Some Virginians are insane - pain meds for aborted fetuses

[donsu]

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36991

Painkillers for aborted babies?
Lawmakers consider bill to relieve 'terror and suffering of children'

A bill is gathering support in the Virginia legislature that would require unborn children be administered a painkiller before abortions are performed.

A measure introduced by Republican Dick Black will be considered by the justice committee of Virginia's lower chamber, the House of Delegates, Monday, reported WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. The Senate will address a similar measure Thursday.

"We must do everything possible to relieve the terror and suffering of children as they are aborted," said Black in a statement.

-snip-
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sigh - fundamentalist religious men hate women so much............................

[sus]

1. what do you expect from

people who want to make April "Confederacy Month?"

[recidivist]

2. What does anesthetizing babies have to do with hating women?

The grisly question is, at what point can a baby feel pain? Sonograms of abortions show babies at fairly early stages kicking, shoving, fighting for their lives. Are you truly comfortable with unanesthetized vivisection of human infants?

[tom_paine]

5. Usually I don't agree with stuff like this but I see nothing wrong here

And, for reasons mentioned above, I'm not sure that, from a scientific standpoint given what we understand of human physiology, this idea is "insane".

Now, other wedge issues aside, of course, and ignoring whatever ulterior motives the Busheviks have here (vis-a-vis getting a fetus declared a person), this may be scientifically valid.

Of course, those same "awareness" issues apply to Animal Rights (while I'm not a supporter I see their points), not that Pat Robertson's Stooges would take note of that.

Having said that I think a true historical story about awareness in extremis (fetus being the oppsoite end of a dying person) is relevant here.

In the early 1790s, when the Jacobins were guillotining people left and right, the famous chemist, Antoine Lavoisier was sentenced to it. Being a scientist to the end, Lavoisier made a pact with his friends, that he would determine how long awareness continues after guillotining by continuing to blink his eyes until he could blink no longer.

When his head was seperated from his body, he blinked some 17 times...for at least 10 seconds.

As I said, other issues aside, this may not be a crzay idea.

But of course, if the Busheviks ever lobbied for anesthetics for cows being slaughtered, which is essentially the same awareness issue, I would convert to Pat Robertson's v2.0 Christianity (v1.0 being witch burners) on the spot...

[recidivist]

6. Good points.

As a grisly sidelight: you mention cows being slaughtered and, as you probably know, things sometimes go badly wrong. The system is theoretically ok: the cow is stunned and shot through the brain, which is supposed to produce more-or-less instantaneous death. (In fact, I'd have no particular objection to executing criminals that way, but that's another story.)

But sometimes things go wrong. I guess the slug can, on rare occasions, fail to do the job and a half-butchered cow moves on down the line, alive. This is a bad thing for the cow, and for the slaughterhouse worker who suddenly finds himself face to face with an animal in obvious and extreme agony.

At least we all recognize that this is a hideous breakdown of the system when it happens to a cow. I cannot understand how abortionists can do this intentionally to babies.

[damnraddem]

7. What does anesthetizing fetuses, ...

thus creating hazards for the woman involved, have to do with babies?

Most abortions occur before there is any possibility of pain. There have to be nerves first. And until the nerves connect to a working brain, there may be localized response to stimulus, but the fetus cannot know pain. Very few abortions occur after brain birth, when there MAY BE the possibility that a fetus feels pain.

Kicking at an early stage is a response, important for development. It is not 'fighting for life,' because there is no entity that could fight for its life. Arguably, there MAY Be after brain birth, at about 22 weeks gestational. That's very close to the third trimester, when, under Roe V. Wade, abortion can be restricted to a short list of reasons; and during which very few abortions are performed.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

9. This is exactly how they are going to win this issue

I don't think pro-choice people (myself included) can wriggle around the obvious, scientific facts of abortion. One, a fetus is biologically speaking, a human being. Two, the fetus is, at some pre-natal stage, conscious, and three, in the biological sense, alive. So they are going to push little by little until the distinctions we make sound more and more ridiculous. This is exactly how we lost the "Partial Birth Abortion" debate. Anyone witnessing a late term D&X abortion is going to have a really hard time claiming that a fetus can't feel pain, isn't a human being, and is not conscious.

Abortion is the ending of a human life - justified, if you are pro-choice. Pretending otherwise isn't going to help the pro-choice cause at all.

I believe in a woman's right to control her own reproduction.

[DemExpat]

3. For abortions over 12 weeks I would support this bill....

although I would have to hold my nose supporting a bill from Republican sponsors...

DemEx

[jean]

4. will Republican Dick Black insist on this for circumcision as well?

[Cronus Protagonist]

11. Excellent point.

Thanks for making it.

"ANYBODY BUT BUSH" Buttons, Stickers & Magnets

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

12. if they were consistent, they would

but have we ever known Republicans to be consistent?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

8. Does a fetus feel pain?

This question can be answered in the same way that the question "can an infant feel pain?" can be answered.

[veganwitch]

10. its about...

- emotionally inflating an already very emotional situation for some women. if a woman is already having emotional problems, now she is being told, by proxy, that she is causing severe pain to the the fetus.

- spreading misinformation much like the abortion/breast cancer lies.

- increasing the cost. you think that morphine is going to be free?

[LeahMira]

20. Just one more...

- emotionally inflating an already very emotional situation for some women. if a woman is already having emotional problems, now she is being told, by proxy, that she is causing severe pain to the the fetus.

Just one more effort to try make the pregnant woman think twice about what she is doing with an abortion. They've tried everything else, from filming their "Silent Scream" to their posters of allegedly mangled fetuses to their little poems from the aborted infant to its mother.

Women know perfectly well what is going on in an abortion. They have aborted unwanted pregnancies for centuries, and they will continue to abort unwanted pregnancies. If they've thought at all about any pain the fetus might experience, they have not let that thought change what they do. But the anti-choice folks just keep on trying.

One thing is that before there was this anti-choice campaign, the same people were anti-birth control and anti-pill. Don't think for even a second that if they won the anti-abortion battle they wouldn't go right back to campaigning to outlaw the pill, and any other birth control method that's out there. I think their whole argument is that if men can have sex with no consequences but women face the consequence of pregnancy, that must be the Divine Plan. That's not a Divine Plan that many women today are going to buy into.

[w4rma]

13. How would one administer these pain killers to the fetus? A big needle

through the woman's belly?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

14. most likely

similar to an amniocentesis

[veganwitch]

15. cause those arent painful and invasive.

if a woman is really concerned about pain, for herself and the fetus she can take a good painkiller - aleve or excedrin - about an hour before. most medications, painkillers included do cross the placenta and will have an effect on the fetus.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

18. of course they are painful and invasive

abortion is painful and invasive, and it usually done with anesthetic, isn't it?

[veganwitch]

19. depends

some places offer a local or "twilight sleep" and with both of those, that strong a medication will pass the placenta. (the local for my abortion made my lips go numb.)

however the difference is big fucking needle going through your stomach versus the device (cant remember the exact name right now) going through the natural opening of the uterus.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

21. they could probably put the needle through

the natural opening of the uterus as well, I would expect. Or, like you said, a strong medication that would pass the placenta.

[veganwitch]

22. therefore this bill and the drugs are not neccessary

and is point three of my first post. making abortion finacially unavailable to women. those drugs will cost money probably 50+ which can be the grain that tips the scale.

same for their wanting to push ultrasounds in initial counselling visits. those add to the price up to 200 dollars. its not necessary and is somehow supposed to spark some emotional response. an ultrasound is done before the actual procedure to determine place and gestational age of the fetus.

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. If it was me, I would want meds for the baby, sure

[Mushroom]

17. Why now Dick?

Odd little article. No details - just enough information to piss people off on both sides, again. Call me stupid, but how would a doctor administer a painkiller to a fetus? And while I'm being stupid, isn't the 12+ weeks pregnant patient usually administered pain medication which would also affect the fetus?

Seems to me the plan serves to threaten doctors as well as women.

[mrgorth]

23. I'm disgusted

by some of the responses in this thread. "Increase the cost"? "Big needle"? Who the fuck cares??!! At some point the fetus can feel pain and, if it is to be aborted, pain medication is warranted. Are some of you people so radically pro-choice that you refuse to admit that there is something growing in a woman's body before birth? Hear me now and believe me later: you and your slippery slope mentalities are exactly, EXACTLY like the NRA and their ludicrous opposition to things like the assault weapons ban. Both of you cross the line of common sense and keep on running.