Pain Isn’t the Issue

Last Month, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a report from five researchers at the University of California, San Francisco who concluded that fetuses are incapable of feeling pain until the seventh month of pregnancy. The timing of this report is significant because the fetal pain question landed in the public arena this past January with the The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, introduced by U.S. Senator, Sam Brownback. The Act, if passed, would require abortion providers to notify any woman seeking an abortion more than 20 weeks after fertilization that there is growing medical evidence that the preborn child in her womb can feel "severe and extreme pain" during an abortion.

While leading "experts" on both sides of the fetal pain question continue to accuse each other of research bias (2 of the five UC San Francisco researches have had direct, vocational involvement with the abortion industry), it is important to keep things in perspective and remember that, whether fetuses can feel pain or not, abortion is no more or less horrific because of that fact. Pain isn't the issue. We can talk about it, but we must not lose sight of the broader picture. The ethics of abortion have nothing to do with this question. If the dialogue surrounding this issue causes people to examine the existence of abortion more closely, that's a good thing, but even if it could be demonstrably proven that abortion causes a fetus no pain, abortion, itself, would be no less of an injustice. Even the The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, should it pass, would simply give women the option of anesthetizing their unborn child during a late-term abortion. Does that really accomplish anything? Is the child any better off being killed under anesthesia than being killed without?

It is the killing of abortion which is the real problem, not the pain, so as we follow scientific and political lobbying surrounding this hot-button issue, don't lose focus. Take the research for what its worth, realizing that people on both sides are biased, and stick to the real issue: Abortion is an act of violence that kills an innocent human being.

For more on fetal pain, visit "Does a Fetus Feel Pain?