16%20year%20old.jpgLondon’s The Daily Mail, followed a 16-year-old (photo right) aborting her 16-week baby and told their story in, “What REALLY happens during an abortion: One surgeon finally tells the truth,” October 12.
What a refreshingly honest article, which we are certainly unused to in the U.S. Part of it discussed fetal pain….

But in Britain… 200,000 abortions [were] carried out last year….
About 20,000 abortions a year are performed after 12 weeks – 10% of the total….
One of the most powerful pieces of anti-abortion propaganda ever produced was a 1984 film called The Silent Scream [see below], which purported to show the ultrasound image of a foetus being aborted – it’s mouth apparently wide open in agony.
In the mid-Nineties, partly in response to growing public concern about such issues, the RCOG [Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists] put together a panel of experts who came to the reassuring conclusion that the foetus couldn’t feel pain until 26 weeks gestation – safely beyond the abortion time limit.
They said the part of the brain that responds to pain simply isn’t developed at 26 weeks. In other words, any physical movements the foetus displays before then are purely reflex actions – the foetus is not aware and can’t feel anything.
But we found disturbing research in America that directly contradicts this established view. It came from Dr Sunny Anand, who has a distinguished record in helping to prove that very young babies can feel pain. When he was based at Oxford University in the 1980s his work helped to ensure that newborn babies were routinely given pain relief for surgical procedures.
His latest research is extremely technical and covers two areas. First, he’s been comparing how newborn babies and unborn foetuses react to any kind of stress, including pain.
He’s found similar changes in their hormones and their blood flow, suggesting that foetuses can indeed respond to pain.
Secondly, he’s been researching – using rats – exactly which parts of the developing brain are used to detect pain.
He says that while the adult uses the very top section of the brain, the foetus has the first flickerings of sensation in the area below that. Crucially, this part of the brain develops before 26 weeks.
His conclusions could have enormous consequences for the abortion debate. He told Dispatches: “I believe that foetuses can feel pain very likely by 20 weeks of gestation and possibly even earlier.”

Rosary Films made a high resolution version of The Silent Scream available via YouTube two months ago. It has been called “the most important video on abortion ever made.” The baby filmed while being aborted was only 12 weeks old. His or her heartrate went from a norm of 140 to 200 while being drawn and quartered, indicating the probability babies feel pain much earlier than 20 weeks.
View Part I, 5:24, here.
View Part II, 6:12, here.
Part III, 11:03, shows the actual abortion on ultrasound:


View Part IV, 5:19, here.
View Part V, 3:48, here.
Why do we give every benefit of doubt to animals feeling pain, and make every legal precaution, but not preborn humans?
[HT: moderator jasper]

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