Lethal Sentiments
Anthony McCarthy on Fetal Pain & False Humanitarianism
In a paper published last January in the Journal of Medical Ethics, the authors conclude that, in the light of recent neuroscientific data, they "no longer view fetal pain (as a core, immediate sensation) in a gestational window of 12–24 weeks as impossible based on the neuroscience." The lead author, Professor Stuart Derbyshire, a psychologist, was a member of the Working Party of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which put out a widely quoted report in 2010 stating that "the experience of pain needs cognitive, sensory and affective components, as well as the necessary anatomical and physiological neural connections." The report concluded that the unborn can only experience pain after 24 weeks, but that in any case, analgesics for a fetus being aborted are, on balance, not to be recommended even after that point.
Derbyshire now rejects such views and recommends that analgesics be considered much earlier, "especially after 18 weeks." In the light of new data, the (pro-choice) Derbyshire and his (pro-life) co-author write:
[W]e propose that the fetus experiences a pain that just is and it is because it is, there is no further comprehension of the experience, only an immediate apprehension. The fetus experiences something that is inherent to a certain level of biological activity, and which emerges at an unknown time often speculated to be after 12 weeks' gestation. . . . It can be argued that such a pain lacks a moral relevance, but we view that position with some suspicion. We may doubt whether the fetus (or an animal) ever feels anything akin to pain, but acting as if we have certainty flirts with a moral recklessness that we are motivated to avoid. ("Reconsidering fetal pain," Journal of Medical Ethics, Jan. 14, 2020)
Tellingly, a spokeswoman for BPAS (British Pregnancy Advisory Service), Britain's leading abortion provider, reacted by stating, "The most comprehensive review of this issue to date concluded a foetus cannot experience pain before 24 weeks." This was, however, the very study Derbyshire was himself involved with, and whose findings he is now giving reasons for rejecting.
Why Care?
Scientific debate aside, why should BPAS (or Planned Parenthood) care about fetal pain in any case? If they are true to their stated beliefs about absolute autonomy for the pregnant woman, there is no intrinsic reason why they shouldn't allow for abortions, even at nine months, not just without analgesia, but even as part of a deliberate experiment on fetal pain. To quote Ann Furedi, the head of BPAS, "You can't be pro-choice except when you don't like the choice, because that's not pro-choice at all."
For their part, pro-lifers should not fall into the trap of recommending analgesia for unborn children about to be aborted, for this would amount to telling abortionists how to carry out the procedure. If abortion is understood to be always morally wrong, then we cannot recommend to anyone how to carry it out (compare this to recommending to a child rapist that he use a condom or that he interact with the child online instead). At most, we can only tell abortionists how abortions must not be carried out (i.e., in some particular and perhaps painful way).
In our society, considerations of fetal pain are more likely to gain a purchase on some people's minds than considerations of the inherent worth of the existing human being in the special domain of his or her mother's womb. For while the humane killing of sentient non-human animals can be justified for sufficient reasons, when it comes to Homo sapiens, the human being's possession of a nature oriented to rational thought and capable of pursuing the true and the good means his life is good in a quite distinct way. Just punishment or self-defence might conceivably justify killing an adult, but such are not at all the kinds of reasons used to justify killing a fetus. The latter instead tend to center on the careers, health, or relationships of the mothers, or on views of the "quality" of life the mother and/or her child will have.
Judging in Terms of Pleasure & Pain
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Beyond Good and Evil,
Anthony McCarthy is the founder and director of Bios Centre and a visiting scholar in moral philosophy at the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria. He previously held the post of research fellow at the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford and holds degrees in philosophy from King's College London, University College London, and the University of Surrey. He has lectured widely and published on ethical issues for both academic and wider audiences.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Subscribe (Print + Online) 
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Subscribe (Online Only) 
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on abortion from the online archives
27.2—March/April 2014
on C. S. Lewis & the New State Paganism by W. E. Knickerbocker
26.1—Jan/Feb 2013
on Abortion as a Matter of National Welfare by W. Ross Blackburn
19.1—January/February 2006
on Death & Seven of the Last Words of Socrates by Graeme Hunter
more from the online archives
37.5—Sept/Oct 2024
A Battle Plan for Peace While Growing Old by Anthony Esolen
33.3—May/June 2020
on the Wisdom of the Good Doctor Edmund Pellegrino by Allen H. Roberts II
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
Support Touchstone
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
