{"id":527821,"date":"2010-04-14T09:54:22","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T13:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/04\/14\/is-fetal-pain-the-newest-abortion-battleground\/"},"modified":"2010-04-14T09:54:22","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T13:54:22","slug":"is-fetal-pain-the-newest-abortion-battleground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/527821","title":{"rendered":"Is Fetal Pain the Newest Abortion Battleground?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"justice\"Nebraska became the first state in the nation to enact restrictions on abortion based on the concept of fetal pain, the New York Times<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

The new law, signed on Tuesday, bans abortions after 20 weeks\u0092 gestation, a point at which some argue the fetus feels pain. Previously the state forbade abortion based on the ability of the fetus to live outside the womb, which is considered to begin no earlier than at 22 weeks, according to the Times. Abortions after 20 weeks are now permitted only in an emergency or when the mother\u0092s life or physical health are at serious risk.<\/p>\n

Fetal pain is a highly controversial topic that has implications for the increasingly intricate surgical procedures performed on fetuses in utero as well as abortion. A JAMA review<\/a> published in 2005 concluded that while evidence \u0093regarding the capacity for fetal pain is limited,\u0094 it’s \u0093unlikely before the third trimester.\u0094 Other researchers, however, studying responses during fetal surgery, say they\u0092ve observed flinching or physiological changes like an increase in stress hormones in fetuses even at 18 weeks\u0092 gestation.<\/p>\n

The focus on fetal pain may open a new front in the abortion wars. \u0093If some of these other anti-abortion bills have been chipping away at Roe v. Wade, this takes an ax to it,\u0094 Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the NYT.<\/p>\n

Image: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p>\n

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Nebraska became the first state in the nation to enact restrictions on abortion based on the concept of fetal pain, the New York Times reports. The new law, signed on Tuesday, bans abortions after 20 weeks\u0092 gestation, a point at which some argue the fetus feels pain. Previously the state forbade abortion based on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6750,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6750"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}