Will My Baby Feel Pain? Get the Facts.

I will never forget hearing Abby Johnson (former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life advocate) talking about the most common thing she heard women say on their way to the abortion room. Sometimes (but not always) confused and on sedative drugs they muttered, "Will my baby feel pain?"

These women aren't asking about their fetus or their mass of cells. They are referring to a baby. They also care about the well-being of their baby.

Of course, clinic workers were quick to dismiss the question by saying there was no baby to feel pain, more recent research is showing something different:

Expert Tells Congress Unborn Babies Can Feel Pain Starting at 8 Weeks

"Maureen Condic, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah and obtained her Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. She is a widely published scientist whose works have appeared in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals."

A summary of her testimony-

1. The overall organization of the nervous system is established by four weeks
2. The neural circuitry responsible for the most primitive response to pain, the spinal reflex, is in place by 8 weeks of development,
3. To experience pain, a noxious stimulus must be detected. The neural structures necessary to detect noxious stimuli are in place by 8-10 weeks of human development.

 Dr Condic's Full Testimony 

Dr. Condic presented new evidence that had not been considered yet. The older standard of when a baby was able to feel pain was always set at 20 weeks.

While no neurologist questions that a pre-born infant can feel pain at 20 weeks, lawmakers are still trying to get a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, and their efforts are encountering great opposition. The oddest part of it is that after 20 weeks, most people don't realize how barbaric the procedures are that are used. Just as in earlier abortions that dismember the unborn child, after twenty weeks, limbs are twisted off one by one before the skull is crushed- on a conscious baby with no anesthetic.

So, people know a baby will feel pain and be horribly tortured and they still want that to be a legal "right" for a mother to have? What are people thinking? Articles I have read from pro-choice advocates assert that very few abortions are done at 20 weeks and that laws like this are just stepping-stones to ending abortion.

In other words, it is more important to protect a woman's "right" to end the life of a human being growing inside her than it is to save even one infant from a torturous death by dismemberment.

If the most common question a woman asks before having an abortion is, "Will my baby feel pain," perhaps one of the most important conversations we need to be having with her is about how, "Yes, your baby will feel pain."

Doctors on Fetal Pain.com

Article Appendix-
Facts and Statistics

Prevalence

As for how often abortions after 20 weeks are happening? Check the Guttmacher Institute. They haven't even been keeping track of it since 2006. (See their most recent 2011 summary sheet with their pie graph of their last (2006) research done  http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html ). The last time the CDC did any research was 2009. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6108a1.htm?s_cid=ss6108a1_w .
Both are showing the rate at between 1%-2% of total abortions.

So what's going on? Why four years with no research done at all? No one wants to report on this, that's what's going on.

But, go state by state and you can see for yourself-
Example- five years ago- (again- nothing current is available- Nobody wants to look at this.)

Oregon- 4.4% after 18 weeks (1.71% 21 wks + )

(More than 183 potentially viable, definitely pain-capable infants dismembered limb from limb)

Those at 20 weeks not counted above- total: 18 weeks + is 475
 
http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/states/oregon/

Compare to-
New York- 2.6% 18-20 weeks; 2.3% 21 + weeks
(total- 5879 total infants)

http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/states/new_york/

Oh, it's happening a lot. There are many, many Gosnells out there. They have to be, with statistics like this. What else do the doctors do when the baby is accidentally born alive ? (which happens often after 20 weeks.)

Abortion hurts. Let them know.
 
Viability-
What percent can live outside the womb?

The scientific definition of viability is whether 50% or more can survive. Therefore, 25 weeks is most often given as the time an infant is viable. The truth is that infants survive much younger than that, just at a lower percentage.

Although no infants have survived at 20 weeks, at 21 weeks several anecdotal cases have survived and at 22 weeks, the rate of survival ranges from 10-35%.

Length of Pregnancy	Likelihood of Survival (average)
23 weeks	17%
24 weeks	39%
25 weeks	50%
26 weeks	80%
27 weeks	90%
28-31 weeks	90-95%
32-33 weeks	95%
34+ weeks	Almost as likely as a full-term baby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viability


Way before 20 weeks, babies hurt. New expert testimony shows babies hurt as early as 8 weeks.