Does the unborn child feel the pain of an abortion? If so, how early can they feel pain?
HLA did intensive research to answer your question, because it is very difficult to find a consensus-even among scientists and doctors. Many pro-life organizations will stand behind the fact that the unborn child has a fully developed sense of pain at 20 weeks. Many pro-abortion groups won’t admit that the baby can feel anything before 24 weeks. However, this is preposterous. When babies born prematurely between 20-23 weeks are operated on they must have anesthesia because they will pull away from a needle, cry, have increased heart rates, and increased levels of stress hormones. The question should not be “when is the pain system fully functional” but “when does the pain system begin to develop.” A quadriplegic cannot feel pain in their legs because the nerves are damaged, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t feel pain perfectly in their upper body where their nerves are intact. Likewise, the unborn baby has partial feeling at a very young age: “At 7.5 weeks’ gestation, reflex response
