Next Thursday

Pain perception requires consciousrecognition or awareness of a noxious stimulus. Neither withdrawalreflexes nor hormonal stress responses to invasive proceduresprove the existence of fetal pain, because they can be elicitedby nonpainful stimuli and occur without conscious cortical processing.Fetal awareness of noxious stimuli requires functional thalamocorticalconnections. Thalamocortical fibers begin appearing between23 to 30 weeks’ gestational age, while electroencephalographysuggests the capacity for functional pain perception in pretermneonates probably does not exist before 29 or 30 weeks. Forfetal surgery, women may receive general anesthesia and/or analgesicsintended for placental transfer, and parenteral opioids maybe administered to the fetus under direct or sonographic visualization.In these circumstances, administration of anesthesia and analgesiaserves purposes unrelated to reduction of fetal pain, includinginhibition of fetal movement, prevention of fetal hormonal stressresponses, and induction of uterine atony.

Or, in other words, science shows a fetus does not feel pain until the 3rd trimester. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and/or an idiot.