Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987) • Hacker News Board

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#321

Post by natroniks » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #313

natroniks wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are medical procedures parents must decide to pursue or not, many are voluntary. Should I get my toddler's fremulum snipped even if there's no guarantee it helps their speech? Should teeth be extracted to help straighten out other teeth even if it results in weeks of pain? Are you saying that straight teeth are of more value than religious identity? There are many hard choices a parent must make; I think circum…

> If you want to debate the biological merits of circumcision, you're missing the religious or cultural value. If you are assigning religious or cultural value to an act that needlessly mutilates your child’s body, you are missing the principle of freedom and letting people have ownership of their bodies. There are cultures that “value” binding feet, stretch out lips and earlobes, poke holes in various places, and fa…

Do you believe a child should have the power to decide what happens to their body even at a young age? What if a 6 year old wants to get a permanent tattoo? Or a middle schooler wants a subcutaneous horn implanted on the forehead to look cool? Or a toddler refuses medical treatment? I doubt that's what you mean.

Maybe you mean a parent and child should decide together? I don't think a child has the capacity to make, or even weigh in on, decisions. Not just a newborn, even older children (most anyway) would have a difficult time making big decisions like if they should have a body part altered by surgical operation. Is it your position to postpone all non-emergency decisions regarding bodily alterations until the person is old enough to decide for themselves what happens to their body? If so, that doesn't seem practical. If you mean something else, please go on

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#322

Post by natroniks » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #312

natroniks wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, the foreskin doesn't grow back Lip and tongue ties don't grow back. Neither do teeth. Parents remove their kids' body parts if they think it's best for them. Are straight teeth healthy or just aesthetically pleasing? Is clear speech healthy or just valued in our culture? > Yes, because travelling through the birth canal is required to live, and doesn't affect sex in later life. Also, it doesn't result in any a…

> I'm suggesting that we consider not everything that seems obvious is in fact obvious. Should I keep my kid from having routine blood drawn or vaccination because the needle hurts? Stop clipping their nails or cutting their hair? These are all cultural practices, there's nothing intrinsically good about grooming in this way. How could one have raised 3 kids and write there is nothing intrinsically good about clippin…

I'm not trolling. I'm trying to give examples of different degrees of mutilation to understand where circumcision fits on the scale of "accepted body alteration" and "unacceptable body alteration." Is circumcising a newborn much different from having orthodontics placed in an 12 year old's mouth? That is, dental work that is done for purely aesthetic purposes. Or what about a frenectomy on a baby, or a toddler? While a frenectomy function to improve clarity of speech, I would argue clarity of speech is aesthetic in an aural sense. People with a lisp are understood, they can communicate, but their speech isn't considered as "pretty sounding" as those without a lisp. Is a frenectomy controversial in your opinion? If so, you're in the minority. If not, why is it ok to snip out part of a kid's mouth but not ok to snip off part of a kid's penis? A part that serves no benefit, mind you. Unless foreskin does provide a benefit that I'm unaware of.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#323

Post by trasz » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

verisimi wrote: post #314

trasz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter if it had rights; it’s rights wouldn’t override the pregnant person’s rights.

Why?

Same way the fact that someone needs an organ transplant doesn’t result in forcing anyone to donate said organ. Even if fetuses were people, it wouldn’t be a proper argument to force anyone to donate their uterus.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#324

Post by tomcam » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #308

tomcam wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re one too. No dental anesthetics work on me. I have to go under general anesthesia, where you’re knocked out so deep a machine has to take over your breathing. So every procedure starts at about $10,000 and that’s not counting the dental work. All out of pocket. No insurance coverage.

Did you try nitrous oxide?

Doesn’t do a damn thing for me.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#325

Post by tomcam » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

russellendicott wrote: post #254

tomcam wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My stock joke is that if the doctor or nurse says it won’t hurt, it will hurt at least a little. If they say it will hurt a little, it will hurt a lot. If they say it will probably hurt, time for serious anesthesia. Also, there’s pretty much no such thing as minor surgery except maybe skin tag removal.

"A minor surgury is one that's happening to somebody else." -unknown

Man, words of wisdom. I’m stealing that one.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#326

Post by anon291 » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #99

anon291 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think 'looking painless' is about as good as we're going to get when killing someone as you can't exactly ask them afterwards.

Then why do we not incorporate those two drugs in assisted suicide prescriptions? That's my point. We stop the heart because we intend to execute and we need to be sure. We paralyze the muscles because stopping the heart hurts, a lot , and people would squirm. We hope that the anesthetic is dulling the pain of that drug, but just in case it isn't we make sure the condemned can't show how much it hurts. I think we don…

Honestly, I have no idea about assisted suicide, as i don't follow it that much. In oregon, i thought they give people a bunch of barbituates, which is like fentanyl? I don't know anything about failed assisted suicides. Sorry, I would like to engage in this discussion, but I simply know nothing. I do know about executions and wanting them to appear painless. Many people still want that despite never intending to witness an execution.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#327

Post by anon291 » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

erichocean wrote: post #161

anon291 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they anesthesize the child in the other 10%? EDIT: Answered my own question: apparently only in Utah as of 2016: http://www.healthlawpolicy.org/fetal-anesthesia/ `

> Do they anesthesize the child in the other 10%? Other first world countries—the ones with universal healthcare—solve this conundrum by not performing abortions on the 10% that do feel pain.

In general, I am a proponent of European style abortion laws. I believe today the Supreme Court will release their opinion on Mississippi's abortion law, which emulates the european ones. Hopefully, we can come to a reasonable compromise.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#328

Post by anon291 » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #169

mcswell wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would view such pro-choice people as making the same mistake that anesthesiologists once made about infants: if you can't hear the unborn complain, they must not be complaining. Therefore it's a personal decision of the mother, because you can hear her complain. The opposite side of this debate is that maybe the unborn do complain, even if we can't hear them. And it's our moral obligation to stand up for them, beca…

Alternatively, it is possible to find something morally objectionable while still concluding that it is not the job of the government to enforce morality.

Certainly, but the days of calling abortion 'immoral' but otherwise being pro-choice are basically over.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#329

Post by anon291 » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #132

anon291 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You're really letting your partisanship shine through. Late term abortions are so exceedingly rare that they don't warrant serious discussion. They are exclusively happening when the risk to the mother is extreme, or the fetus is already dead (or has something like Trisomy 18, which is painful and 100% fatal within moments after birth, should the fetus survive long enough to see the outside of the womb).

> Late term abortions are so exceedingly rare that they don't warrant serious discussion.

Executions are exceedingly rare, yet they do warrant discussion. School shootings are also incredibly rare, yet they warrant discussion. Terrorist attacks are incredibly rare, yet they warrant discussion. All these discussions are warranted.

You're showing your partisanship by refusing to discuss something simply because it's rare. How many abortions of the kind I described would you be willing to tolerate? Why?

The CDC (hhttps://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm) says that about 5000 abortions occured in 2018 after 21 weeks. This is more than the total killed in 9/11, the total killed by school shootings (169 killed since 1999), etc.

So again, how many?

EDIT; downvoted for citing data. Sad that we can't have productive discussions on hacker news. My partisanship used to lie solely with the democrats until they became intolerant of any view other than abortion anytime, anywhere; now I'm a political outsider. When one sees engagement like this, these sorts of stories become unsurprising.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#330

Post by anon291 » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

jjulius wrote: post #21

anon291 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lack of legal requirement does not mean a lack of anesthesia whatsoever in other states. I guess I was asking if anyone knew, because that article is the only thing I could find on it.

This doesn't answer your question, but I thought it was worth sharing in the broader context and actually changes the figures we're looking at just a bit. >The problem? Thorough reviews of medical evidence reject the idea that fetuses can actually feel pain at 20 weeks. They don't fully develop the proper neurological structures to feel pain until later, around 29 to 30 weeks in the third trimester.[1] >The bigger pr…

1% of abortions is a lot as there are many abortions each year. According to the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm), after 21 weeks, this is about 5000 abortions a year, which is a lot.