MEDISCOPE | ISSUE 2 | 02 DECEMBER 2020

ABORTION
By Sethujah Gangatharan 12S
ETHICS - ABORTION
Abortion is the termination of pregnancy by
the removal of the fetus or embryo. Due to
the Abortion Act, abortion is legal in the UK at
upto 24 weeks however in countries like El
Salvador and Poland, it is illegal. There are
two main types of movement arguing for and
against abortion and these are pro-choice
and pro-life.
Pro-choice emphasises that women have the
right to make a decision about their
pregnancy since it’s their body. Pregnancy
will have a major impact on their health,
education, wealth and practically, it will
change their lives completely. Banning
women from the right to their own bodies
suggests that women are simply just
containers that carry fetuses rather than
people and this view is simply inhumane.
Pro-life on the other hand prioritises the
fetus’ life and its right to be born. However,
although a fetus is a human being, does it
have the characteristics of an actual
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individual? A person is defined as a human
being with life and the capability of conscious
thoughts but it is impossible to classify
fetuses as people when we aren’t sure when
exactly life starts. Some believe that life
starts at conception and others believe that
life starts at birth. Whether fetuses have the
capability of conscious thoughts or not is
hard to tell so we can look at other aspects of
what makes human beings people. People
have the ability to feel emotions and
sensations such as pain so can fetuses feel
pain?
Many argue that fetuses do not feel pain
since their CNS, particularly their anterior
cingulate cortex, have not fully developed
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yet. In the past studies have been carried out
on patients with bilateral lesions in the pain
matrix, i.e. damage to places like insula,
amygdala and anterior cingulate in the brain,
Their experience of pain was observed in
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various trials such as sudden hot and cold
hand immersions. Despite excessive damage
to the regions which have been known to
process pain, patients’ experiences of pain
were normal and similar to a person with no
damage to the brain. This suggests that
perhaps these parts of the brain aren’t
needed to have fully developed for a fetus to
experience pain.
In fact, what is pain? Pain could be classified
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as a signal which stimulates neurons to carry
out actions in response to various stimuli.
However, it is also subjective, i.e. one only
knows what ‘pain’ is through their own past
experiences and feelings of fear and nausea.
One may feel that a sensation is painful but
another person may not regard that
sensation as anything at all. Especially since
fetuses would have had such little ‘life’
experiences, if they do experience pain in the
womb, it would probably be quite short and
shallow. Whether fetuses actually experience
pain or not hasn’t been proven so one thing
that can be considered is the provision of
fetal analgesia to relieve fetus’ pain.
Analgesia and anaesthetics are provided in
fetal procedures like open heart surgery so
perhaps they can be given to fetuses in
abortion too.
One of the reasons why women abort their
fetuses is after finding out that they have a
genetic disorder such as Down’s Syndrome or
Noonan’s Syndrome. Down’s Syndrome is
when babies are born with an extra
chromosome and this can potentially lead to
learning disabilities and other health
problems. Most people believe that Down’s
syndrome is a disease in which people are ill
and suffering. However, each person with this
condition has a good quality of life, is unique
and brings a new light into their families. A
couple of years ago, the NHS started
providing women the opportunity to screen
for Down’s Syndrome. The new test