Unborn Children Feel Pain, a British Study Shows
A noteworthy article in the September 7, 1994 issue of the National Right to Life's Chapter Newsletter reads:
"England - Unborn babies undergoing blood transfusions showed the same hormonal response to pain as do older children and adults, according to a study published in the British journal Lancet. 'This study provides the first direct evidence that the fetus has a hormonal stress response to invasive stimuli,' the researchers wrote in the July 9 Lancet. The researchers went on to recommend that doctors use anesthesia when performing potentially painful operations on unborn children. 'This applies not just to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures on the fetus,' they wrote, 'but possibly also to termination of pregnancy, especially by surgical techniques involving dismemberment.' Pro-lifers immediately recognized the irony in suggesting that abortionists lessen the discomfort of those they are about to kill."
This is yet more new scientific evidence of the humanity of unborn children. Along with ultrasound, micro-photography, and other relatively recent technologies, this evidence supports the fact that each human life begins at the moment of human conception. With these scientific discoveries, the unborn child which once was usually viewed as a "fuzzy image" or "blob of tissue" has now clearly come into focus as a developing but fully human life, "fearfully and wonderfully made."
Donald L. Farley II
Class of 1985, MS CS