Fr. John J. Pasquini, Th.D.
In a world that seeks to mitigate any form of pain in
animals, the pain in preborn humans does not seem to be much of a concern for
people. Why?
We have laws in America to protect
animals from unnecessary pain or even discomfort. Painless means of euthanizing dogs and cats
is required by law. In California
animals to be slaughtered for market must be made unconscious prior to
slaughtering. Even laboratory animals
are experimented upon with the aim of causing the least pain necessary. Many states have protected species of animals
by imposing penalties for disturbing the environment of a species or killing a
species that is protected.
Why are the preborn without such
rights? The preborn are dismembered,
ripped apart, burned, salt poisoned, dehydrated, hemorrhaged, chemically
pealed, forced into convulsions, and placed into forced cardiac arrests.
One of the premiere authorities on
pain, the professor of anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the
University of Illinois Medical Center argues that fetal pain begins as early as
eight weeks—at the thirteenth weeks at the latest.
Biologists have known since the
1960’s that preborn children feel pain by week fourteen. The cerebral cortex is sufficiently complete
for the child’s pain transmitters and receptors to be functioning. Let examine the development of the preborn
child:
- By week eight or day fifty-six preborn children
use their nervous system to move within the uterus in order to make
himself or herself comfortable within the womb. By the seventh week lip tactile response
is identified.
- By week nine or day sixty preborn children have
spinal reflexes and tactile-touching stimulation response effects. By ten and a half weeks the palms of the
hands are responsive to slight touch.
- By week eleven or day seventy-seven the preborn
child is responsive to the sweetness of the amniotic fluid within the
womb, as indicated by the amount of swallowing the preborn child engages
in. The palms, footpads, and
genitals become sensitive to touch.
Eyelids squint. The face and upper and lower extremities of the
child’s body are sensitive to touch.
- By week fourteen or day 100 the general sense
organs respond to pain, pointed pressure, temperature, chemicals, pointed
pressure, and light. By week
fourteen the entire body surface, except for the back and top of the head,
feel pain.
Science
is clear. Politics often seeks to
obscure the truth. In a response to
attacks on President Ronald Reagan’s address on fetal pain to the National
Religious Broadcasters Convention in 1984, twenty-six scientists, including two
past presidents of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology wrote the
following defense of President Reagan:
“Over the last 18 years, real time
ultrasonography, fetoscopy, study of the fetal EKG and EEG have demonstrated
the remarkable responsiveness of the human fetus to pain, touch and
sound…. The ability to feel pain and respond
to it is clearly not a phenomenon that develops de facto at birth. Indeed, much of enlightened modern
obstetrical practice and procedure seeks to minimize sensory deprivation of and
sensory insult to the fetus during, at, and after birth” (Lowes, 176).
The
abortionist John Szenes agrees with the consensus of scientists. As he explains from his own experience:
“[During a salting-out abortion]…one notices
that at the time of the saline infusion there [is] a lot of activity in the
uterus. That’s not fluid currents. That’s obviously the fetus being distressed
by swallowing the concentrated salt solution and kicking violently and that’s,
to all intents and purposes, the death trauma” (Magda Denes. “Performing Abortions.” Commentary, October 1976, 33-37).
Magda Denes describes one of her abortions
in the following manner:
“I look inside the bucket in front of
me. There is a small naked person in
there floating in bloody liquid—plainly the tragic victim of a drowning
accident. But then perhaps this was no
accident, because the body is purple with bruises and the face has the agonized
tautness of one forced to die too soon.
I have seen this face before, on a Russian soldier lying on a frozen
snow-covered hill, stiff with death and cold…” (Ibid.).
Notes and Further Reading
Brian Lowes, Facts
of Life, Front Royal: HLI, 2001, 174-177; Sue Brattle. “Can a Fetus Feel
Pain?” London: Daily Express, 1996,
25-6; Geoffrey Dawes. Fetal and Neonatal
Physiology. Chicago. Yearbook
Medical Publishers, 1968, 126; William Liley. “Experiments with Uterine and
Fetal Experimentation.” Australia and New
Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 6:99, 1972; John T. Noonan, Jr. “The
Experience of Pain By the Unborn.” Human Life Review. Fall 1981, 7-19 and
Spring 1984, 105-115.
