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→Prenatal pain: added additional citation tag with reason |
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Fetal pain legislation may make abortions harder to obtain, because abortion clinics lack the equipment and expertise to supply fetal anesthesia. Currently, anesthesia is administered directly to fetuses only while they are undergoing surgery.<ref name="paul">{{cite news |last=Paul |first=Annie Murphy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/magazine/10Fetal-t.html |title=The First Ache |work=New York Times |date=February 10, 2008}}</ref>
Doctors for a Woman’s Choice on Abortion pointed out that the majority of surgical abortions in Britain are already performed under general anesthesia, which also affects the fetus. In a letter to the ''British Medical Journal'' in April 1997, they deemed the discussion "unhelpful to women and to the scientific debate"<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1136/bmj.314.7088.1201 |title=Do fetuses feel pain? |journal=BMJ |volume=314 |issue=7088 |pages=1201 |year=1997 |last1=Savage |first1=W. |last2=Wall |first2=P. D |last3=Derbyshire |first3=S. W. |pmc=2126513 |pmid=9146414 }}</ref> despite a report in the ''British Medical Journal'' that "the theoretical possibility that the fetus may feel pain (albeit much earlier than most embryologists and physiologists consider likely) with the procedure of legal abortion".<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1136/bmj.314.7076.302a |title=Do fetuses feel pain? |journal=BMJ |volume=314 |issue=7076 |pages=302–3 |year=1997 |last1=McCullagh |first1=P. |last2=Saunders |first2=P J |pmc=2125716 |pmid=9022510 }}</ref> Yet if mothers' general anesthesia were enough to anesthetise the fetus, all fetuses would be born sleepy after a cesarean section performed in general anesthesia, which is not the case.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1097/ACO.0000000000000185 |title=General anesthesia for caesarean section |journal=Curr Opin Anesthesiol |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=240–246 |year=2015 |last1=Devroe |first1=S.|pmid=25827280 |s2cid=38558311 }}</ref> Dr. Carlo V. Bellieni also agrees that the anesthesia that women receive for fetal surgery is not sufficient to anesthetize the fetus.<ref>Bellieni, Carlo V. (2021-05). [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-020-01170-2 «Analgesia for fetal pain during prenatal surgery: 10 years of progress»]. ''Pediatric Research'' '''89''' (7): 1612-1618. {{ISSN|1530-0447}}. {{Doi|10.1038/s41390-020-01170-2}}.</ref>
==United States legislation==
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