point of fetal pain should be used instead o viability as abortion regulation standard

Does fetal pain exist? First and foremost my opponent needs to prove that a fetus actually feels pain. The facts are that this idea of fetal pain perception has been hinted at by some groups, but it is highly controversial and not widely accepted at all. (1) In fact in the review article cited which proposes fetal pain is possible, the authors are even very honest to point out “Unfortunately, no pain scales exist to date for the evaluation of fetal pain. Consequently, there exists no specific tool for rating the pain or to help discriminate between reactions attributable to pain versus due to reactions to causes other than pain. ” In fact this review article has to rely on special pleading to argue its point when it concludes by saying “Ultimately, regardless of age, the patient has the right to analgesia and that right should be recognized and guaranteed, even when the need for analgesia cannot be expressed by the patient. ” For these reasons pointed out above, I believe that fetal pain has not been medically verified and as such my opponent really needs to prove the concept of fetal pain before she can use it as an argument. Is the fetus feeling pain? My opponent probably will argue that fetal pain can be determined from facial expressions or fetuses movements. Its highly important that at this point we stop and ask the question, how do we know these actions are from pain? There is no way to know for sure as the studies that rely on these actions as pain indicators are quick to point out that this is purely subjective and may in fact have nothing to do with pain sensations, see reference 1. In fact more mature developed fetuses which are used in these studies are continuously moving around and/or making facial expressions. (2) As such what could be interpreted as a pain perception could in fact, more realistically, be just an involuntary muscle movement. How is pain determined? This argument on pain will probably be the most difficult point to rebut for my opponent. Basically, it is well know that pain is subjective. In fact the pain scale can be influenced by simple things like gender, with women feeling pain more intensely than men. (3) To some anecdotal evidence I broke my foot and felt a little pain, in contrast my brother broke his foot and could not stop complaining about the intense pain. I think cases like this point out the problem with pain perception and what is considered pain. This is so important that there are in fact journals dedicated to pain and understanding how it affects people in different ways and how different people perceive pain. (4) This means that different fetuses could have different perceptions to pain (if fetal pain is firstly proven) and as such if we cannot quantify this then we are unable to agree with the debates proposition. I should also like to point out the case of Congenital insensitivity to pain. (5) If a fetus has this genetic defect then my opponent is effectively arguing that this fetus, which cannot feel pain, can be aborted the day before a scheduled delivery. While this is an extreme case I think it does an extreme amount of harm to my opponents arguments. In this round I have shown that fetal pain is something that has not been proven. Additionally, I have shown that pain is subjective. With this, I hand the debate back to my opponent and eagerly await her reply. (1) . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... (2) . http://americanpregnancy.org... (3) . http://www.scientificamerican.com... (4) . http://www.journals.elsevier.com... (5) . http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov...