Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Mullen on both amendments in the area of foetal pain. The objective of these amendments is to create a duty to ensure that an unborn baby feels no pain during the actual abortion procedure where appropriate and practicable in the judgment of the treating doctor. The amendment would have the effect of ensuring that a baby who is about to have his or her life ended during a late-term abortion would not be exposed to the additional horror that he or she might feel pain during the procedure. Where the gestational age of the baby is 20 weeks or later, an anaesthetic should be administered prior to the termination taking place. The amendment makes clear that this obligation would be necessary in an emergency case, where practicable, or where it is believed that an anaesthetic or analgesic might introduce a risk to life, or of serious harm to the health of the pregnant woman.

Any society with the slightest respect for human life would amend the Bill to provide pain relief where an unborn baby may otherwise experience pain. It is disturbing that this provision would not be included in the Bill. Some abortion supporters argue that unborn babies do not feel pain, or at least not until well into the third trimester. These claims are well and truly contradicted by modern evidence and updated science.

The Citizens' Assembly devoted very little time to this issue. In fact, there was less than an hour devoted to exploring the scientific evidence around this area. That is regrettable given the wealth of scientific evidence that is available, and it would be wrong for us, as Oireachtas Members, not to explore the available scientific evidence available ahead of rushing through this legislation which could have grave implications for pain. The public did not vote to deny unborn babies pain relief during late-term abortions. In fact, like so much else, it was never discussed in the referendum campaign in a way that gave voters an opportunity to consider the issue at all. It now falls on us to decide whether we believe babies should receive pain relief before their abortion. It would be unconscionable for anyone to vote on this amendment without first, in good faith, examining the facts and the reality of what happens in other countries where no provisions exist to ease the suffering of the babies in these situations. Babies in the womb are seen to have a physical and biochemical response to injury and research shows that pain and stress may affect foetal survival and neurological development.

As has been stated, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that unborn babies can feel pain around 20 weeks' gestation. We know that if the advice were to be obtained from people like the master of the National Maternity Hospital, Dr. Rhona Mahony, she would argue that pain is not felt by the unborn baby until somewhere in the region of 26 or 27 weeks. She said that when she addressed the students' union debate in UCD on 4 April this year. However, that is in stark contrast to the wealth of scientific evidence which is now available showing that newborn babies have a unique nervous system which makes them respond differently to pain than adults.

In research that has far-reaching implications for the medical and surgical treatment of infants, scientists have found that newborn children feel pain longer and more sensitively. In premature babies the mechanism that allows older children and adults to dampen down the pain messages does not work properly. Until recently it has been presumed that a baby's pain system was too immature to function properly or that they reacted in a similar way to adults, but less efficiently. Researchers at University College London have now discovered that babies' sensory systems have a unique pain signalling mechanism which disappears as they grow older. In the absence of confirmatory communication because of the inability of this foetus to tell us of his or her pain, medical practice and science judge that pain exists when anatomical structures necessary to pain sensation are in place and when physiological responses normally associated with pain occur. If the biological sensory machinery exists, which science proves that it does, if something causes a response like that which pain can cause, and if that something would elicit the same response from human beings generally, then we can deduct that pain occurs.

According to leading medical experts in the field of prenatal surgery, an unborn baby certainly feels pain at 20 weeks' gestation. I want to quote some of that research. In 2004, Dr. Robert White, a brain surgeon and neuroscientist at Case Western Reserve University, testified in a US District Court that, by the 20th week, the unborn baby not only feels pain but has higher pain sensitivity than adults. I want to repeat that because it is the basis of our amendment. Dr. White, a brain surgeon and neuroscientist at Case Western Reserve University, testified in a US District Court that, by the 20th week, the unborn baby not only feels pain but has higher pain sensitivity than adults.

Dr. KJS Anand's groundbreaking study of foetal pain showed that sensory receptors begin developing at seven weeks. They spread to the whole face, palms and hands by 11 weeks, the trunk, upper arms and legs by 15 weeks, and the rest of the body by 20 weeks. Again, our amendments would cover that. The sensory part of the brain called the neocortex begins developing at eight weeks and is fully formed by 20 weeks.

A prenatal anaesthesiologist at Vanderbilt Hospital noted that, under minimal anaesthetic, the foetus moved away from the scalpel and visibly flinched when touched by the knife. In consultation with a paediatric pain specialist, he raised the anaesthetic and has since assisted at 200 operations without observing any flinching and other signs of foetal pain. Again, that is further proof.Further proof is provided by an Indian expert group study on foetal anaesthesiology, which identified and determined that the foetus feels stress and anaesthesia for in uterosurgeries. The unborn baby's nervous system not only feels but remembers pain and the same study showed that stress was being felt as early as eight weeks. The Journal of the American Medical Associationpromotes the use of anaesthetics for foetal surgery. It is also worth noting that only decades ago newborn and premature babies did not receive pain relief during surgery as doctors considered that their systems were too immature to sense pain. We know now from the scientific evidence that is advancing all of the time that that situation has moved forward. Data in the British Medical JournalandThe Lancetgive solid confirmation of such pain. I am sure that the Minister or his officials have consulted with both journals, and if not they certainly should have. It is known that the foetal umbilical cord has no pain receptors such as does the rest of the foetal body. Accordingly, the tested foetal hormone stress response comparing the puncturing of the abdomen and of the cord observed that the foetus reacts, for example the liver needling with vigorous body and breathing movements but not to cord needling. The level of these hormones did not vary with foetal age. This goes to point again at the pain.

Another British study commented on this as well. It said that it cannot be comfortable for the foetus to have a scalp electrode implanted on its skin to have blood taken from its scalp or to suffer the skull compression that may occur even with spontaneous delivery. It is hardly surprising that infants delivered by difficult forceps extractions act as if they had a severe headache. This underlines again that they feel pain. The American Medical Newshas reported that physicians know that foetuses feel pain in America because, among other things, nerves connecting the spinal cord to peripheral structures have developed between six and eight weeks. Adverse reactions to stimuli are observed between eight to ten weeks.

I am a mere Senator raising these points and that is from my research. The Minister has the Department of Health and the Government research available to him. I hope he has consulted with researchers in this area around foetal pain. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister agrees with the results or findings of the research I have outlined. If he does not, he should give his rationale for same. If he does agree, why will he not consider supporting or accepting this amendment? This is a minimal amendment, which tries to provide a humane element to this Bill, despite the fact that the abortions will proceed, to ensure the unborn baby does not suffer in the process by feeling acute pain, as has been mentioned. I am not a scientist but if the scientific data state they do feel pain, we should be adhering to that position. To play devil's advocate, were the response from the Department of Health to be that it is not sure, should we not be erring on the side of caution, just in case? I would have thought a humane society had an obligation to do that.