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The meat, dairy, egg, wool, leather, fur, pet, and other animal industries undeniably hurt animals. On the other hand, abortions do not cause the fetus any pain.

However, denying abortions to women does infringe upon their right of bodily domain, the right to control her own body.

Since a fetus cannot feel pain, banning abortions infringes upon the human right of bodily domain and integrity, the world is incredibly overpopulated with humans, pregnancy is incredibly expensive, can cause medical problems, and death, it is illogical to ban abortion.

To determine whether abortion causes pain to its victim, I will review the methods of abortion.

(1) D & C or Dilation and Curettage. The child, seven to twelve weeks old, is cut to pieces by a sharp knife.

(2) Suction. The child, also seven to twelve weeks old, is torn to pieces by a suction machine, twenty-nine times as powerful as a home vacuum cleaner.

Wouldn't any sentient being with functioning nerve endings and a nervous system feel pain, probably excruciating pain, when subjected to such procedures? As I will show, the child at this stage has functioning nerve endings and a nervous system sufficient for feeling pain.

(3) D & E or Dilation and Evacuation. As in D & C, the child, now much larger and more fully developed, is cut to pieces by a sharp knife. "This procedure requires the inflicting of innumerable knife wounds until death results. It takes about ten minutes."1 In the booklet Fetal Pain and Abortion: The Medical Evidence, we read:

D & E abortions are performed after the 12th week of pregnancy (and are performed up to and including the period of viability) when fetal bones are too large and brittle and the size of the fetus is too great for standard first trimester abortion techniques. D & E involves the progressive dismemberment of the fetus prior to extraction in order to facilitate removal of the fetal parts from the uterus. The slicing and crushing involved in dismemberment of the fetus in D & E abortions would obviously excite pain receptors and stimulate the neural pathways, thereby evoking an aversive response in the fetus whose central nervous system is functioning. It must be concluded, therefore, that the fetus suffers pain as the result of D & E abortion.2
This booklet is by Dr. Vincent J. Collins, with Dr. Steven R. Zielinski and attorney Thomas J. Marzen. Dr. Collins is Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.

(4) Salt Poisoning or Saline Solution. Here the child is older (thirteen weeks or more), and thus more developed, and the procedure takes longer (one to two hours), so the amount of pain is undoubtedly much greater. The child is bathed in a chemical solution that poisons him and burns his skin. Curt Young writes of the effect of saline solution on the child:

Because the salt is so concentrated, it chemically burns human tissue. The child assaulted with saline looks as though he has succumbed to an attack with napalm. Much of the outer skin has simply been burned away.
No one can imagine how excruciating the pain is. We do know that physicians recognize immediately the effect of instilling saline into the woman's gut rather than the amniotic sac. The pain is so unbearable the client may throw herself off the table. This is exactly what the unborn child does in his mother's womb. In fact the mother can feel this:

". . . Once they put in the saline there is no way to reverse it. And for the next hour and a half I felt my daughter thrash around violently while she was being choked, poisoned, burned, and suffocated to death. I didn't know any of that was going to happen. And I remember talking to her and I remember telling her I didn't want to do this, I wished she could live. And yet she was dying and I remember her very last kick on her left side. She had no strength left. "I delivered my daughter whose name is now Charmaine Marie. She was 14 inches long. She weighed over a pound and a half. She had a head of hair and her eyes were opening."3

[Another report tells us that] saline abortions cause the fetus to feel "the same agony as an adult who has suffered burns over 80% to 90% of his body.. . . The fetus squirms, throws himself around, and shows a total grimacing pattern of withdrawal."4

(5) Prostaglandin. The child is subjected to violent muscle contractions as he is forced out of the womb. Some babies have been decapitated. Another factor: "The method of abortion involving the introduction of prostaglandin into the mother's system may bring about death of the fetus by constricting the circulation of the blood and/or impairing the heart function. Pain analogous to that of a person experiencing a heart attack can be assumed."5

Death for the child by prostaglandin may be a lonotes3.asp"Another intended effect of this chemical is the induction of labor so that the woman delivers a stillborn infant much as she would be induced to deliver a live one. In this method, then, the infant dies very gradually (maybe over a two-day period) from severe cardiovascular complications."6

What are the neurological structures necessary to feel pain? The booklet, The Medical Evidence states that three elements are required: "Pain receptive nerve cells, neural pathways and the thalamus."8 The thalamus is a portion of the brain that "lies above the spinal cord and brainstem, but below the cerebral cortex."9 The cortex is the seat of higher mental functions. It is very significant, in the present context, that

the presence of a functioning cortex is not necessary to pain sensation. Even complete removal of the cortex does not eliminate the sensation of pain; no portion of the cortex, if artificially stimulated, results in pain sensation. It follows, therefore, that neither the presence of the cortex nor transmission of pain impulses to the cortex are essential to pain sensation. When the cortex (which develops and functions later in human gestation than the thalamus) is involved in a pain response, it generates elaborated aversive behavior and adds psychological and cognitive components to pain sensation.10
The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child's development in the womb.

Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body ....11
That functioning neurological structures necessary for pain are in place between eight and 13 1 / 2 weeks corroborates and supplements the Amicus Curiae statement that in the seventh week, "the brain configuration is already like the adult brain," that "brain waves have been noted at forty-three days (6.14 weeks)," and particularly, "After the eighth week no further primordia will form: everything is already present that will be found in the full term baby."
If a full-term baby can feel pain, then it is reasonable to infer that a baby that is essentially like her, one in whom everything is already present that will be found in the full-term baby, must also feel pain when she is destroyed by the violence of abortion. Recall also, "Dr. Still has noted that electroencephalographic waves have been obtained in forty-three to forty-five day old fetuses, and so conscious experience is possible after this date."12 With conscious experience, or soon after, comes the possibility of feeling pain.

The development of the central nervous system leading to "functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensations" at an age between 8 to 13 1/2 weeks begins early in the child. As was stated before, "commencing at eighteen days the developmental emphasis is on the nervous system"; and "by the end of the twentieth day the foundation of the child's brain, spinal cord and entire nervous system will have been established."

Turning to element (b), overt behavior expressive of pain, The Medical Evidence booklet tells us: "Concurrent with the development of the sensory structures is the emerging responsive behavior of the fetus. By the end of the 5th week a tap on the mouth of the fetus will cause the lips to draw back."13

The Amicus Curiae states:
In the sixth to seventh weeks, nerves and muscles work together for the first time. If the area of the lips, the first to become sensitive to touch, is gently stroked, the child responds by bending the upper body to one side and making a quick backward motion with his arms. . .

In the ninth and tenth weeks, the child's activity leaps ahead. Now if the forehead is touched, he may turn his head away and pucker up his brow and frown.... In the same week, the entire body becomes sensitive to touch.14

The Medical Evidence adds:

By 10 weeks, the palms of the hands are sensitive to touch, and at 11 weeks the face and extremities likewise respond to tactile stimuli. By 13 1/2 weeks, these responses are sufficiently elaborate and sufficiently avoidant to warrant the definite conclusion that the fetus responds aversively, not reflexively. They evidence an integrated physiological attempt to escape noxious stimuli. In response to experiments performed on 12 to 16 week fetuses, movements of the head, body, and limbs have been observed. These movements were vigorous, and consisted of ventro- or dorsoflexion of the trunk, flexion of the limbs, and turning of the head, indicating the presence of acute fetal pain. It is agreed that a fetus must be heavily sedated before intrauterine manipulation, such as transfusions, because such painful stimuli cause the fetus to move, making the procedure difficult.15

The American Medical News reprint reports, "Physicians know that fetuses feel pain ... because [among other things]:
Nerves connecting the spinal cord to peripheral structures have developed between six to eight weeks. Adverse reactions to stimuli are observed between eight and 10 weeks.... You can tell by the contours on their faces that aborted fetuses feel pain," added obstetrician Matthew Bulfin, M.D., of Lauderdale by the Sea, Florida. He described the case of a 25-year old woman administered a prostaglandin abortion, who expelled her fetus in the middle of the night. Before hospital nurses arrived, she witnessed "the thrashing around and gruesome trauma on his face, and knew that the fetus had suffered."16
The Medical Evidence concludes:

When doctors first began invading the sanctuary of the womb, they did not know that the unborn baby would react to pain in the same fashion as a child would. But they soon learned that he would. By no means a "vegetable," as he has so often been pictured, the unborn knows perfectly well when he has been hurt, and he will protest it just as violently as would a baby lying in a crib.17

Objections and Replies

First: "Suppose abortion causes pain to the child. Causing someone pain is a frequent occurrence in medicine. It is hardly a reason not to proceed with a medical procedure."

Granted, the causing of pain is a frequent occurrence in medicine. This by itself does not show that a particular instance or type of causing pain (as in abortions) is morally justified. To be justified, at least three conditions must be fulfilled:

There must be an overriding, justifying reason for causing the pain. In a typical abortion, the woman wants to end an unwanted pregnancy. Is this a sufficient reason for cutting a child to pieces, or subjecting her to an hour or more of burning? Suppose we caused the woman that kind of pain to benefit the child. Who would claim that this constituted a justifying reason?
In the normal medical case, the procedure benefits and hurts one and the same person. We do something that causes a person pain but results in an overall benefit for him. If two patients are involved, causing pain becomes much more problematic. Ordinarily, we cannot cause B pain for the sake of A. Only in extreme cases, for example, saving someone's life or preventing permanent paralysis, could one do this. Even then, as the pain becomes greater, the justification becomes more difficult. When the pain for B is very great, such as what may reasonably be inferred from dismemberment or saline burning, and the benefit for A is not commensurate with it, it is clear that this second condition is not met.
Pain should not be inflicted if there is a reasonable alternative. Couldn't an anesthesia be given to the child to eliminate any chance of pain? Killing the child is the primary evil. Causing her needless pain adds to the horror.
Second: "The child in the womb cannot feel pain because he lacks a sufficiently developed physical basis for pain experience. The brain and nervous system may be there but only in rudimentary form; what is missing is maturation."
Third: "The child in the womb cannot feel pain because pain involves not merely physical sensation, but also higher psychological functions, such as a certain degree of self-awareness, memory (of the immediately past sensation), and anticipation (of the immediate future). Pain is a cognitive as well as a physical experience; and for such a cognitive experience to be possible, the cerebral cortex needs to be developed, which is not the case in the preborn child."

In reply to the second and third objections: No one knows that the child cannot feel pain. The possibility of pain is surely there, and must be taken seriously. Specifically:

(1) Look again at the saline procedure described at the beginning of this chapter. "No one can imagine how excruciating the pain is." If the woman is affected by the saline solution, "the pain is so unbearable . . . [she] may throw herself off the table." This solution affects the whole body of the child, for an hour or more, a child that may be fourteen inches long and weigh about a pound and a half. Suppose this child is not sufficiently developed to feel pain to the full extent, quantitatively and qualitatively, that we would feel pain under these conditions. Suppose her pain is only ten or fifteen percent of what our pain would be. Isn't that horrible enough for the child so that we ought to shrink back from inflicting this on her? Hold your hand to a warm-to-hot stove - that is less painful than the pain of being burned all over your body, but surely it is painful enough to shrink back from. Hold your hand to the stove for just ten seconds - that is much less than one hour, but painful enough Similar consideration applies to D & E, where a well-developed child is cut to pieces. Perhaps she feels much less pain than you would. But ten to twenty percent of that is horrible enough.

(2) In regard to the point that the cortex is not sufficiently developed to allow for the cognitive elements in pain experience, it is possible that this may increase, rather than decrease, the intensity of the pain:

While the likelihood of weak participation by the cerebral cortex will work against the magnification of the pain, there will also be an absence of the inhibitory input from the brain which modulates and balances the sensory input in more developed beings. Consequently, the possibility exists of smaller and weaker sensory inputs having the same effect which later is achieved only by larger and stronger sensations.18
(3) The risk argument: Suppose there is some doubt in the minds of some people: "We do not know that the child feels pain." To which we must immediately add: "And we do not know that the child does not feel pain!" The evidence presented here - the presence of nerve endings and a functioning nervous system, the sharp knife or chemical solution, and the child's agitated attempt to escape - makes it at least extremely likely that the child does feel pain, probably excruciating pain. We cannot risk causing such pain!

A deer is eaten alive by a tiger; a baby seal is clubbed and left to die on the ice. One might argue that it is not known for sure if such animals feel pain, perhaps they are not enough like us to feel pain as we do. But they are enough like us to make it overwhelmingly likely that they do feel terrible pain. The same applies to the preborn child.

We shrink back from the risk of causing pain to animals because we identify with them: "If I were in his place I would not want to suffer such pain." If we identify with the child, we must say the same thing.

Would you do something that might cause terrible pain to a loved one? Even if the probability of pain was fairly low? If the probability of pain is as high as it is for the preborn child subject to the knife or chemical solution of abortion, one would certainly not risk the pain. What is true for the born loved one should also be true for the preborn child. It follows that one cannot risk causing the terrible pain probably associated with abortion.

(4) There is some evidence that the child of seven or eight weeks who is the victim of suction or D & C suffers pain in some way. As the child advances to twelve weeks and beyond, the probability that he or she feels pain increases, to the point where it can hardly be doubted. There is an increasing gradation. As the child grows older, the physical elements necessary for suffering pain become more fully developed (brain, peripheral nervous system, etc.). This means that, as the child grows older, there is an increase in: (a) the likelihood that there is pain; (b) the physical intensity of the pain; (c) the psychological intensity of the pain: it is more fully experienced, and at a more conscious level; and (d) the length of time of the painful death, due to the methods of abortion corresponding to the child's size (one to two hours for saline, one to two days for prostaglandin).

Concluding Remarks

This should emphatically not be taken as an argument for early abortions. There should be no abortions! For there should be no killing of innocent children. Late abortions simply add a new horror: greater pain. For the same reason, even if all abortions were painless, they would all be wrong. The pain of abortion simply adds a new evil to the evil of killing an innocent child.

All this [pain] is happening right now, in our own cities, towns, and neighborhoods. If we avert our gaze from this ocean of pain - if we fail to acknowledge the excruciating death agonies of one and a half million tiny victims every year in the U.S. alone (one abortion every twenty-one seconds) - if we close our ears to all those "silent screams," how can we still call ourselves compassionate human beings?19

And I'm the crazy one because I believe all life is valuable; all creatures deserve to live a life free of suffering, pain, torture, and senseless murder.

The Amicus Curiae states:
In the sixth to seventh weeks, nerves and muscles work together for the first time. If the area of the lips, the first to become sensitive to touch, is gently stroked, the child responds by bending the upper body to one side and making a quick backward motion with his arms. . .

In the ninth and tenth weeks, the child's activity leaps ahead. Now if the forehead is touched, he may turn his head away and pucker up his brow and frown.... In the same week, the entire body becomes sensitive to touch.

The American Medical News reprint reports, "Physicians know that fetuses feel pain ... because [among other things]:
Nerves connecting the spinal cord to peripheral structures have developed between six to eight weeks. Adverse reactions to stimuli are observed between eight and 10 weeks.... You can tell by the contours on their faces that aborted fetuses feel pain," added obstetrician Matthew Bulfin, M.D., of Lauderdale by the Sea, Florida. He described the case of a 25-year old woman administered a prostaglandin abortion, who expelled her fetus in the middle of the night. Before hospital nurses arrived, she witnessed "the thrashing around and gruesome trauma on his face, and knew that the fetus had suffered."

Just because they are living is no reason for me to not kill a rapist or an attacking dog -- both threaten my bodily integrity, and I'll damn well defend it.

And it's not about a woman's own body. I have no problem with a woman's decision to maim herself. She could chop off a finger, bruise herself, poison herself, cut herself, starve herself, or drown herself, and that is her right. But clearly a pre-birth baby is not a part of the mother. It is within the mother, it is dependent on the mother - but it is not the mother.

As far as the problems of overpopulation, expense, and medical complications, there are solutions that are far more effective and less risky than abortion. These include but are not limited to - abstinence, birth control, and the removal of reproductive organs.

I still don't understand how we can guiltlessly say we value our own convenience over the life of another person - especially when it is our lifestyle and decisions that cause the "inconvenience" in the first place.

It's pretty dang disgusting.