THE SENSITIVITY TO PAIN OF LATE-SECOND-TRIMESTER BABIES

Editor's note. The following excerpt is from an article written by Dr. Paul Ranalli that appeared in the November 1997 issue of NRL News.

As revealed by other work, the late-second-trimester fetus, like the similar-aged premature newborn, likely develops the capacity to be more sensitive to pain than a full-term baby, or even an adult. This is because the inhibitory, pain-modifying network lags in embryologic development behind the establishment of the pain system.

Neurons from the higher reaches of the brain send fibers down to synapse with the thalamus (a key pain-relay station deep in the brain) and the spinal cord, where incoming pain signals from the trunk and limbs are directed upward to the brain. These neurons secrete brain chemicals (serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine) which inhibit pain in adults.

Yet, while the pain system is up and running by 20-24 weeks' gestation, this pain-modifying system does not begin to make its appearance until later in pregnancy, continuing to develop until full term and beyond. Thus there is a key period of mismatch, from 20 weeks onward: raw pain impulses from the body may roar through unchecked by the modifying inhibitory mechanism that helps to blunt pain in adults, leaving the unborn child at this stage vulnerable to a degree of pain that is truly unimaginable. Dr. Glover [a self-described "pro-choicer"] has now raised concerns that this dreadful period of potential vulnerability to pain may extend as far back as 17 weeks' gestation.

The implications for the abortion debate are stark. Even using the conservative fetal pain date of 20 weeks, as many as 14,000 U.S. abortions every year may cause horrific pain as well as death.

If some pain is perceived at 17 weeks, then 42,000 abortions may be implicated annually, including hundreds, perhaps thousands, of partial-birth abortions. A clinical description of this procedure has already been sickening enough to fracture the ranks of abortion advocates, even without considering that the nearly born child may feel massive pain before death. Now the concept of fetal pain in late abortion, long derided by mainstream commentators as a pro-life construct, is being discussed as a scientific reality by pro-choice researchers and the community of abortion doctors themselves.

Dr. Ranalli is a neurologist at the University of Toronto and Advisory Board member of the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research. In 1995 he testified on fetal pain before the House Judiciary Committee for the state of Ohio. He is a frequent contributor to NRL News.