A new study co-authored by John C Bockmann and Stuart Derbyshire, the latter of whom is pro-choice, suggests that, contrary to pro-abortion rhetoric, unborn children can feel the pain caused by abortion before their 24th week of gestation.The study, titled "Reconsidering Fetal Pain," explains that other studies that came to the conclusion that unborn children cannot feel pain before 24 weeks gestation operated under the assumption that certain parts of the child's neuro system hadn't developed enough. This study suggests those parts may be unnecessary. “More recent evidence calling into question the necessity of the cortex for pain and demonstrating functional thalamic connectivity into the subplate is used to argue that the neuroscience cannot definitively rule out fetal pain before 24 weeks,” it reads.
The researchers explained further,
"...current neuroscientific evidence undermines the necessity of the cortex for pain experience. Even if the cortex is deemed necessary for pain experience, there is now good evidence that thalamic projections into the subplate, which emerge around 12 weeks’ gestation, are functional and equivalent to thalamocortical projections that emerge around 24 weeks’ gestation. Thus, current neuroscientific evidence supports the possibility of fetal pain before the 'consensus' cutoff of 24 weeks."
Derbyshire remains pro-choice in spite of his own study's conclusion. He says that abortionists should, “consider some form of fetal analgesia during later abortions.” Even if Derbyshire rejects the truth that these unborn children represent human lives that deserve protection, perhaps his research can help further the cause of pro-life advocates in the political sphere.
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