ABORTION

[HairOfTheDog]

But true science (absent emotion)....I was wondering out loud if they (meaning "the objective scientists") are certain that an 8-12 week old fetus can't feel pain.

^ The neural circuitry that culminates in pain perception begins to form long before 20 weeks, and most researchers believe that the signals conveyed by this circuitry aren’t perceived as pain until the brain develops that perceptive capacity well after 20 weeks.

Of course, you can get some doctors to go beyond even the most conservative scientific estimates, but they're disregarded and some State courts have blocked legislation that banned abortion at even 22 weeks on the premise of fetal pain capacity; the pain capacity could not be sufficiently substantiated that early.

Still, while the evidence against ability to feel pain at 20 weeks is stronger than the evidence for it, I'm not in opposition to that new cut-off in the proposed federal bill because I have no problem going with the most conservative credible estimate on something of this significance. Pro-abortionists would kick my ass for that compromise, and I understand why.

They believe that 20 weeks is just a politically convenient line drawn, for the time being, so that anti-abortionists can nudge Congress, the public, and the Supreme Court from the viability marker to the pain marker. They’ll keep pushing the line backward until abortion is completely illegal. Like Maggot, if the bill gets passed, the anti-abortionists won't consider it a fair solution, they'll consider it "a good start". I don't doubt for a minute that those fears by pro-choice/abortion activists are on-target, based on the Planned Parenthood bullshit and other anti-abortionist rhetoric that never ends.

I think some of the requirements you questioned upthread in the proposed Unborn Child Protection bill need to be clarified/amended, but I don't oppose it in concept. I think it affords women who don't fall into the "exceptions" categories a fair amount of time in almost all cases to decide/act, and it virtually eliminates the possibility of fetal pain. If the bill doesn't get passed, I'll be glad. Such a small percentage of abortions occur after 20 weeks anyway. If it does get passed, I won't be upset and will be prepared to voice strong dissent (not here, I promise!) against efforts to change the criteria or the cut-off again without very solid scientific basis supporting the change.

It's a decades old on-going fight. I understand both sides and think that honest committed debate and compromise results in the fairest balance when it comes to abortion. Unfortunately, there are a fuckload of dishonest, scheming, bullshitters in the political mix (on both sides).