The Pros And Cons Of Abortion

Pregnancy and childbirth are a part of nature. Delivering a child can be a beautiful experience. However, delivery can also be very painful and can last for days.

According to Justice Harry Blackmun's greater part sentiment, a lady's wellbeing incorporates her "physical, passionate, mental, (and) familial" prosperity, and ought to incorporate contemplations about the lady's age. "Every one of these variables may identify with wellbeing," Blackmun contended, in order to give “the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment” (“U.S Abortion Law”). During the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy, she is typically between one to twelve weeks pregnant and this is when most women undergo the surgical procedure to terminate the pregnancy. Without verbal reports and direct access to the brain of a fetus, inductions about what embryos can encounter rely upon the translation of secondary proof (Derbyshire). As examined, neuroanatomical pathways important for processing pain, like those saw in grown-ups and more established kids, could be set up by twenty three weeks' gestation. The cliché hormonal pressure reaction of grown-ups or more established newborn children, of around year and a half onwards, revealing agony is discernible in fetus at eight teen weeks'

Another major issue regarding abortion is if a fetus feels pain. A study by Stuart G. W. Derbyshire examines the development of the fetus to decode when pain is acknowledged. Pain is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (Derbyshire, 2006, The Content of Pain). Working with this definition, one can derive that an understanding of the senses and emotions should be present at some cognitive level to feel pain. Therefore, pain becomes a learned response instead of a natural one because the association between the senses and the reaction is not yet learned. “This is likely to strike anyone as strange because it is simply not how we intuitively believe pain to be… Not only has the biological development not yet occurred to support pain experience, but the environment after birth, so necessary to the development of pain

Neonates were once thought to be too developmentally immature to experience pain, it has been now understood that neonates even if very premature are able to process pain sensations and respond to that pain (Boyle, 2011). Although it is now understood that neonates can sense pain, it has been found that procedures have not changed to adequately address pain in the neonate. It has been found that pain in neonates that is over a long period or multiple acute pain experiences has long term effects on how pain is perceived into childhood (Boyle, 2011). One intervention that has been found to decrease pain experienced by a neonate is sucrose. It has been found that sucrose takes about two minutes to take effect and provides an analgesic

To begin with, fetus can’t feel pain because the cortex isn’t functional until around the 26th week. When the fetus is fully functional it is usually after an abortion is performed.There also isn’t any scientific information that the fetus experiences pain. According to Stuart Derbyshire, PhD, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, England, stated that, “Biological development has not occurred to help support pain experience.

Although neonates are incapable of communicating their pain experience, their body responds to painful stimuli in three different ways:

Another argument is abortions are painful for an unborn child to go through. While most abortions are usually done prior to the end of the first trimester there are abortions that are done in the second or third trimester. The medical community has different views on whether or not an unborn child can feel pain before 20 weeks. Some doctors will say a child can feel pain at as soon as eight weeks while others will say they won’t be able to feel pain until after the 20 weeks mark.

I chose the side that abortion should be illegal. The writer of this argument says that the fetus can feel pain during the abortion procedure. According to Maureen Condic, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy and Adjunct the spinal reflex is developed by eight weeks. The spinal reflex is the most primitive responsive to pain. Bernard N. Nathanson, MD, late abortion doctor who became a pro-life activist states that when an abortion is conducted on a fetus of 12 weeks, they see the child’s mouth open in a silent scream. Both, Maureen Condic and Bernard N. Nathanson state that the fetus can feel the pain during abortion.

The first rating was taken once the women was fully dilated, the second rating was right when the women was told to push, and the third rating was once the child was completely outside of the womb. It was found that the middle-eastern group rated their pain higher than the western group. It was also concluded that the lower education level groups ranked their pain higher than the higher education level groups. The relationship between culture and educational group concluded that there was not much of a difference in pain ratings between the lower and high educational levels of the western group, however the middle-eastern group with lower education levels ranked their pain higher than the middle-eastern group with higher

As indicated by studies, embryos don't create cognizance (rationality or intellectual properties) or sentience (the capacity to feel joy or torment) until around week 28 (Kleeman, 2005; Koch, 2009). The information provided in the case study suggests that the fetus is less than 28

The researchers attempted to measure pain rating during the following stages of childbirth: (1) after the complete dilation of the cervix; (2) when the mother was instructed to push; (3) right after the child had left the mother (Weisenberg et al., 1989). Numerical data was obtained from each of the women at the start of each stages via a one hundred-point scale; zero meaning that there was no pain and one hundred meaning that the pain was excruciating. The start of each of the three stages was determined by the birth-giving assistant on duty (Weisenberg et al., 1989). The researchers also observed and measured the mothers ' pain behavior during the process (paying attention to screaming, clenching, hair pulling, ect...) using sixteen separate categories on a zero to four scale; zero meaning that the expected behavior is non-existent, and four meaning that the

An unborn baby is alive, and has a heartbeat 22 days after conception. At 6 weeks, fingernails form, and at week 8, a baby is able to hear. At 20 weeks, a baby can feel pain.

Childbirth is a beautiful thing. After the hours of labor, there is nothing more special than having the newly mother able to hold her child the minute after it’s born. It makes the pain that you had just experienced go away because all that matters in the world is that newborn child in your arms. During labor, every woman has her own experience but one common experience is the pain. According to Kitzinger (1978) “Labor pain can have negative or positive meaning, depending on whether the child is wanted, the interaction of the laboring woman with those attending her, her sense of ease or dis-ease in the environment provided for birth, her relationship with the father of her child and her attitude to her body throughout the reproductive

What a pro-life advocate would argue the fact the embryo can hear, cry, feel fear, feel pain, and have a conscious thought. Realistically, none of these things are remotely accurate when talking about an early stage embryo. According to the Mayo Clinic, “the earliest an unborn child could conceivably hear anything would be sixteen weeks post-fertilization.” In a 2005 article published by the British Medical Journal, the article documents for the first time a fetus cries in the womb. They suggest that “fetal crying is possible at twenty weeks post-fertilization”. The biggest debate is on when embryos can feel pain. Research done by Christopher Bowen, has come to the conclusion that, “It’s my opinion that once the thalamus has been formed, at 10 weeks post-fertilization, this marks the earliest that the fetus has the capability to consciously perceive pain at least on some primal level, and can definitely feel pain by 14 weeks post-fertilization.” By the time the mother finds out she is pregnant, she has plenty of time to decide whether to terminate the pregnancy before the fetus has any conception of pain.

At one time doctors did not believe that babies could experience pain, but recent studies have proven this to be wrong. Infants can feel touch, this is why when you touch them they turn their head and look at you. Because they can feel touch they can also feel pain. This was found because infants cry when being given a shot or having blood taken. They are able to feel pain like we are, they are just much more resilient in recovering than we are.