Pain of Unborn Babies

Feeling pain is normal and natural. It is related to our nature as human beings. This is why medicines have been invented to reduce pain and patients receive anaesthetics before a surgery. However, it was not done before for unborn babies who are about to face abortion.

Very recently a new changes in law have been introduced in Utah by the Republican Governor. He signed a bill which places on doctors an obligation to administer anaesthesia to unborn babies before abortion is carried out. It is so that their pain during the procedure is reduced or eliminated. This requirement relates to babies five months in gestation and older. However, doctors do not have to administer anaesthesia if it can have adverse effect on the women or if baby has a defect which is lethal. 

The new bill is very significant because the most common method of abortion currently used is dilation and extraction where baby’s body is cut into pieces and then it is removed piece by piece. All of the pieces are then laid onto a tray to be checked if all of the pieces of the body have been removed. 

To make this change in the law the Utah Senate voted 19-5 in favour of Bramble’s bill in March 2016. It also passed in the House by votes 57-10 in favour. However, people who are against abortion see it as an absurd to allow killing of unborn babies as long as they do not feel any pain.

The new law has been heavily criticised by Abolish Human Abortion, International Coalition of Abolitionist Societies. These groups said that such actions delay total prohibition of abortion. Moreover, they argue that based on their state and federal constitutions politicians cannot give anyone a right to murder own children. Gov. Gary Herbert disagrees and claims that, although, he is against abortion it should be carried out humanely as long as it is legal. 

60 million babies have already been aborted in the US since 1973 which shows how enormous the problem in the US is. But, one would wonder whether the changes in the US law are going in the right direction. If babies in mother’s womb feel pain doesn’t it mean that they are alive and so they should not be aborted at all?