Anti-abortion Law: Government Leader Supports Bill That Will Save Lives, Says Fetuses Can Already Feel Pain at 15 Weeks

Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin recently announced he is supporting a ban on abortions in Virginia after 15 weeks, reasoning that following this point, the baby can feel the pain.

As specified in a Newsweek report, this comes in the wake of the overturning in the Supreme Court in June this year of Roe v. Wade, eliminating the legal protection of abortion rights across the United States.

Now, states can illegalize abortions if they opt to. Specifically, as of late September, 17 states have banned restricted abortion, including Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Carolina, Utah, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Texas.

In a media interview, Youngkin said he feels this bill will save lives by reducing the number of abortions, not to mention "is a compromise."

Feeling Pain at 15 Weeks

Youngkin said a 15-week period is when a child can feel pain, and that should, in fact, be recognized. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or ACOG, reported that a fetus cannot feel pain "until the third trimester," which starts at roughly 27 weeks.

Essentially, pain is a perceived experience, with nerves that are attached to the skin informing the brain that the body is being damaged. Nonetheless, for this experience to happen, the brain and nervous system must be adequately developed.

According to Dr. Anne Davis, an OB/GYN and the real experience of pain. Davin is also the consulting medical director for Physicians for Reproductive Health.

For this system to be effective, be it in a fetus or an adult, all of the pathways of the nerves should be linked and working. At approximately 16 weeks, the fetus only starts to respond to outer stimuli.

Fetus at 16 Weeks

According to associate professor in psychology and fetal pain expert Stuart Derbyshire from the National University of Singapore, there is reasonable evidence that brainstem circuits are developed and functional by roughly 16 weeks gestation, which is when motor flexibility begins to be observed, as well.

For instance, research with auditory stimuli has shown more fetal activity and facial movements to music compared with a vibration after 16 weeks of gestation.

Such movements differ depending on the target. Derbyshire also explained that movements toward the eye are slow and delicate, and they engage a prolonged deceleration phase, compared with movement, as described in a Verywell Health report, towards the uterine wall.

Pain

The fetal pain expert also explained that it is perhaps helpful to make a distinction between perception and distinction, pure sensation underneath all qualitative content.

In summary, he added that the fetus never feels that, but neither does the infant; the arising of an explicit insight that one is in pain, which is generally described in a Healthline report, will take a few months to emerge.

Whereas fetuses do not start responding to stimuli at around 16 weeks, there is no adequate scientific basis behind the claim of Youngkin that fetuses can feel pain at 15 weeks.

Furthermore, where it cannot be known what the fetal experience is, the scientific consensus is that fetuses cannot perceive pain as anything more severe than a stimulus to inform motor function.

Related information about fetuses feeling pain is shown on Another Conservative Commentator's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Babies in Science Times.