Can a Fetus Experience Pain?
Series #7 Modern Science a.k.a. COMMON SENSE part 3
One of the arguments that religious evangelicals and conservative politicians use to suppress abortion rights is the theory that a fetus might feel pain when the life-support system sustaining it is terminated. While there is an avalanche of conflicting scientific research and opinion on this matter, we don’t need to dive into that mess.
This really is a matter of Common Sense. Just as an amoeba or earthworm have a simple nervous system attached to primal brain cells capable of producing a reaction to stimuli, so a mammalian fetus in the womb will have developed a similar basic nerve network with enough brain cells to produce a reflex to any external stimulus. Since these reflexive movements can be observed with ultrasound technology in the womb (as well as outside the womb by simply poking an earthworm with a stick) people assume the fetus can ‘feel pain’ and it is somehow ‘suffering’ (yet, few people worry about an earthworm ‘suffering in pain’ when being prodded with a stick).
BTW: for those paying attention to the sequencing of my posts, this is the Common Sense analysis of the word ‘leap’ I promised you in my “Babies Leaping” post.
Also, if you are interested in delving into some scientific research on this topic, the American College of Pediatricians is a good place to start. You’ll notice in the article I’ve linked here that the ACPeds errs on the side of ethical caution when it comes to preventing the theoretical pain an unborn fetus may experience. As a mother, I appreciate that. The same article admits that “Despite the extensive evidence and resulting changes to medical practice, the updated 2020 International Association for the Study of Pain’s (IASP) definition of pain continues to exclude immature human beings.“
While there is a ton of scientific research and evidence that show cognitive functioning is necessary for a human to 1. sense pain and 2. remember the sensation of pain, I’m going to let you, the reader, pursue that research as your interest leads you. In this post I will demonstrate that we really don’t need a lot of scientific data to back up these claims. We only need:
Common Sense.
Here we go. Messages such as an external pin prick or damage to bodily tissues are passed along a simple nervous system via junctions or synapses. Synapses transfer messages to the next neurotransmitter using chemicals or electricity. This system is similar to motion-sensor lighting. Movement (an external stimulus) is detected by a sensor. The message that movement was detected is transferred along a copper wire via an electrical current to a switch which acts as the brain of the system. The switch sends another message via another electrical wire to activate the light bulb (reflex). For more on how electrical impulses function within simple cell structures such as an earthworm or any mammalian fetus, check out my blog titled ‘Heartbeat, Electricity, and the Medulla Oblongata.’
Similarly, if you’ve ever had surgery under full anesthesia, do you remember any of the pain your body experienced during the surgery? Certainly the nerve-to-brain functioning was inhibited by the anesthesia to stop most reflexive bodily reactions to the surgical tools and procedure. However, anesthesia also renders the patient unconscious. This means, you do not remember any of the invasive procedures done to your body during the surgery.
If you do not remember the act of an external force damaging bodily tissues, did pain actually accompany the event? When you awake hours later, there is evidence that the surgery happened. There will be an incision, stitches, bandages, maybe some tubes for drainage. However, with no cognitive memory of the surgery, no mental processing in your brain, there is an absence of any pain associated with the actual surgery (while recovery may be a different story now that your brain is fully conscious again!)
The experience of pain in response to bodily tissue damage requires
a fully developed nervous system with
a conscious mind capable of
cognitive functioning with a capacity for
short-term memory
If even one of these factors is missing, the sensation of pain does not take place.
Common Sense tells us this. Yes, there is scientific data to back up my assertions here, but really all I have to do is ask you:
If you were vaginally birthed, do you remember the excruciating pain of having your skull and shoulders mis-shapen, scrunched down, and SQUEEZED through your mother’s 10cm birth canal?
Yeah …
I didn’t think so.
Flexible as the walls of the cervix and birth canal are, the hip and pelvic bones are not. It is still a tight squeeze for a fetal head measuring an average of 34cm in diameter. You read that right: 34cm squeezed through a stretchy 10cm tube restricted on all sides by pelvic and hip bones.
How about the nurse’s needle prick on your heel when they drew a drop of your newborn blood for testing?
Yeah …
I didn’t think you remembered that one either.
Your cognitive functioning and memory were not developed well enough at birth to
1. SENSE and then
2. REMEMBER
all the physical stimuli involved in being pressed into a missile thin enough to be SHOT through a 10cm birth canal. To answer my title question:
An underdeveloped non-viable fetus sustained on life-support is not able to remember external stimuli/tissue damage that a fully developed living breathing newborn infant is unable to remember.
I don’t even need much science for this one. It’s just
COMMON SENSE.
Here’s the thing though: the relentless, LOUD and persistent YELLING that has spewed forth from evangelical preachers and conservative politicians over the past 50+ years has had the power to override our Common Sense. I say ‘our’ here because it happened to me as well for FAR too many years. I subdued my own Common Sense and logical deductions so that I could be in the same league as the people who had a golden media platform, a large following of millions, and yelled the loudest — usually TV evangelists in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Oh … they were the WEALTHIEST too …
hmmmmm …
Anyway, many of us allowed these LOUD, wealthy, powerful white (usually) males (predominantly) to override our Common Sense. They convinced us that a simple electrical/chemical response to a stimulus equals the SAME experience of pain that a living, breathing human with a fully developed nervous system and cognitive abilities can experience. Our memories of our own birth stories show us that assertion is not true — especially if your mama birthed you vaginally.
You just have to think about it for a minute.
