Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says that evidence that a fetus recoiling in pain isn’t sufficient to prove that the baby is alive, comparing the action to that of someone who is braindead.
“Virtually every state defines a brain death as death,” Sotomayor argued, rejecting the idea that the fetus is alive outright.
“Yet, the literature is filled with episodes of people who are completely and utterly brain dead responding to stimuli,” she continued. “There’s about 40 percent of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead brain people. So I don’t think that a response to — by a fetus necessarily proves that there’s a sensation of pain or that there’s consciousness.”
J/SOTOMAYOR: "There is about 40% of dead people who if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead-brain people. So I don't think that a response to- by a fetus necessarily proves that there's a sensation of pain or that there's consciousness." pic.twitter.com/wLg6P5z369
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) December 1, 2021
Sotomayor’s comments came during oral arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health — a potential landmark case that challenges Roe v. Wade and could see abortion banned after 15 weeks of pregnancy, rather than 23 to 24 weeks.
The argument in favour of this change is that many experts now know that fetuses are viable long before 23 weeks, and would make abortion, thus, a clear attack against a baby, a human being, capable of surviving outside of the womb. More significantly, though, the challenge to Roe v. Wade could signify the collapse of the abortion agenda, making way for similar tactics at undermining abortion in America.
Many physicians and scientists have claimed that Sotomayor’s comparison is complete and utter nonsense. Indeed, some argue that not only is fetal pain real, but it is evident as early as 12 weeks (three months) after pregnancy begins.
“To compare an unborn child to a brain-dead person or a corpse flouts science which tells us that at 15 weeks gestation, a baby’s organs are fully formed, her heart pumps 26 quarts of blood a day, and her lungs are already practicing drawing breath,” said Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, adding that Sotomayer is “wholly ignorant” of the scientific literature.
“As recently as last year, doctors in the Journal of Medical Ethics wrote, ‘Current neuroscientific evidence supports the possibility of fetal pain before the ‘consensus’ cutoff of 24 weeks and may be as early as 12 weeks,” Christie continued.
“Not only does medicine agree that fetal anesthesia be administered for fetal surgery, a clear reflection of the medical consensus that unborn babies can feel pain, but like viability, the line marking when they feel pain continues to inch earlier.”
