Foetuses 'don't feel pain until the final third of pregnancy' [View All]

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Foetuses 'don't feel pain until the final third of pregnancy'
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Published: 24 August 2005

A controversial new American medical study suggested yesterday that foetuses are incapable of feeling pain until the third trimester of pregnancy, a finding that immediately threw fuel on to the fire of America's perennial debate about abortion.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California and published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, argued that foetuses are incapable of feeling pain without the development of consciousness, which is in turn predicated on the creation of connections between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex inside the baby's brain.

These connections are not usually apparent until the 23rd week of pregnancy and may not begin to be made until the 30th week. The study had immediate implications in the political arena, because Congress is considering legislation requiring doctors to inform women seeking abortions after the 22nd week that their foetus feels pain.

About 18,000 women a year would be affected by the new law. A number of individual states have already passed, or at least drafted, similar legislation.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article307947.ece