protection, then my own view is that we should be very cautious after making assumptions."

2001 a Medical Research Council expert group said unborn babies might feel pain as early as 20 weeks and almost certainly by 24. They called for more sensitive treatment of very premature babies, who often had to undergo painful procedures like heel pricks and injections.

 

the problem is that other countries actually have stricter controls in terms of allowing abortions past the first trimester...in the US, you can get an abortion basically anytime you want it for "medical reasons"...which can include, "i'm really nervous because i don't know how i'm gonna support this baby."

more importantly, i've finally seen now someone else making the argument i've been making for years now...if you're not sure whether or not it's "living" in human terms, which side do you want to err on? when people play that risky with human life in other circles we convict people.

 

i posted some congressional testimony about it from late term abortion providers...in fact, the three largest late term abortion providers in the country, if i remember right. they explained the procedure and explained how it was deemed necessary...i'll see if i can find it again...but it was posted here previously...

 

RM95:

1. http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/Roe scope Washington Post.pdf


2. http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/pbafact10.html#Dr. Martin Haskell
In 1993, the American Medical News-- the official newspaper of the AMA-- conducted a tape-recorded interview with Dr. Haskell concerning this specific abortion method, in which he said:

And I'll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range. . . . In my particular case, probably 20% [of this procedure] are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective.

In a lawsuit in 1995, Dr. Haskell testified that women come to him for partial-birth abortions with "a variety of conditions. Some medical, some not so medical." Among the "medical" examples he cited was "agoraphobia" (fear of open places). Moreover, in testimony presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee on November 17, 1995, ob/gyn Dr. Nancy Romer of Dayton (the city in which Dr. Haskell operates one of his abortion clinics) testified that three of her own patients had gone to Haskell's clinic for abortions "well beyond" 4 1/2 months into pregnancy, and that "none of these women had any medical illness, and all three had normal fetuses."

Brenda Pratt Shafer, a registered nurse who observed Dr. Haskell use the procedure to abort three babies in 1993, testified that one little boy had Down Syndrome, while the other two babies were completely normal and their mothers were healthy. [Nurse Shafer's testimony before the House Judiciary subcommittee, with associated documentation, is available on request to NRLC.

3. http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/pbafact10.html#Dr. Martin Haskell

The late Dr. James McMahon performed thousands of partial-birth abortions, including the third-trimester abortions performed on the five women who appeared with President Clinton at his April 10 veto ceremony. Dr. McMahon's general approach is illustrated by this illuminating statement in the July 5, 1993 edition of American Medical News:

"[A]fter 20 weeks where it frankly is a child to me, I really agonize over it because the potential is so imminently there. I think, 'Gee, it's too bad that this child couldn't be adopted.' On the other hand, I have another position, which I think is superior in the hierarchy of questions, and that is: 'Who owns the child?' It's got to be the mother.'"

In June, 1995, Dr. McMahon submitted to Congress a detailed breakdown of a "series" of over 2,000 of these abortions that he had performed. He classified only 9% (175 cases) as involving "maternal [health] indications," of which the most common was "depression."

Dr. Pamela E. Smith, director of Medical Education, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mt. Sinai Hospital, Chicago, gave the Senate Judiciary Committee her analysis of Dr. McMahon's 175 "maternal indication" cases. Of this sample, 39 cases (22%) were for maternal "depression," while another 16% were "for conditions consistent with the birth of a normal child (e.g., sickle cell trait, prolapsed uterus, small pelvis)," Dr. Smith noted. She added that in one-third of the cases, the conditions listed as "maternal indications" by Dr. McMahon really indicated that the procedure itself would be seriously risky to the mother.

Of Dr. McMahon's series, another 1,183 cases (about 56%) were for "fetal flaws," but these included a great many non-lethal disorders, such as cleft palate and Down Syndrome. In an op ed piece written for the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Katherine Dowling, a family physician at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, examined Dr. McMahon's report on this "fetal flaws" group. She wrote:

Twenty-four were done for cystic hydroma (a benign lymphatic mass, usually treatable in a child of normal intelligence). Nine were done for cleft lip-palate syndrome (a friend of mine, mother of five, and a colleague who is a pulmonary specialist were born with this problem). Other reasons included cystic fibrosis (my daughter went through high school with a classmate with cystic fibrosis) and duodenal atresia (surgically correctable, but many children with this problem are moderately mentally r****ded). Guess they can't enjoy life, can they? In fact, most of the partial-birth abortions in that [McMahon] survey were done for problems that were either surgically correctable or would result in some degree of neurologic or mental impairment, but would not harm the mother. Or they were done for reasons that were pretty skimpy: depression, chicken pox, diabetes, vomiting. ["What Constitutes A Quality Life?," Los Angeles Times, Aug. 28, 1996]
Over one-third of McMahon's 2,000-abortion "series" involved neither fetal nor maternal health problems, however trivial.

4.

Dr. David Grundmann, the medical director for Planned Parenthood of Australia, has written a paper in which he explicitly states that he uses the partial-birth abortion procedure (he calls it "dilatation and extraction") as his "method of choice" for abortions done after 20 weeks (4 1/2 months), and that he performs such abortions for a broad variety of social reasons. [This paper, "Abortion After Twenty Weeks in Clinical Practice: Practical, Ethical and Legal Issues," and associated documentation, is available from NRLC.]

Dr. Grundmann himself described the procedure in a television interview as "essentially a breech delivery where the fetus is delivered feet first and then when the head of the fetus is brought down into the top of the cervical canal, it is decompressed with a puncturing instrument so that it fits through the cervical opening."

Dr. Grundmann wrote that in Australia, late-second-trimester abortion is available "in many major hospitals, in most capital cities and large provincial centres" in cases of "lethal fetal abnormalities" or "gross fetal abnormalities," or "risk to maternal life," including "psychotic/suicidal behavior." However, Dr. Grundmann said, his Planned Parenthood clinic also offers the procedure after 20 weeks for women who fall into five additional "categories": (1) "minor or doubtful fetal abnormalities," (2) "extreme maternal immaturity i.e. girls in the 11 to 14 year age group," (3) women "who do not know they are pregnant," for example because of amenorrhea [irregular menstruation] "in women who are very active such as athletes or those under extreme forms of stress i.e. exam stress, relationship breakup...," (4) "intellectually impaired women, who are unaware of basic biology...," (5) "major life crises or major changes in socio-economic circumstances. The most common example of this is a planned or wanted pregnancy followed by the sudden death or desertion of the partner who is in all probability the bread winner."

 

ultrasound is killing the argument that these aren't living beings. there was an article in the paper either today or yesterday of planned parenthood officials lamenting that some faith based organizations would have the audacity to actually show a woman an ultrasound of her baby before making the decision.

 

notice McMahon's article above...he's saying, as an abortion doctor, clearly these things are living...but the mother owns them...so she has the right to determine if they live or not.

andrea yates could have used him on her jury.

 

you're very welcome...i feel pretty strongly about this one, as you might have guessed!

that fundraiser i was at last week was for a crisis pregnancy center network here in Houston.

 

man, i hope you're right....

the group that i support helps these mothers...they supply them with baby formula, diapers, clothes, baby furniture, etc...they provide job training..computer training...they help them get grants and financial aid to finish school...

THAT SHOULD BE THE APPROACH!! Not condemnation...but love. And an alternative to abortion.

The three ladies who came up on stage to talk were all younger than me...probably early to mid-20's...each talked about how they really thought abortion was the only alternative...two of them went to planned parenthood where they were basically talked into abortion with little alternative...then they went to this facility and saw this outpouring...and they had their babies on stage with them...and you can imagine how moving that was...how close these little guys were to never knowing their mother...to never drawing a breath...and now being met with so much love. That's what Jesus Christ is supposed to be about...not hate and condemnation for mistakes we all make...but for grace....when it's least expected.

I don't make it out of that fundraiser with dry eyes ever. I would love for some of you to come with me next year...my firm buys a couple of tables. Good food..good speakers...and very eye-opening.

 

their website, in case anyone is interested:


http://www.care-net.org/home.html

 

and in our society, there is no reason why that can't be provided to prevent this.