Because we need research to reach this conclusion:
More interesting is the collective denial involved leading up to such a not-stunning finding:
“New measurement techniques show that even premature babies display all the signs of a conscious experience of pain,” the research institute said in a statement, citing a doctoral thesis by Italian-Swedish researcher Marco Bartocci.
“For many years, doctors have assumed that foetuses, premature babies and fully developed newborn babies do not have the cerebral cortical functions required to feel pain,” it said.
“Babies’ reactions to potentially painful stimuli have been explained away as unconscious reflexes and so doctors have felt it justified to withhold painkillers during surgery and the like so as to avoid adverse reactions,” the institute said.
It’s amazing the number of people who will listen to a baby wail during circumcision and believe that only the restraint generates the crying. Silly and indefensible assumptions should not be tolerated.
But Bartocci’s research shows that the brains of premature babies are far more developed than previously thought.
His studies “using infrared spectroscopy … show that pain signals from a pin prick are processed in the cerebral cortex of premature babies in the same way as in adults.”
This should not be used as an excuse to administer pain relief to babies and sweep the more fundamental flaws of the process aside. Again, it’s useful to accept facts but that does not mean assumptions should remain unchallenged. Non-medical circumcision on a non-consenting individual with pain relief is still unacceptable madness.
I’d be interested to know how many pro-lifers are also pro-circ, or have circumcised sons. After all, the bible says to circumcise… Part of the argument against abortion is that evidence suggests that a fetus can experience physical pain (among other things), even in the first trimester. And of course, the argument that the child’s right to life is being violated. Is the line demarcating “how many” rights a child has drawn on the penis?