Foetuses can’t register pain, says expert

EVIDENCE that foetuses can feel pain is scientifically unsound and may be putting women considering an abortion at risk, a senior psychologist said today.

In an analysis published in the British Medical Journal, Dr Stuart Derbyshire examined the neurological and psychological evidence surrounding foetal pain.

He found the neurological processes needed to feel pain are developed by 26 weeks gestation, but that for pain to be registered and experienced, the mind needs to be able to accommodate the subjectivity of pain.

Such development only occurs outside the womb, through the baby’s actions and his or her relationship with people providing care, he argued.

As a result, Dr Derbyshire concluded, foetuses cannot experience pain.

His analysis comes as the US government considers bringing in a law that would force doctors to tell women seeking an abortion that there is “substantial evidence” the procedure will cause an unborn child pain.

The law would also state that a foetus older than 22 weeks should be given pain-reducing drugs before an abortion.

Dr Derbyshire argued that such an approach would increase risks to the woman, increase costs, undermine the interests of the women and is “unnecessary”.

He added that “an absence of pain in the foetus does not resolve the question of whether abortion is morally acceptable or should be legal”.

But he said: “Avoiding a discussion of foetal pain with women requesting abortions is not misguided paternalism but a sound policy based on good evidence that foetuses cannot experience pain.”

Dr Derbyshire said experiencing pain was more than simply having a biological response to a stimulus.

“Pain involves concepts such as location, feelings of unpleasantness and having the sensation of pain.

“Pain becomes possible because of a psychological development that begins at birth when the baby is separated from the protected atmosphere of the womb and is stimulated into wakeful activity.”

Last year, research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that foetuses are unlikely to feel pain until the last weeks of pregnancy.

But in 2000, Professor Vivette Glover from Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London, said she believed that foetuses over 17 weeks old may feel pain.

Anna Pringle, a spokeswoman for the pro-life charity Life, said: “This debate has been ongoing for a long time.

“Of course, if the unborn child can feel pain, then it makes abortion all the more horrifying.

“What we know for certain is that by the age of 20 weeks unborn children can respond to external aural stimuli such as music and conversation, and ultrasound techniques have shown that a child also responds to physical stimuli.

“We would also note that, as Dr Derbyshire has pointed out, the issue of whether or not an unborn child feels pain is completely irrelevant to the abortion debate.

“Our intrinsic dignity as human beings does not in any way depend on the extent of our ability to feel pain. Would we tolerate the killing of born human beings as long as they were given painkillers beforehand?

“A human person is a human person, and as such has the right to life, which is quite literally fundamental to all other rights.”