British scientist says US anti-abortion lawyers misused his work to attack Roe v Wade

[brooklynite]

Source: The Guardian

A University College London scientist has accused lawyers in the US of misusing his groundbreaking work on the brain to justify the dismantling of Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that legalised abortion nationally in America.

Giandomenico Iannetti said his research, which used imaging to understand the adult brain’s response to pain, had been wrongly interpreted to make an anti-abortion argument.

Last week an unprecedented leak of a draft legal opinion showed a majority of supreme court judges support overturning Roe v Wade and ending federal protections for abortions, in a move that could result in 26 states banning it. The court is considering a case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, which challenges Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks gestation.

Anti-abortion lawyers in that case argued that scientific understanding has moved on since the court’s 1973 ruling that enshrined the constitutional right to abortion, and it was no longer accurate to say foetuses cannot feel pain before 24 weeks.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/08/british-scientist-says-us-anti-abortion-lawyers-misused-his-work-to-attack-roe-v-wade

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Fish feel pain too

But we don't protect them or stop eating them. Cattle, pigs, chicken and sheep feel pain too. We kill them all the time.

You know who else feels pain? The woman who has to carry the implanted fetus to birth. There is obvious horrendous pain involved in birthing and carrying a fetus. Not to mention all the possible deadly consequences when things frequently go wrong. But the Supremes want to force her to give up her body for 40 weeks to allow a fish like creature to grow inside her, causing clear and obvious pain, and let it rip her as it is expelled at birth.

Weird distinctions we make between whose pain is important and whose pain isn't.

[Tumbulu]

2. Excellent points one and all

and somehow this allowing the forced brothers to call an embryo a baby is one of the roots of the problem.

I want to see these people correctly rudely when they call an embryo or a fetus a baby.

I have had it, being polite has gotten us to this terrible point.

[PatSeg]

5. Very well said

Obviously the concern for pain is not a primary motivator for these people. Many just use it as an emotional issue for political advantage, but I think they've overplayed their hand this time. Over the years, many republican politicians have gone from pro-choice to anti-abortion just to win votes.

[XacerbatedDem]

3. As it says in the last line of the article:

"Dr Meera Shah, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, in New York, said: “The bottom line is that a patient’s health, not unproven theories, should drive important medical decisions.”

I agree, which should include "mental health" as well.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Good point. It's a medical decision that the Supremes are going to make

For our families based on antiquated ideas and their religion. Why do they get to choose, when our families can't?