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The subject of Fetal Pain is heavily debated due mainly to Abortion Laws and Abortion itsself. While most scientists believe that a fetus is able to feel physical pain sometime during the pregnancy professional opinion is still divided on the minimum number of weeks/months. Academics who hold "pro-choice" points of view often estimate that a fetus can only feel pain during the third trimester when connections start in the cerebral cortex, while acedemics who hold a pro-life point of view argue that the fetus is capable of feeling pain as early as 7 weeks after conception when the nociceptors have fully developed. Politicians also have been known to debate this topic.

Pain in an adult, child, newborn or late-term fetus originates as an electrical impulse in a body's pain receptors. This signal is sent via nerve pathways to the spinal column, and then to the thalamus - a part of the brain that relays signals from the peripheral nervous system to the cerebral cortex, where it is sensed as pain.

In a fetus, pain receptors develop around 7 weeks after conception; the spino-thalamic system at about 13 weeks. However, the connections to the cortex are established only after about 26 weeks into pregnancy. Most pro-life advocates believe that pain can be felt by the fetus when these systems are only partly formed. Most pro-choice advocates believe that only once all the connections between the receptors and brain can pain be felt - i.e. sometime after about 26 weeks into pregnancy.

Medical Opinions

In 1997, Dr. Robert White, director of the Division of Neurosurgery and Brain Research Laboratory at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, gave testimony before the House Constitution Subcommittee of the Congress of the United States. He stated that, at 20 weeks' gestation, the fetus "is fully capable of experiencing pain...Without question, all of this is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure."

His assertions were supported by Dr. Paul Ranalli, a neurologist at the University of Toronto, who has cited several observations to support the belief that a fetus can experience pain. These include observing a fetus "withdraw from painful stimulation", and the fact that stress hormones detected in adults observing pain has also been found in the blood samples of aborted fetuses.

In 2001, a working group appointed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the United Kingdom contradicted these findings, stating that "little sensory input" reaches the brain of the developing fetus before 26 weeks. "Therefore reactions to noxious stimuli cannot be interpreted as feeling or perceiving pain."

In 2005, a meta-analysis of existing experiments undertaken by the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that the lack of functioning neurological pathways to a fetus' cererbral cortex before 26 weeks meant that it could not experience pain before then. The meta-study was criticised by pro-life groups who were suspicious of the prior involvement of several authors of the report. One directs an abortion clinic at San Francisco Hospital, while the lead author undertook legal work with NARAL, an pro-choice group for six months.

Notes

1. "Can a fetus feel pain?". December 14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

External links

• Anti-abortion site presenting case for fetal pain from second month of pregnancy: .
• A review of clinical evidence concerning fetal pain, JAMA. 2005;294:947-954.

• Abortion