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It's an interesting approach, to say the least. At 20 weeks, a normal fetus is capable of feeling pain.
No, it isn't. At 20 weeks, a normal fetus is capable of being callously used by dishonest religious whackjobs and other self-serving zealots as the object of false and manufactured pseudo-scientific claims designed to further an argument for which there has never been established any legitimate scientific support.
(1) At least by twenty weeks after 1 fertilization there is substantial evidence that an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain;
Laughable. Consider that this statement is brought to you by the same people who believe there is substantial evidence that the earth is no more than 6,000 years old.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DraggingCanoe
(2) There is substantial evidence that, by twenty weeks after fertilization, unborn children seek to evade certain stimuli in a manner which in an infant or an adult would be interpreted as a response to pain;
Amoebae respond to noxious stimuli as well, and in the identical manner. But no one has yet been willing to make such a fool of himself as to claim that amoebae experience pain. Apparently, no such modesty comes into play with regard to invented fetal dogma.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DraggingCanoe
(3) Anesthesia is routinely administered to unborn children who have developed twenty weeks or more past fertilization who undergo prenatal surgery;
And is the purpose of such sedation to address pain management issues or is it to achieve the levels of uterine and fetal relaxation necessary in order to perform such typically delicate surgery successfully?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DraggingCanoe
(4) Even before twenty weeks after fertilization, unborn children have been observed to exhibit hormonal stress responses to painful stimuli. Such responses were reduced when pain medication was administered directly to such unborn children;
Pain is not experienced via the hormonal system. The ability and potential desirability of inhibiting some hormonal responses during fetal surgery is an unrelated issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DraggingCanoe
It is the purpose of the State of Nebraska to assert a compelling state interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that they are capable of feeling pain
It is the purpose of the Nebraskan authors of this legislation to do some legal grandstanding in what they hope will be a furtherance of their personal religious views on abortion. There is no other purpose.
I had a little to do with that- thank you. It was a clever strategy and an approach that has not been used. Oddly enough, it makes perfect physiological success and is based entirely in medical facts. the evidence is irrefutable and is based on hard science, with the extrapolation of the adult scenario of an anesthetized patient during a surgical procedure, unable to communicate verbally sensations of pain.
What a joke. There is no hard science supporting the existence of fetal pain at any stage of gestation. There is distortion and misrepresentation of the facts among proponents of the theory that is remarkably similar to the distortion and misrepresentation inherent in so-called creation science. Can you tell us for instance at what stage of development neural fibers may be expected to have penetrated the cortical plate? This step at least would seem to stand as an absolute minimum precursor to any theory of fetal expericence of pain, so when is it that such an event typically occurs?
Just another attempt by a bunch of insecure males to put women back in their gender determined chains. Whether or when an abortion is done is the business of the woman and her doctor.
This is an abuse of the scientific principals of observation and thought. These men, also the perpetrators of Creationism, are attempting to use pseudo science to legally force women to carry pregnancies when they do not desire to continue doing so. To control what a person does with their body for some personal of religious reason is a form of slavery and should not be allowed here or anywhere else. This is about control of women and the fetus is only the excuse.
Believe me, guys, if she wants to have your child she will do just that. If she does not she will abort the pregnancy. That is her choice, not yours.
I do know. I helped with the testimony. It refers to late term abortions and the data is rock solid. A late term abortion, from a physiological pain pathway standpoint, would be the equivilent of drawing and quartering an adult. Now you are not advocating the drawing and quartering of adults, are you? If so, your views are perfectly consistent with the support of late term abortions and you should be an advocate for both that procedure, and adult torture.
The word "data" is plural, doctor, and far from being "rock solid", your evidence amounts to little more than a swiss cheese amalgamation of contrived and misrepresented observation combined with hopelessly transparent emotional investment in the outcome of the debate. By the way, what role does the myelin sheath play in the ultimate transmission of pain signals? When is formation of the myelin sheath completed?
Erring on the side of caution the medical community makes the assumption that fetal pain can be presumed after 20 weeks gestation. This is not the same as saying that is when it is present.
The presumption may as well be stated as that there isn't any reason at all to be concerned over fetal pain prior to 20 weeks as it is not yet possible, and that it doesn't actually cost anything after 20 weeks as sedation would typically be desirable for other reasons at that point and beyond in any case.
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Originally Posted by Zimbochick
The data is definitely anything but rock solid.
Just another example of knee-jerk right-wing hyperbole. "Flimsy" is converted to "rock solid", "speculative" to "well-established", and so on and so on and so on.
...not if you, as the one being rescued, having nothing even approximating the capacity to understand what's happening.
Physiologically, a fetus would be in a less aware state than patients at the other end of the spectrum whom we routinely disconnect from life support services on the grounds that they are in a persistent vegatative state. Even in very late term, fetuses are beyond the levels of a very deep coma.
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Originally Posted by JerZ
This. Move. Is. A. Stunt.
Yes, it is, but the so-called partial-birth abortion stunt worked among significant numbers of the willing to be grossly misinformed, so why not repackage this failed fetal pain stunt and give that another try as well.
Are these personal opinions, some neocon MALE congressman's opinions.....?????
I certainly hope if this passes in Nebraska the males are man enough to all go out and get a vasectomy....including the geek who proposed this....(they won't be).
Quote:
Originally Posted by DraggingCanoe
Sec. 7. Any person who intentionally or recklessly
performs or attempts to perform an abortion in violation of
section 5 of this act is guilty of a Class IV felony.
Oh, so you admit there is no basis for these claims, no scientific, evidence to prove them....just personal opinions...thank you for admitting I was right.....you just want people to be punished if they do something YOU personally don't agree with....
You see what you want to see: HUGE numbers of women are aborting well developed fetuses willy-nilly. This is so untrue and so slanted. Look at the actual facts and you'll be embarrassed.
So true!!! But it serves the right-wing cause well to invent and propagate false stereotypes that can then be used as a basis for endless series of emotional appeals. This is a common tactic actually among groups who have no hope of prevailing on the actual facts. It all of course does a gross disservice to those real world women and families who tragically find themselves in the sorts of circumstances that lead to late-term abortions, but what are they and their feelings in comparison to the self-centered pursuit of a mission from God...
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