Pro-choice activists are making a big deal about a new study claiming to show that human beings feel no pain until about 24 weeks into their fetal life. Lots of studies have appeared contradicting each other on this, so this is hardly news. There’s been lots of debate on this for several decades now, and this doesn’t seem to me to have acquired some special status above all the other studies yet. Science doesn’t work that way. As Ken Miller is fond of stating, you need established confirmation by further studies by people with different methodology before you accept something as established science. You need consensus. This is one study among many, and they don’t all agree with each other.
I’m still not sure how it’s relevant, anyway. I know of no fully pro-life argument claiming that it’s the consciousness of the fetus that makes abortion wrong. There are some moderate pro-choice arguments that restrict the period of abortion to early term that use this claim as part of their basis. But those who base their opposition to abortion on the fact that it’s a human organism with its own DNA and thus a full human being with full moral status will be unmoved by this, and those who base their opposition to abortion on the fact that abortion robs the fetal human organism of a future life like our lives will also be untouched.
June 28th, 2010 | 10:30 am | #1
The study is released by a group who have previously misled the UK parliament on the same issue, so their findings should be taken with a pinch of salt…
http://www.ccfon.org/view.php?id=175
They’re basically trying to ease the consciences of the doctors they represent. I don’t think it will work.
June 28th, 2010 | 10:52 am | #2
I’d need to see more. This seems to be evidence that they didn’t acknowledge the existence of competing views when stating (without sufficient argument) their conclusion. But these studies seem to be (without my looking at them) the very kind of argument that was missing the first time. They’ve given an account of why there’s no pain before 24 weeks, and they’ve supposedly given some reasons to think that. My caution is just to point out that there are studies that result in opposite conclusions on this, and there seems to be no consensus among scientists.
I’m not sure their previous refusal to acknowledge the other side (a political choice) says anything one way or the other about the motivations or scientific reliability of the scientists who conducted these studies, who are presumably not the same people as the political leaders of the organization who were burying opposing scientists’ work to make it look as if there was a consensus.
June 28th, 2010 | 11:10 am | #3
“Pro-choice activists are making a big deal about a new study claiming to show that human beings feel no pain until about 24 weeks into their fetal life.”
Which only shows that these activists still (still!) have not bothered to understand pro-life arguments.
June 28th, 2010 | 11:26 am | #4
If a serial killer sedated his victims before killing them, so that they died painlessly, would that make it anything less than murder? No.
June 28th, 2010 | 1:29 pm | #5
Unless you’re like some Christians, who believe that human fetuses deserve to suffer the torments of hell for all of eternity, wouldn’t it be good news that fetuses, below 24 weeks, feel no suffering? Sure, it wouldn’t be the best news, but surely it’d be good news.
June 28th, 2010 | 1:58 pm | #6
Steve Hays: “If a serial killer sedated his victims before killing them, so that they died painlessly, would that make it anything less than murder? No.”
Thanks Steve.
The issue of whether there’s pain or not is a red herring to the fact that abortion is murder.
June 28th, 2010 | 2:34 pm | #7
Janice, this can be an “at least” moment for those who recognize that this is murder, if we end up accepting the conclusions of these studies. At least it’s murder of those who are sedated. OK, I can see that. But the far greater concern is whether it is indeed murder, and that’s a separate question.
As to the difficult question of whether a biblical worldview can fit to the view that any human being besides Christ deserves something other than eternal death, I’ll leave that for another day. The burden of proof is certainly on those who think the Bible can be fit to the idea that any human being but Christ is truly innocent, though.
June 28th, 2010 | 3:01 pm | #8
Really, Jeremy? Prima facie, isn’t it more plausible to think that unborn babies don’t deserve to be punished? If “innocent until proven guilty” applies anywhere shouldn’t it apply to those who haven’t done anything–like unborn babies?
June 28th, 2010 | 3:04 pm | #9
Janice,
Do you affirm that abortion is murder?
June 28th, 2010 | 3:24 pm | #10
Jeremy,
Continuing, imagine someone (even a Bible believing fundamentalist) saying:
June 28th, 2010 | 3:26 pm | #11
Janice,
You seem to deny original sin and Adam’s headship.
If you do, then your conclusion makes sense.
However the Bible is clear that we all deserve condemnation to eternal hell, from the least to the greatest.
Of course it’s good news for the murdered, if they feel no pain. But if it can be proven, then in reality, this study is bad news, because it will give the baby-killers more leverage with which to push their agenda.
June 28th, 2010 | 3:46 pm | #12
Daryl Little, this is an unusual pair of claims. If unborn babies deserve eternal suffering in hell, and it is good and just when people get what they deserve, then it’s not necessarily a bad thing for unborn babies to suffer.
Imagine someone thinking that it’s a terrible thing for a convicted murdering rapist to suffer a hangnail on his way to his justly deserved punishment.
June 28th, 2010 | 3:51 pm | #13
Janice,
Sorry about the confusion. I just reread my comment and saw what I had done.
After “least to the greatest” I should’ve added
But about the topic of the post…”
From our point of view, suffering and pain is something that humans can never needlessly mete out to one another.
Hell is a different thing.
It is not needless, it is deserving and right. Holy even.
But that doesn’t give us the right to cause anyone to suffer further on their way there.
June 28th, 2010 | 3:51 pm | #14
It may not matter if the convicted rapist gets that hangnail, but I don’t have the right to rip his nails out either.
I am not the giver of justice.
June 28th, 2010 | 8:44 pm | #15
Janice said:
Prima facie, isn’t it more plausible to think that unborn babies don’t deserve to be punished? If “innocent until proven guilty” applies anywhere shouldn’t it apply to those who haven’t done anything–like unborn babies?
and
Continuing, imagine someone (even a Bible believing fundamentalist) saying: “The burden of proof is certainly on those who think that unborn babies don’t deserve far worse than prenatal death-by-dismemberment. Fetuses are guilty until proven innocent.”
Janice is mixing categories. The fact that a person (e.g. fetus) is guilty before God doesn’t ipso facto imply he’s guilty before other people. The fact that a person stands condemned before God doesn’t sanction his punishment (let alone immoral treatment) at the hands of other humans. The fact that my little old grandma who has never done anything wrong to me or anyone else in her entire life is nevertheless a condemned sinner before God doesn’t then make it perfectly fine for me to kill her because she’s a guilty sinner. I’m not God’s agent of justice. Neither is Janice.
June 29th, 2010 | 6:09 am | #16
The Bible consistently maintains that God has every right to do anything to us that he deems appropriate, because we are in effect his property. He created us, and we are to him like the clay in the potter’s hands.
Nonetheless, the Bible affirms that it is morally unconscionable for a human being to take the life of a human being except in circumstances where some other moral principle is at stake and takes a serious enough place to override the command not to kill. Every Christian I know accepts that it’s all right for God to determine the time of my death, while insisting that I do deserve to die and am being spared only by grace. I’d in fact say that one cannot be a Christian and think otherwise, since a denial of that is basically a denial of the gospel.
Your argument is basically a claim that those two truths amount to a contradiction. It is thus a denial, in effect, of the Christian gospel.
June 29th, 2010 | 8:37 am | #17
What a massively sidetracked thread.
The issues of original sin, hell, God’s justice, and so on, are completely irrelevant. The real issue: If a conceptus is a human being / human person before the time of his / her feeling pain, then killing him / her is wrong. From post 5 on, this main point has been obscured.
June 29th, 2010 | 3:33 pm | #18
It’s one thing to say that I have a right to send my children to bed early; it’s another thing to say that my children deserve to be sent to bed early.
Would you also affirm that unborn babies deserve to suffer the torments of hell for all of eternity?
Would you also say of this “that one cannot be a Christian and think otherwise”?
Search the cults and pagan religions: can you find a doctrine that is more morally outrageous? Can you even imagine a more outrageous doctrine?
June 29th, 2010 | 4:21 pm | #19
“As Ken Miller is fond of stating, you need established confirmation by further studies by people with different methodology before you accept something as established science. You need consensus. This is one study among many, and they don’t all agree with each other.”
Both of the reports are review articles, not primary studies. They have no new evidence. They are special because they draw big picture conclusions from science that multiple primary studies have confirmed.
I agree that this will probably not affect the views of full pro-lifers. The effect this might have (if any) might be to strengthen the pro-choice side rather than weaken the pro-life side.
June 29th, 2010 | 4:22 pm | #20
Oh, hey, this blog is on First Things. I like this magazine.
June 29th, 2010 | 5:17 pm | #21
Alarm! Alarm!
I am ringing the alarm! didn’t anyone, even the anti-abortionists, realise that pain need not be felt to be experienced?!
The fact that there are no nerve connections between a brain and body doesn’t rule out the experience of pain at all. Witness phantom pain, pain from toxic injury, distress from physical injury… witness the fact that people who have strokes can become very distressed, witness also how psychedelics can bring experiences of intense pain in the absence of sensory stimulation, witness how the distress that accompanies knowledge of imminent death can be triggered by the slightest sign, even a non-sensory sign.
And what is this state of foetal “sedation”? Are the doctors really telling us that the toxic effect of sedatives is a natural experience?
Come on boys and girls, you’ve all been hoodwinked. I suspect that our awe for science has sent us scurrying into a corner, and stunned us into accepting the doctors conclusions.
June 29th, 2010 | 5:25 pm | #22
John,
I suspect these researchers would be happy to concede that fetuses under 24 weeks only experience the kind of pain they cannot feel. Hehe.
And I also suspect that some folks here still think that it is good and appropriate for fetuses to suffer for all of eternity the kinds of hellish torments that they can feel.
June 30th, 2010 | 4:14 am | #23
I’m not making a moral point. I’m stating a hard, physical, real, fact, a fact that challenges the article on foetal pain. Here is that fact again:
We don’t need to experience pain from physical extremities to feel distress or even pain itself. I gave well-known, simple, examples.
I just thought that someone would have got it. I keep getting the feeling that people aren’t getting it, but my point was really simple. Maybe if I told anti-abortionists and others that I am a scientist (which I am) they might listen.
June 30th, 2010 | 6:11 am | #24
John:
The COG report did mention that the foetus can sense its surroundings, e.g. it can withdraw from a needle. They only talk about sensory pain, and that’s all they’re aiming to talk about.
Doctor’s are saying that there is strong evidence that foetuses don’t develop connection between their periphery (where they sense) and the cortex (where they can perceive pain) until after 24 weeks. They don’t mention ‘toxic sedation’ or anything else, except as an alternative that would be offered before when we thought that foetuses could feel.
They may have the ability to be distressed, I’m not sure that has been looked at.
June 30th, 2010 | 6:42 am | #25
The fact remains that these review articles ignored scientific evidence that doesn’t fit their conclusions. There are alternative conceptions of pain, alternative sites in the brain that are thought by some to explain pain, and alternative hypotheses about the relation between the chemical states being postulated to sedate here and the state of consciousness that they cause. This isn’t just a summary of the state of play in the field. It’s a summary of the evidence that fits their conclusion and an ignoring of the evidence that doesn’t, along with an adoption of several controversial and disputed claims that are presented as a consensus when there still is none.
June 30th, 2010 | 6:54 am | #26
Janice, you seem to be assuming that hell is painful in exactly the way that the article is discussing pain. Why assume that? The most reasonable view of hell that I’ve encountered is that of Augustine, who insists that the burning and being eaten language in the NT is not literal but that the real horror of hell is being separated from God. That leaves room for degrees of how bad hell is, which allows for less-developed human beings to have a diminished capacity to recognize the horror being separated from God.
If what they deserve is not the pain that results but the simple separation from God, then the historic doctrine of all of Adam’s descendants deserving separation from God can be preserved without adopting the unbiblical notion of an age of accountability but without the implication that it’s pain that fetuses deserve.
This is not to say that God does send all or any infants or fetuses who die to hell. I have no idea. It’s well within the realm of possibility that God graciously gives to them all or to many of them the gift of regeneration, which will manifest itself very differently in someone with diminished capacities. I’m agnostic on that issue, since scripture has no clear teaching on it. But I don’t think it’s compatible with the gospel to claim that infants and fetuses don’t deserve separation from God.
(And to be clear, I’m not saying you can’t be a Christian and believe such a thing. You can believe both the gospel and something that contradicts it, as long as you don’t see the contradiction. Once you see the contradiction, you have a choice between giving up the gospel or giving up the thing that contradicts it, but most who hold such views don’t see the contradiction.)
June 30th, 2010 | 11:29 am | #27
I will grant that the term “age of accountability” is not found in the Bible, but the concept itself may be.
For example, Jesus said, “Let the little children come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of God.” I know that could be interpreted in different ways, but surely the most obvious interpretation is the literal one: that little children are in the kingdom of God.
When would that change? Only God could know for sure, of course, but probably there is for each of us some sort of age of accountability at which we are morally responsible for our spiritual condition.
And I am assuming at this point that we are all in agreement that it is wrong to use sensation or lack of sensation as a criterion for the permissibility of abortion.
June 30th, 2010 | 11:32 am | #28
“When would that change? Only God could know for sure, of course, but probably there is for each of us some sort of age of accountability at which we are morally responsible for our spiritual condition.”
Thinking about this: This would probably also require a view of the Fall as a “moral” fall, but not necessarily an “ontological” fall.
I think this would be the part, Jeremy Pierce, that you would disagree with?
June 30th, 2010 | 4:41 pm | #29
I’ll say it again. It’s possible to feel physical pain, in the arms, legs, etc, EVEN IF there are no nerve connections between them and the brain.
Even so, how did we come to limit agony to pain in the first place?
And please don’t do conceptual default and think that “sedation” is anything other than the name given to the reversible but toxic impairment of organs in the body. Please don’t credit the term “sedation” as a natural state, as the doctors credited it.
July 1st, 2010 | 12:41 am | #30
Jeremy Pierce,
There is certainly no such assumption on my part. My assumption about hell is rather this: many Christian believe that hell is a place of eternal suffering, a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” with torments that are in some way comparable to burning forever in a lake of fire.
And here’s my question to you: regardless of whether or not God ends up sending fetuses to hell (that’s really beside the present point), do you actually believe that, on their own, human fetuses deserve to be punished in hell, where hell is as described?
July 1st, 2010 | 3:50 am | #31
Jeremy Pierce, you write:
It sounds like you are suggesting two things:
(a) Human fetuses–or even zygotes–may be condemned to hell for all of eternity, but they would continue to experience merely as a fetus or a zygote. (In the case of the zygote or the early stage embryo, this means that they wouldn’t experience anything.)
(b) Later stage fetuses (esp. those older than 24 weeks) presumably deserve a greater condemnation than earlier stage fetuses–insofar as these presumably have the capacity to suffer from the effects of eternal banishment from God. Young children (e.g., 8-year olds) deserve a much greater eternal condemnation.
Am I understanding you correctly?
July 1st, 2010 | 1:08 pm | #32
Hi Jeremy,
Have you read this post “When Feminism Kills — Abortion As ‘The Lesser Evil’“?
Excerpt:
“Indeed, the experience of having a child convinced Senior that the inhabitant of the womb is indeed a human life. Responding to a recent British medical report claiming that fetuses feel no pain before 24 weeks of gestation, she correctly observes that this has nothing to do with the fundamental issue at stake. “Either a fetus is life from conception, or it is not,” she rightly asserts, “ability to feel pain is not, in itself, a defining factor.”
…
Just when she seems to be poised to deliver a clear affirmation of the value and dignity of that unborn human life, she veers into an absolutist argument for abortion rights. Yes, that fetus is a human life, she argues, but that life must yield to the inviolable feminist principle of abortion rights.
You simply cannot “decouple feminism from abortion rights,” she insists, adding, “you cannot separate women’s rights from their right to fertility control.”
Even as she admits that her position on the moral status of the unborn child has been utterly changed, she insists that her absolutist position on abortion rights has not. When it comes down to the right of the fetus to live versus the right of the mother to abort, the abortion right wins.
Abortion, which she acknowledges is the killing of a human life, is defined as “a lesser evil” than the curtailing of abortion rights in the name of liberating women.
“As ever, when an issue we thought was black and white becomes more nuanced, the answer lies in choosing the lesser evil,” she assures. “The nearly 200,000 aborted babies in the UK each year are the lesser evil, no matter how you define life, or death, for that matter. If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too.”
You must be prepared to kill for the sake of defending abortion rights? That is exactly what abortion entails — the killing of an unborn child for the sake of asserting a woman’s so-called “right to choose.”
In this essay, published in one of the world’s most venerable newspapers, Antonia Senior goes public with the argument that feminists should just admit that abortion is the killing of a human life, and then they should go on to assert that the right to kill an unborn human life is just the price that must be paid if feminism is to be defended.
“If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too.” That statement, published for all the world to see, perfectly distills the inescapable logic of the abortion rights argument. It is based on a willingness to kill — and on the horrifying audacity to call this killing “the lesser evil.”
(Do read the entire essay.)
July 10th, 2010 | 5:13 pm | #33
Craig, I would have thought the most obvious interpretation of Jesus’ statement is that we have to become like children in their trustworthiness and trust him for our salvation. It certainly doesn’t imply that all actual children have the right sort of trust in Jesus for their salvation.
Depending on what you mean by an ontological fall, you might be getting me right. I do think it’s clear in scripture that we are fallen from the outset and that we are in sin as a condition prior to any sins that we commit. It’s the former and not the latter that makes us incompatible with being in God’s presence and deserving of separation from God.
Janice, the reason hell is described in such terms is that it’s separation from God, and that’s a very bad thing, especially for those who can appreciate it for what it is. Perhaps fetuses can’t do so, and if they ended up separated from God they might not experience the full-on horror of it, in which case perhaps what they deserve isn’t the same thing as what we deserve given our fuller levels of understanding and more complete thoughts, desires, and actions flowing from the sin nature that we have in common with fetuses.
On questions (a) and (b), you’re assuming I have some view on the matter, whereas I’m simply offering some arguments against certain positions. I’m agnostic about most of the issues relevant to those two questions.
TUAD, yes, that seems to me to be exactly the position she’s taking, and it strikes me as morally horrendous. She’s admitting that she sees a woman’s right to kill her fetus as more important than the full right to life of a fetus that she seems to admit has such a right. Even Judith Jarvis Thomson denies such a monstrous claim, saying that women only have a right to eviction of the fetus, and if it happens to die then so be it. Mary Anne Warren has a false premise (that fetuses have very little rights) and a conclusion that doesn’t monstrously follow but is monstrous from the correct premises. But it involves self-deception. This piece is outright endorsing evil as evil.
July 10th, 2010 | 5:27 pm | #34
Jeremy, I’m surprised to hear you suggest that you don’t have a view on the following statement:
In reading the Prosblogion comments under your accountability post, I thought Pruss’ remark was apt (italics added):
Are you really agnostic on the idea of whether a fetus deserves to be punished? Are you aware that such agnosticism actually seems to imply a very radical form of skepticism towards what is sometimes called “common sense morality”?
July 13th, 2010 | 2:18 pm | #35
You actually cut out half of (b). What (b) says is that later-stage fetuses deserve more punishment because they can experience more punishment and that eight-year olds have even greater deserving of punishment, presumably because they can experience those effects anymore.
This is certainly one way to resist an age-of-accountability view. There’s no age of accountability even for one individual, because each person’s moral responsibility gradually increases.
But I mentioned a completely different age-of-accountability-denying view, and that’s the view that everyone is equally responsible (i.e. has original guilt). I would lean this way in terms of what seems most likely to me given what the Bible actually says, and I’d need a strong argument to convince me of (b) instead. But I’m open to such an argument, and I think (b) is more likely than the typical age-of-accountability view. So I would say that I do not have a firm conviction on whether (b) is true, even though I lean away from it.
As for Alex’s comment, I think he may well be right. Maybe original guilt doesn’t require punishment but just requires preventing someone from eternal bliss, which perhaps could be manifested by annihilation or eternal sleep. Of course, those who think hell just is annihilation and that that’s punishment will not be able to go the annihilation route. Whether annihilation is neutral or a punishment will matter. I’ve gone back and forth on that, but I tend to think it’s a punishment, whereas eternal sleep with neutral experience but very minimal consciousness of it might be a more neutral result that isn’t punishment. It’s hard to figure out how this non-punishment but non-bliss state is going to look. It would be separation from God, but it also needs to be distinct from hell somehow, and if hell just is separation from God, as Augustine thought (and as scripture does support) then there’s little room left for a middle ground.
As for your last paragraph, I’m not agnostic in the sense of having no views whatsoever, no leanings even. I’m agnostic in the sense that I don’t think I know whether it’s true. I have a view that I think is more likely to be correct, but that’s not something I believe to be knowledge.
I’m not sure why such agnosticism amounts to radical skepticism about common sense morality. I do think I have a healthy skepticism about common sense morality, because I think the doctrine of the fall requires such a skepticism. I think we should see our own internal conscience as a fallible guide to morality, because we do have the ability to know right from wrong to some extent.
On the other hand, it’s quite fallible due to the presence of sin that leads to our ease in excusing our actions and those of people we love or have soft spots for. I do think most of the things we take to be right and wrong, good and bad, are right and wrong, good and bad. But I tend to think most people’s foundations of ethics are horribly wrong, and that’s what we’re getting closer to when we start asking questions about the implications of the doctrines of original sin and original guilt in cases where someone who has no capacity (or a much-diminished capacity) to understand morality is involved.
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