Abortion Bans Premised on Fetal Pain Capacity

Abstract

Abortion bans premised on fetal pain capacity are this decade's “partial‐birth abortion”: a medically suspect anti‐choice initiative that can be politically difficult to oppose. No one is “pro–fetal pain.” But rhetorically, the concept of “fetal pain” works to conflate the capacity for pain with the experience of pain. If pain justified banning medical procedures, all surgery would be illegal. Pain is a routine side effect of medical practice. What's unethical is unnecessary pain, and that's why the standard medical response to pain is palliation.

Abortion Bans Premised on Fetal Pain Capacity

“…Abortion bans premised on fetal pain also harness the rhetorical power of "late-term" abortions because they aim to eliminate abortions performed between twenty and twenty-four weeks. 9 The "partial-birth abortion" controversy showed the effectiveness of this strategy: although the procedure debated there was typically used in the second trimester, many otherwise pro-choice legislators and voters found it hard to publicly defend "late abortions." There are philosophical reasons why advancing gestational age might change the moral status of the fetus, but here I want to examine how the rhetorical impact of calling abortions at twenty to twenty-four weeks "late term" might play an unwarranted conceptual role in the debate.…”