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in GA, medical experts are just liars

This is about the 20week abortion ban, which is "justified" by the "fact" that fetuses feel pain that early.  That was a claim made in the 1980s movie silent scream and basically has zero evidence.

Under House Bill 954, almost all abortions later than 20 weeks, including those involving rape and incest, would be banned under the premise that after 20 weeks a fetus is capable of feeling pain. Dott and two other obstetricians, also specialists in high-risk pregnancies, told the panel that overwhelming medical evidence has established that a fetus does not develop the capacity to feel pain until the 28th week of gestation. When doctors operate on fetuses younger than 28 weeks, the committee was told, it is standard medical practice not to use anesthetic because the neural connections needed to feel pain simply do not exist.

Yet the sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Doug McKillip, summarily dismissed the threshold of 28 weeks. ?Does anybody believe that? Absolutely not,? he told the panel, in effect calling the medical experts liars. ?They are just looking for a reason to say no to this bill.? ...

[Dott] told the panel, ?I have never seen a patient who electively aborted a normal pregnancy greater than 20 weeks.?

McKillip blithely dismissed that claim as well. In fact, he repeatedly treated medical experts testifying against his bill with a zealot?s scorn verging on downright contempt. Contradicting Dott, he insisted that ?grand majority? of abortions performed Georgia past the 20th week are abortions of convenience. But again, he cited nothing more than his own considerable moral certitude as evidence. 

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Re: in GA, medical experts are just liars

  • And Arizona, which is also considering a 20 week ban, has a medical expert that says this.  I'm including it b/c I liked his analogies.

    Dr. David Grimes, a clinical professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine who has done his own research in the area of abortions and contraception during his 39 years as an obstetrician, said he believes nerves don't reach the brain until the 26th week of pregnancy.

    "Fetal pain at 20 weeks is an impossibility," he said. "It's like trying to make a telephone call on a landline when there's no telephone poles laid yet."

    ...

    Grimes said he believes the pain debate is not about the fetus but just another effort to ban abortions. If they were really concerned about fetal pain, he said, there would be a vigorous effort for legislation to provide pain relief for fetuses during delivery.

    "Their heads are being used as battering rams for eight to 14 hours to get through the cervix. Yet we have not heard a single bill anywhere on that," he said. "This issue has nothing to do with fetuses. It's all meant to harass women." 

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  • imageSibil:

    "Their heads are being used as battering rams for eight to 14 hours to get through the cervix. Yet we have not heard a single bill anywhere on that," he said. "This issue has nothing to do with fetuses. It's all meant to harass women." 

    I want to plant a big wet one on this doctor.

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