I really shouldn't be shocked, even though I thought I'd heard it all. Representative Michael Burgess (R-TX) took the abortion debate to a whole new level of crazy. The Raw Story reports he said:
“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” he continued. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?”
This guy is an OB/GYN! WTF! Though, on the funny side of this, I got to do a google search I never even thought was possible...
More below the fancy break in the page...
Even if fetuses could masturbate at 15 weeks, they won't be feeling too much pleasure, actually, they won't be feeling any pleasure. I can't cite any studies about fetuses being able to feel pleasure. (I'm not sure if any have been done.) I can cite studies that show a fetus won't feel pain until after the 24th week, the point of viability.
Like this one:
Babies Distinguish Pain from Touch at 35-37 Weeks, Research Finds from Science Daily.
Scientists looked at the brain activity of 46 babies at the University College Hospital Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing. 21 babies in the study were born prematurely, giving scientists the opportunity to measure activity at different stages of human brain development, from babies at just 28 weeks of development through to those born 'full term' at 37 weeks.
I should note, this one came with a caveat. The lead author Dr. Lorenzo Fabrizi said:
"Of course, babies cannot tell us how they feel, so it is impossible to know what babies actually experience. We cannot say that before this change in brain activity they don't feel pain."
Even if the babies could feel pain at 28 weeks, it's still 8 weeks past the 20 week point that the right is claiming fetuses can feel pain and 13 weeks past the point that Rep. Michael Burgess claims fetuses can feel pleasure.
Or this article discussing:
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco reviewed dozens of studies and medical reports and said the data indicate that fetuses likely are incapable of feeling pain until around the seventh month of pregnancy
Study: Fetus feels no pain until third trimester
This is the last
study I will post. This one was done by British researchers at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
The report said: "It can be concluded that the foetus cannot experience pain in any sense prior to this gestation."
The notion that a fetus can feel pain (or pleasure) before 24 weeks is bogus. It's something made up by the "religious" right to get more sympathy for their crusade.