The evidence that babies can feel pain in the womb, and during many abortions, highlights the humanity of the unborn child and provides another important reason to introduce legislation to protect the unborn child from abortion.

Please enter your postcode above to email your MP, requesting they sign Early Day Motion 1340 which has been tabled by Carla Lockhart MP. The motion highlights the latest science and developments on fetal pain and calls on the Government to urgently review official guidance in this area.

Background:

To investigate the issue of fetal pain, the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group (APPPG) commissioned and recently released a report on fetal sentience and pain summarising the extensive developments in medical science and academic research that point to the same conclusion: it is likely babies in the womb can feel pain, possibly from as early as 12 weeks’ gestation, with some evidence suggesting even earlier.

The report also highlighted inconsistencies in UK law – currently, the killing of ‘protected animals’ from “two-thirds” of gestation is subject to tighter legal regulation than unborn humans being aborted from the same stage. Sections 1, 2(7) and 15A, and Schedules 1 and 2 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 stipulate how animal fetuses must be killed in ‘humane’ ways, whilst no parallel legal provision exists for human fetuses.

Additionally, the Government recently acknowledged that unborn babies undergoing surgery for spina bifida from 20 weeks’ gestation on the NHS receive pain relief. Tragically, as the APPPG report stated, at this same gestation (between 14 and 24 weeks) babies undergoing abortion “via surgical dilatation and evacuation (D&E)” – in other words, dismemberment – are not provided pain relief, nor are babies at 22 weeks who are aborted via “feticide, where potassium chloride is injected into the heart of the fetus”. Potassium chloride is the drug that causes death in an execution using a lethal injection. Human Rights Watch has highlighted that it is “excruciatingly painful if administered during an execution without proper anesthesia” in adults.

In 2019, 3,323 abortions occurred after 20 weeks in England and Wales. 

Notably, after having an abortion at 23 weeks, one mother “claims she was never informed that her unborn baby might suffer during the abortion procedure. She says this means she could not have given her fully informed consent.” She began legal proceedings last year. 

Early Day Motion 1340 highlights the latest science and developments on fetal pain and calls on the Government to urgently review official guidance in this area.