Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 387 posts

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

#151

Post by troupe »

rootusrootus wrote: post #133
dudul wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I'm not very active in these conversations, but I was always under the impressions that a predominant argument in favor of abortion is that the fetus is just a bunch of cells that has no consciousness and can't feel anything anyway so who cares?

I've met damn few people on the pro-choice side who were pro-abortion, no matter how you'd like to frame it. We just don't trust the government to be involved in this very personal decision.

I shared that view I thought Obama, while supporting the right to abortion said, “we already have agreement, we both respect life, we both view abortion as a moral tragedy.” This seemed to recognize that no one should really be "pro-abortion" even if they have different views as to what role the government should be involved.

My view changed when I heard Ilyse Hogue give a speech where people applauded and cheered when she said she had an abortion. It was at that moment that I realized that some people are indeed pro-abortion and do not see it as a tragedy.

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

#152

Post by troupe »

epgui wrote: post #73
PretzelPirate wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that we are actively attempting to deny the fact that fetuses feel pain, are we really that much more civilized? I don’t believe the discussion has been around whether a fetus feels pain or not, but around whether the fetus takes priority over the woman it is in.

There's that, and also the fact that "pain" means something very different (ie.: just a nervous reflex, no more) to an undeveloped brain.

Is that any different than the argument that was being made about infants? Would you test for it in the same way?

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

#153

Post by [deleted] »

bad416f1f5a2 wrote: post #63
Spoom wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the impression that a lot of gynecological care is in the same realm, but I don't have the equipment to have first hand anecdotal evidence. Heard many a horror story about IUD placement / removal, where folks were told that a Tylenol would be enough.

Medical racism and sexism are very real. One in four residents believe blacks have thicker skin than whites: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1516047113

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by natroniks »

nyolfen wrote: post #111
natroniks wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PS this says (estimates) 3600 children a year. That's 3600 too many, but far from "common place" in my understanding of the term. I can't predict how many Jewish males are born each year, but if someone wants to provide that, I'd be curious to know what portion these 3600 represents.

it says 3,600 a year in new york ; this does not sound like an esoteric fringe practice, but at least a sizeable minority

The only community that practices this archaic ritual is in NYC, so I'm not sure the specificity matters in this case. Let me also point out that the community is estimated to comprise 250K, "many" though not all of whom practice this. Avoiding granularity, there are approximately 7 million Jews in the US, which means this 250K community represents roughly 4% of all Jews. Given that (from what I gather) all examples of the practice are contained within this enclave, calling it "commonplace" is a mischaracterization at best. It is a practice held by a very small group within the broader community, which means calling this commonplace for Judaism is inaccurate. This is at most commonplace within a fringe group. My conclusion would be that outside of this fringe group, this method is not practiced by Jews at all.

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

#155

Post by epgui »

troupe wrote: post #152
epgui wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's that, and also the fact that "pain" means something very different (ie.: just a nervous reflex, no more) to an undeveloped brain.

Is that any different than the argument that was being made about infants? Would you test for it in the same way?

It may or may not be different, because there are many places you could arbitrarily draw a line along the development continuum, but drawing the line after the "infant" stage was rather ridiculous.

Just to be clear, the fetal stage is defined arbitrarily as being between week 9 and week 40. The ability to feel pain, along with minimal consciousness, starts around week 30.

There is very literally a continuum from "two single cells" to "a bag of cells" to "a mass of undifferentiated tissue" to "functional but not fully organized tissue" to "a minimally viable human". There is no stage at which the thing suddenly becomes a human. It would be a lot simpler if there was, but that's not how it is.

In the context of abortion, I stand by my previous comment: abortions are done as early as possible, and this is usually much earlier than week 30. Less than 1% of abortions happen after week 20 in the US, and these are exceptional cases.

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

#156

Post by rootusrootus »

troupe wrote: post #151
rootusrootus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met damn few people on the pro-choice side who were pro-abortion, no matter how you'd like to frame it. We just don't trust the government to be involved in this very personal decision.

I shared that view I thought Obama, while supporting the right to abortion said, “we already have agreement, we both respect life, we both view abortion as a moral tragedy.” This seemed to recognize that no one should really be "pro-abortion" even if they have different views as to what role the government should be involved. My view changed when I heard Ilyse Hogue give a speech where people applauded and cheered wh…

I expect there are outliers, of course. Or people who've become so deeply attached to their tribal identity that their support for various wedge issues is extreme.

My wife and I are very much pro-choice. At the same time, before we started our family, we had a deep discussion on the topic of abortion and how we felt about it. We decided we would only be able to abort the pregnancy if the child had trisomy 18, or was already dead. We had no other exceptions in mind. But we don't think that this is a good policy decision the government should make on behalf of its citizens.

In my wider circle of friends, I don't know a single person who thinks that abortion is anything other than a tragedy. I don't know any real whack jobs, though.

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

#157

Post by Salgat »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

This is, I believe, one of the downsides of empiricism and the fixation on citation rather than observation and reason. The idea that a whole profession came to reject the idea that infants are able to feel pain is astonishing, especially considering anyone who has ever taken care of infants knows that these little human beings react to things which are known to be painful. Babies feeling pain is something that shoul…

The argument is not whether they react to stimulus we consider painful, but if they feel it in a way that mature humans understand as pain. Babies take months just to understand that they have hands, they're incredibly simple minded, so the question was whether they even had a real concept of pain beyond "stimulus and instinctual reaction". Similar to how an insect will react to pain but it's just doing what it's programmed to do, there's no higher level thinking associated with it.

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

#158

Post by kumarvvr »

jnovek wrote: post #85
BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

This is, I believe, one of the downsides of empiricism and the fixation on citation rather than observation and reason. The idea that a whole profession came to reject the idea that infants are able to feel pain is astonishing, especially considering anyone who has ever taken care of infants knows that these little human beings react to things which are known to be painful. Babies feeling pain is something that shoul…

“Babies feeling pain is something that should be self-evident, shouldn't it?” I have yet to understand the historical underpinnings of this phenomenon, but as someone who deals with chronic pain, doctors don’t seem to be aware that people feel pain _in general_. I’m being sort of facetious, but any chronic pain community is full to the brim with stories of various medical professionals being skeptical of patients’ pa…

The roots of the practice are not very clear, but it seems that for operating on infants, risk of death from Anesthetic is very high. And historically, anesthetics were given to induce muscle numbness (so they don't thrash around).

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

#159

Post by kghe3X »

qnxub wrote: post #95
jl6 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some days I think humans are pretty gosh darned sophisticated. Then I remember that it’s still controversial as to whether we should slice off healthy parts from children who cannot possibly consent.

It's not so simple. Circumcision in neonate males is a medical prophylactic. The evidence for harm is weak as well. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci...

You could say the same about pinky toe removal and stubbed toes.

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

#160

Post by User23 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #135
User23 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to be confusing abortions and inductions. Both procedures end a pregnancy, but the former by definition involves the intent to kill the unborn child. In the case of a dead child, the procedure is an induction that results in a stillbirth. Or, if necessary, a caesarean section. Regardless an abortion is impossible on account of there no longer being an unborn baby in that case.

"Abortion" refers to the pregnancy, not the fetus. So yes, in fact, you can abort a pregnancy when the fetus is already dead.

It refers to both: “Induced termination of a pregnancy with destruction of the embryo or fetus.” As you and anyone else capable of using a dictionary can see, killing the unborn child is a defining characteristic of an abortion and differentiates it from other pregnancy ending procedures.
Post reply on HN