Is it moral to abort a fetus that can feel pain?

[Thunder]

I have done a little bit of research into neo-natal pain here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_pain#Neonatal_pain

http://www.ampainsoc.org/pub/bulletin/jul03/article1.htm

..which suggests that at at least the 20th week of growth, a human fetus may be able to feel pain.

To me, a fetus becomes a human when it can survive outside the womb without mechanical assistance for resperation, eating, drinking, or heart beat.

This to me is a full human being.

But now I see that fetuses may be able to feel pain at the 20th week, and now I feel like if that fetus in ANY WAY suffers from the methods of abortion, then it is immoral and just ain't right. It is not right to cause a human to suffer, regardless of its stage in life, IMHO.

thoughts?

[KingMerv00]

ITo me, a fetus becomes a human when it can survive outside the womb without mechanical assistance for resperation, eating, drinking, or heart beat.

This to me is a full human being.

...

thoughts?

What about adults that cannot survive without mechanical assistance? Are they full human beings?

[Thunder]

What about adults that cannot survive without mechanical assistance?

well, that's due to disease or injury. before their injury or disease they could survive without machines quite well.

[KingMerv00]

well, that's due to disease or injury. before their injury or disease they could survive without machines quite well.

I don't understand why you make that distinction.

Also, a baby can be born with a defect that requires mechanical life support after a full 9 months. Such a baby would NEVER reach "full personhood" according to you.

[Thunder]

are you suggesting that by my logic, I should not consider a person on a ventillator or a dialysis machine to be human?

that's silly. and a false logical conclusion. i am talking about the development of a fetus.

[KingMerv00]

are you suggesting that by my logic, I should not consider a person on a ventillator or a dialysis machine to be human?

that's silly. and a false logical conclusion. i am talking about the development of a fetus.

That is the literal meaning of your OP.

[KingMerv00]

I edited my last post. You may have missed this part:

Also, a baby can be born with a defect that requires mechanical life support after a full 9 months. Such a baby would NEVER reach "full personhood" according to you.

[Dr. Trintignant]

That is the literal meaning of your OP.

Parky never said that self-sufficiency was the only possible condition for personhood, just that it was a sufficient one. It may or may not be a valid claim, but it does not logically follow that those that cannot live unassisted are not human. In logic terms, A implies B does not imply that !A implies !B.

- Dr. Trintignant

[Thunder]

I edited my last post. You may have missed this part:

clearly if a baby is born with a defect that requires mechanical help, he/she is still a person.

duhh. stop playing games.

[Thunder]

Parky never said that self-sufficiency was the only possible condition for personhood, just that it was a sufficient one. It may or may not be a valid claim, but it does not logically follow that those that cannot live unassisted are not human. In logic terms, A implies B does not imply that !A implies !B.

- Dr. Trintignant

thank you. I appreciate it.

I believe that when a fetus reaches a certain level of the human condition, such as being able to survive on its own without mechanical help....and now the ability to feel pain..I believe it stops being a blob and becomes human and deserves certain considerations that it was not entitled to before it reached this state.

but this is just MY personal view.

[KingMerv00]

clearly if a baby is born with a defect that requires mechanical help, he/she is still a person.

duhh. stop playing games.

I had a feeling you felt that way. I asked not because I wanted to play games but because I want to know on what grounds you make that distinction. Why is a full term baby on mechanical support different than an extremely premature fetus on mechanical support?

I suspect your answer will involve the level of brain activity. If I am right, then there is no reason to invoke viability in the first place because brain activity would become the true determining factor of personhood.

[athon]

It depends basically on how one might value the sensation of pain in making such a decision.

At it's core, the decision isn't one of absolutes, but of personal morals. Nobody can tell another individual what their morals should or should not be in a scientific, logical or rationalistic sense. So if you personally think that inflicting pain on a foetus is worse than the possibility of allowing it to live and face whatever consequences the decision raises, then they are your values.

However, it also comes down to what one means by 'pain'. It's far from a simple concept. I felt pain both when my tooth was aching, and when I got a tattoo, and my ear cartilage pierced. They don't compare. I felt pain when I kicked my toe the other day and my wife will feel pain when she gives birth. Again, they don't compare.

We find it difficult to distinguish the psychological component of pain as well. Torture is based less on the physical nature of sensing the damage done, and more on the anxiety of not being in control of the situation and anticipation of injury.

It makes it quite difficult to compare how an adult human would feel in a given context with an organism possessing a simpler nervous system (including a foetus).

If your value states it doesn't matter - pain is pain - then again, that's your moral stance. But you cannot rationalise killing a fly, or stepping on an ant, given each also has a nervous system that responds to trauma.

Athon

[Cynic]

As far as I've been able to research, the potential for consciousness begins around the 20 to 22 week point, which is where I agree there had better be a damned good reason to abort by that point. With reasonable exceptions, I believe that's after where all applicable US abortion laws sit anyway. Emphasis on consciousness is needed, I think, because it's a necessary ingredient to "feeling", aka, experiencing pain. Many have suggested that a physical response to pain is good enough -- which start earlier -- but I disagree.

On the other hand, our knowledge of consciousness is pretty poor. The 20 to 22 week point is the earliest point where neuron and dendrite connections are established well enough to allow consciousness as best we can tell. That's good enough for me, but I can see that not being good enough for someone else.

[Thunder]

I had a feeling you felt that way. I asked not because I wanted to play games but because I want to know on what grounds you make that distinction. Why is a full term baby on mechanical support different than an extremely premature fetus on mechanical support?

I suspect your answer will involve the level of brain activity. If I am right, then there is no reason to invoke viability in the first place because brain activity would become the true determining factor of personhood.

if the baby would normally be able to function on its own at its birth, but due to some sort of disease or malformation it requires mechanical help, then it is a person in my view.

but if a premature baby requires a ventilator to breath, an IV for food/water, not due to a physical defect but because of its stage in its development, then I believe that if it was still in the womb it is not yet a person.

but do i believe that very premature babies that are on all these machines to live should not have rights and can be discarded like paper cups? of course not. as far as i am concerned once that kid is out..its human...regardless of its stage of development.

if we have the technology to bring that baby from 3 months old to 9 months..then we must do it.

i know my views seem contradictory..but they make sense to me.

:)

[BenBurch]

A flatworm feels pain...

The cow you eat part of for lunch feels pain...

[Thunder]

A flatworm feels pain...

The cow you eat part of for lunch feels pain...

if you are comfortable with the idea of causing a human fetus pain and suffering, then more power to you.

I, on the other hand, think its kind of wrong.

and I also have a little more consideration for the feelings of humans..... then flatworms.

[Cynic]

Not arguing with that, exactly, Parky, but as technology increases we're going to have to draw the line somewhere. The body merely an incubator with some value added features like immune system training, etc. But with sufficient technology, a zygote might forgo a real uterus altogether.

I've never been comfortable with the "if it's out it's a human, if it's not, it's not" reasoning. (Which isn't what I think you're saying.) I just think that's too arbitrary. With each passing week of gestation surviving offspring move into increasingly elite categories of viability. But mere solidification of their potential to be full-grown can't be the rule, can it? I suppose we could do worse -- the crossover point where survival challenges cease to be primarily a matter of genetics and develomental programming and become environmental.

[Eyeron]

The pain is just an autonomic response to stimuli. How can it be anything else since the brain isn't fully developed nor has sentience developed yet?

[KingMerv00]

if the baby would normally be able to function on its own at its birth, but due to some sort of disease or malformation it requires mechanical help, then it is a person in my view.

but if a premature baby requires a ventilator to breath, an IV for food/water, not due to a physical defect but because of its stage in its development, then I believe that if it was still in the womb it is not yet a person.

but do i believe that very premature babies that are on all these machines to live should not have rights and can be discarded like paper cups? of course not. as far as i am concerned once that kid is out..its human...regardless of its stage of development.

if we have the technology to bring that baby from 3 months old to 9 months..then we must do it.

i know my views seem contradictory..but they make sense to me.

:)

I'm having trouble articulating my objection. Maybe if I sleep on it...

[Cynic]

The pain is just an autonomic response to stimuli. How can it be anything else since the brain isn't fully developed nor has sentience developed yet?

Which "yet" are you referring to?

[StanBearclaw]

A flatworm feels pain...


:confused:

Under what definition of "pain" is this anywhere close to true?

[Ziggurat]

Why is a question about morality in the science forum?

[JJM 777]

> Is it moral to abort a fetus that can feel pain?

What if we use anesthesia? :)

[Soapy Sam]

Morality is a two part process.
It is manifested by individuals in the context of the group.

To one way of looking at it, there can be no such thing as "individual morality". That's just behaviour.
Moral behaviour is what individuals display when they respond according to the expectations of the group. It's only in context that it exists- like temperature in a gas, it's a statistical property of the whole.

Suicide bombers are behaving morally in the community they support and immorally in the community they attack.

The counter intuitive nature of "rules of war " such as the code of chivalry, Bushido or the Geneva Convention illustrate this. These are all attempts to replace natural constraints on bahaviour with human ones. They work within limits, but not well.

So in the case of foeticide / infanticide , morality is the established view of the herd. The problem in the west at the moment is that there is no such consensus.
That is partly due to the mixing of traditional moral rule sets due to 20th century population movements and partly due to the lag in response of all those rule sets to changes in medical technology. One day ALL foetuses will be "viable" from conception. Where then will be the "moral line"?

Parky's working definition is no worse than any, because all are open to criticism.
In such a situation there cannot be a "correct" answer.

There can be pragmatic answers. Overpopulation. Aging populations. Financial considerations. Many others. Choose one.
But ultimately, morals are arbitrary, but will be constrained by reality. The nomad act of leaving the elderly and infirm to die alone is a hard choice to make from the well fed position of an armchair society, but in a blizzard in the mountains , the constraints of reality take over. Our problem in the west may be that we have had , for a generation or two, few such constraints.
That may be changing.


ETA- There is of course another way entirely of seeing this, which is that there truly are 100% correct, inviolable, unquestionable moral decisions. That opens the can of their origin.
Personally, I can't accept that POV.

[ponderingturtle]

What about adults that cannot survive without mechanical assistance? Are they full human beings?

Mechanical assistance is a red herring here though. At least I suspect Parky would be ok with allowing the fetus mechanical assistance, it is the maternal assistance and dirrect ties to anothers body that are the issue.

[ponderingturtle]

if you are comfortable with the idea of causing a human fetus pain and suffering, then more power to you.

I, on the other hand, think its kind of wrong.

and I also have a little more consideration for the feelings of humans..... then flatworms.

Why? Just because it can react to negative stimulai doesn't mean it has any true awareness on any more meaningful level than the flatworm.

It seems to be priviliging humans on a level most commonly explained by a souls or some other religious construct.

[ponderingturtle]

:confused:

Under what definition of "pain" is this anywhere close to true?

We never exactly defined what the pain is that a fetus can feel.

[ponderingturtle]

One day ALL foetuses will be "viable" from conception. Where then will be the "moral line"?

And how will this effect the morality of birth control.

[Soapy Sam]

I actually don't think it will affect that at all, because to me the overriding contstraint on human births is - and increasingly will be- the cost of overpopulation to everyone.
Ultimately, we either cut our birthrate drastically by any means, or it will happen due to circumstances outside our control.
By then it will be way too late for moralising.

[ponderingturtle]

I actually don't think it will affect that at all, because to me the overriding contstraint on human births is - and increasingly will be- the cost of overpopulation to everyone.
Ultimately, we either cut our birthrate drastically by any means, or it will happen due to circumstances outside our control.
By then it will be way too late for moralising.

The birth rate isn't out of control in industrialized nations, in some of them it is below replacement rate.

[Soapy Sam]

That's one view.
On the other hand those are the people with the biggest environmental impact.
But we're getting off topic I guess.

[Ichneumonwasp]

I have done a little bit of research into neo-natal pain here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_pain#Neonatal_pain

http://www.ampainsoc.org/pub/bulletin/jul03/article1.htm

..which suggests that at at least the 20th week of growth, a human fetus may be able to feel pain.

To me, a fetus becomes a human when it can survive outside the womb without mechanical assistance for resperation, eating, drinking, or heart beat.

This to me is a full human being.

But now I see that fetuses may be able to feel pain at the 20th week, and now I feel like if that fetus in ANY WAY suffers from the methods of abortion, then it is immoral and just ain't right. It is not right to cause a human to suffer, regardless of its stage in life, IMHO.

thoughts?


You might want to rephrase the issue of viability.

For most, the viability issue concerns not personhood (it seems a bit strange to call someone a person based on viability alone) but whether or not the mother has the right to decide what to do with her body. When a fetus utterly must rely on the mother for life, should the mother not be afforded some decision regarding the use of her body? Once a fetus is viable outside the womb, then anyone may care for the child.

So, I'm not sure that I would speak of viability as the time by which a fetus becomes a person. Personhood is a difficult enough concept as it is.


ETA: Oops, ponderingturtle already said as much above, so sorry.

[Beerina]

Personally, I think it's immoral if the being (animal, fetus, or adult) is conscious, and thus capable of experiencing pain the way I do.

I note medical science hasn't quite caught up to this because they ignore the memory issue -- a being could feel pain, but as long as it doesn't remember it, no numbing is necessary. I don't know if this happens (say, on in-utero baby operations) but the thought bothers me.


As for an abortion, this just translates that you should numb (knock out) the baby first, or do a quick neck jab or whatever first, to put it in clinical terms.

[thaiboxerken]

if you are comfortable with the idea of causing a human fetus pain and suffering, then more power to you.


What if we injected the fetus with a drug that would kill it without pain or suffering?

[Safe-Keeper]

if you are comfortable with the idea of causing a human fetus pain and suffering, then more power to you.

I, on the other hand, think its kind of wrong.

and I also have a little more consideration for the feelings of humans..... then flatworms.I was about to bring up the same point - that humans more than happily put down animals, kill game, and destroy parasites that undeniably can, and do, feel pain. We give babies shots, even though it terrifies them.

We're talking about fetuses here, not people. Also, your OP referred to 20-week fetuses. At least in Norway, you can't have abortions after the 12th week.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Is it moral to kill toddlers with CIPA since they can't feel pain?

[Cynic]

Not to presume too much about the original post, but the issue here isn't the pain itself, but the conscious implied by being able to experience and qualify and quantify that pain. Suggesting that the problem goes away if you mask the pain with drugs or prevent the memory of the pain (as death is wont to do) misses this point entirely. We wouldn't excuse the killing of an adult because we used an anesthetic, right?

Implicit in such is the inherent assumption that the offspring in such a case isn't worthy of equal consideration, which again misses the point: the underlying question isn't, IMO, so much "is it moral to abort when it can feel pain?" but "is it worthy of equal consideration if it is conscious?".

Certainly there are degrees here and scientists are still hashing this out. But that's the issue. Black and white thinking isn't even as effective as what science has produced.

[INRM]

As I understand it, it is illegal to abort a fetus after 3 months, the first trimester.

20 weeks is equivalent to five months...

[slingblade]

I do not feel there is a one-size-fits-all morality to abortion.

[Professor Yaffle]

The laws regarding the age of the foetus are different in different countries. In the UK (except NI) abortion is available up to 24 weeks (about the limit of viability) where it is agreed that the risk to the mother's physical or mental health is greater if she continues the pregnancy than if she aborts it. Although not technically abortion on demand, this is how it is interpreted these days. There is no time limit where the mother's life is threatened, or if the foetus is likely to be born with severe abnormalities. There have been recent parliamentary debates about lowering the time limit from 24 weeks, but in the end no changes were made.

[Cainkane1]

I agree with you but I'm still pro abortion rights. I'm not the one who has to carry an unwanted baby. Hopefully you aren't saying a woman who has been raped or whose life is in danger unless she terminates the pregnancy shouldn't be able to have an abortion.

However I don't like abortion when the pregnancy comes as the result of unprotected consentual sex. I don't believe it should be illegal but I still don't have to like it.

[thaiboxerken]

I do not feel there is a one-size-fits-all morality to abortion.

I agree. This is why there should be no laws against it.

[Tricky]

I remember the first time my dad took me fishing. We had a cardboard carton of earthworms and my dad showed me how to bait the hook. He took a worm in one hand and the fishhook in the other. As soon as the point of the hook pierced the worm, it began to spasm violently. He saw the look on my face. "Don't worry," he said, "The worm can't feel it." Even as a child of six I recognized that as a lie.

We dropped our lines into the water and watched the cork. After what seemed an eternity, Dad's cork began to twitch rapidly. He snatched the cane pole upward, and attached to the end of it was a small bream. He grasped the fish in his hand and ungently removed the hook. He then took a metal stringer and threaded through the fish's gill. By this time I was getting used to the fact that fishing was pain for several of the principals. By the time it was time to clean and gut the still-flopping fish, I was innured to it. We fried and ate those fish and I recall them as being some of the most delicious things I'd ever put in my mouth.

It was a lesson. Life includes pain. There is no way to go through life without causing some pain to somebody or something. Of course, I don't take joy in the pain and I would not seek to cause unnecessary pain, but eating is necessary. Other things may be necessary too, and as an adult, you have to judge whether your need is more important than the pain it causes. I know it sounds selfish, but each of us makes these decisions all the time, sometimes even unconsciously.

My morality says, "don't cause unnecessary pain", not "don't cause pain". The devil is in the details.

[JFrankA]

I have done a little bit of research into neo-natal pain here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_pain#Neonatal_pain

http://www.ampainsoc.org/pub/bulletin/jul03/article1.htm

..which suggests that at at least the 20th week of growth, a human fetus may be able to feel pain.

To me, a fetus becomes a human when it can survive outside the womb without mechanical assistance for resperation, eating, drinking, or heart beat.

This to me is a full human being.

But now I see that fetuses may be able to feel pain at the 20th week, and now I feel like if that fetus in ANY WAY suffers from the methods of abortion, then it is immoral and just ain't right. It is not right to cause a human to suffer, regardless of its stage in life, IMHO.

thoughts?

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a pregnant woman feel pain as well????

So wouldn't it be morally wrong to decide for a woman what she should do with her body if she's feeling pain?

[Cynic]

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a pregnant woman feel pain as well????

So wouldn't it be morally wrong to decide for a woman what she should do with her body if she's feeling pain?

In general, I think any line of logic that applies to a full-grown adult might also apply to pre-birth offspring. It's the might that matters, here.

[INRM]

Professor Yaffle,

Well, I think the British should place the abortion limit under that at which the fetus can feel pain. If 20 weeks is the point at which the fetus can feel pain, it should be less than that.

I personally believe in that respect the abortion limit at the first trimester in the United States is better than the U.K.


INRM

[Undesired Walrus]

It's a tricky thing, this abortion. Growing up a fairly unreligous country which allows abortion, I thought, without question, that abortion wasn't wrong.

In recent years I realise I had never given it much thought, and now I don't know what to think. I suspect others here on this forum feel the same way too. I also tend to worry that many, perhaps most people don't ever debate the issue with themselves.

Sagan's famous essay on the subject helped me (In that he said that early 'Human' fetuses are identical to other animal fetuses), but I've never been satisfied with this line that divides the time one can have an abortion to the time in which one cannot. It seems far more grey than most people believe, for me.

[ponderingturtle]

Not to presume too much about the original post, but the issue here isn't the pain itself, but the conscious implied by being able to experience and qualify and quantify that pain. Suggesting that the problem goes away if you mask the pain with drugs or prevent the memory of the pain (as death is wont to do) misses this point entirely. We wouldn't excuse the killing of an adult because we used an anesthetic, right?

We also don't excuse the killing of adults who don't have consious minds.

Implicit in such is the inherent assumption that the offspring in such a case isn't worthy of equal consideration, which again misses the point: the underlying question isn't, IMO, so much "is it moral to abort when it can feel pain?" but "is it worthy of equal consideration if it is conscious?".

Certainly there are degrees here and scientists are still hashing this out. But that's the issue. Black and white thinking isn't even as effective as what science has produced.

This is not really an issue of science though, but ethics.

[ponderingturtle]

It's a tricky thing, this abortion. Growing up a fairly unreligous country which allows abortion, I thought, without question, that abortion wasn't wrong.

In recent years I realise I had never given it much thought, and now I don't know what to think. I suspect others here on this forum feel the same way too. I also tend to worry that many, perhaps most people don't ever debate the issue with themselves.

Sagan's famous essay on the subject helped me (In that he said that early 'Human' fetuses are identical to other animal fetuses), but I've never been satisfied with this line that divides the time one can have an abortion to the time in which one cannot. It seems far more grey than most people believe, for me.

The thing is that in an ideal world every conception would be intentional, as such abortion wouldn't be as much of an issue because it would be clearly for issues of health. As we live in a less than ideal world that is not the case.

[Cynic]

We also don't excuse the killing of adults who don't have conscious minds.

Only on the assumption that they might regain consciousness. With abortion, the fact that consciousness will occur is a given. I think there are very distinct ethical considerations at work between someone who was conscious and might again be and someone who was never conscious at all. For someone who is currently conscious, that's usually not so ambiguous.

This is not really an issue of science though, but ethics.

The science is determining the extent of consciousness. Making ethical decisions in absence of hard data seems like an exercise in futility. Consciousness is a very poorly understood thing. I've seen people in these sorts of discussions declare that to qualify as a person, with the right to not be terminated, one must be both fully conscious and self-aware -- and then go on to demonstate that such a combination does not occur until after the child is a year and a half old. Clearly that's not a workable solution in our society.

[ponderingturtle]

Only on the assumption that they might regain consciousness.

Even when we know that they will not. You can not kill someone who will never have any consciousness again, but you can let them die by not giving them treatment in some situations.

With abortion, the fact that consciousness will occur is a given. I think there are very distinct ethical considerations at work between someone who was conscious and might again be and someone who was never conscious at all. For someone who is currently conscious, that's usually not so ambiguous.

I don't see that distinction. Killing someone with such advanced alzheimers that they do not respond to outside stimula is still murder. If there was an alternative to abortion that removed the pregnancy with out killing it and raised it in a tank, I would be for that

The science is determining the extent of consciousness. Making ethical decisions in absence of hard data seems like an exercise in futility. Consciousness is a very poorly understood thing. I've seen people in these sorts of discussions declare that to qualify as a person, with the right to not be terminated, one must be both fully conscious and self-aware -- and then go on to demonstate that such a combination does not occur until after the child is a year and a half old. Clearly that's not a workable solution in our society.

Data alone can not give you ethics. Sure data can inform ethical decisions, but that is only for dirrived ethical stances not principle ones. The kind where you say "X is immoral because of Y and Z" vs just "X is immoral".

Personaly I don't make any statements about cognitive function as my basis for supporting abortion. I see it that even if they are a person they do not have the right to impose on another person in that fashion. It would be rather like forced kidney donation lotteries.