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"A Medical Detective Story: What you felt before you were born"
by Dr. Paul Ranalli |
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Power Point Presentation on fetal pain delivered by Toronto neurologist Dr. Ranalli at a public information meeting hosted by the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research on Oct.1, 2008 and at CPL's Medical Students Forum, Nov. 22, 2008. |
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JAMA Fetal Pain Study Seriously Flawed. (August 26, 2005) |
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Canadian Physicians for Life president Dr. Will Johnston criticized a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which researchers concluded that a fetus likely does not feel pain before the third trimester, ruling out the need to administer anaesthesia to the fetus during second trimester abortions. |
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Knowledge of Fetal Development and Fetal Pain Grows over Last 10 Years |
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Question: When does a decade seem like 700 years?
Answer: When one considers the evolution of public awareness of life in the womb over the past 10 years. |
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The Emerging Reality of Fetal Pain in Late Abortion |
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The disturbing concept that an unborn child feels pain while being destroyed has once again entered the public conscience in England, when a pro-choice fetal researcher suggested that anesthesia should be given to comfort the fetus from pain from abortions as early as 17 weeks gestation. |
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Does the Fetus Feel Pain? |
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The fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. This is probably a conservatively late estimate, but it is scientifically solid. Elements of the pain-conveying system (spino-thalamic system) begin to be assembled at 7 weeks; enough development has occurred by 12-14 weeks that some pain perception is likely, and continues to build through the second trimester. By 20 weeks, the spino- thalamic system is fully established and connected. |
