Doctor: 20-week fetus can feel pain

 No comments  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

by butch mabin

Fetuses as early as five months gestation would feel "severe, excruciating pain" from an abortion procedure banned by Congress, a doctor testified Tuesday.

Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, a pediatrician at the University of Arkansas Medical Center and a pain expert, said fetuses at 20 weeks gestation have developed the anatomical structures and consciousness necessary to experience pain.

"I believe it would be severe, excruciating pain," he said. "I am sorry it is gruesome, but yes, it would be extremely painful."

Anand's testimony came in a trial in U.S. District Court in Lincoln over the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Act.

The trial was prompted by a lawsuit against the act brought by Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue and three other physicians. The doctors are being represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Similar challenges to the act are being heard in San Francisco and New York courts.

Supporters of the act say it bans a midterm abortion procedure called dilation and extraction, or D&X, in which most of the live fetus is outside the mother when its head is punctured or crushed by the abortion provider.

Opponents say the act would also prohibit the most common midterm abortion, dilation and evacuation, or D&E. The procedure involves dismemberment of the fetus inside the mother.

Anand, testifying on behalf of the government, said fetuses experience accelerated heartbeats and blood flow in response to pain stimuli.

Under direct examination from U.S. Justice Department attorney Preeya Noronha, Anand said hormone levels also rise in response to the stimuli, an indication the fetus is in stress.

Anand testified that pain can be inferred in the fetus because young children and adults have the same body reactions to unpleasant stimuli.

In addition, he said, brain wave activity indicates the fetus at 20 weeks has consciousness.

"The fetus cannot talk, so this is the best evidence we can get," he said.

"We know the physiological response to pain from children and adults. The same stimuli in the fetus gets the same response."

During cross-examination from Reproductive Rights attorney Janet Crepps, Anand said the medical community has not definitively established that consciousness occurs at 20 weeks gestation.

"There's no consensus in the medical community about when consciousness occurs?" Crepps asked.

"That is correct," answered Anand.

Anand, responding to a question posed by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf, also said there is no generally accepted definition of consciousness within the medical community.

The doctor also testified that the D&E could be more painful than the D&X to the fetus because it entails greater injury to the fetal body.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in a pretrial motion sought to block Anand's testimony.

Kopf rejected the motion in March, ruling that the issue of fetal pain could be relevant to the case.

In other testimony Tuesday, Dr. Leroy Sprang, who teaches obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University in Chicago, said D&X procedures pose greater health risks to women than do D&Es.

Sprang, testifying on behalf of the government, said women are more likely to experience trauma to the cervix and infections in a D&X procedure.

The doctor said he has never performed a D&X and in later testimony said he was unaware of any published studies that compare the two procedures.

Roughly 140,000 D&E abortions occur annually in the country. D&X abortions number between 2,200 and 5,000 yearly.

The trial was scheduled to resume today.

Reach Butch Mabin at 473-7234 or bmabin@;journalstar.com.