The Supreme Court ruled to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision Friday morning and some of the research used in this decision was ‘wrongly interpreted.’
The claim comes from Giandomenico Iannetti, a pain expert at the University College London, who accused US lawyers of misusing his work on the brain to support their anti-abortion stance
The claim comes from Giandomenico Iannetti, a pain expert at the University College London, who accused US lawyers of misusing his work on the brain to support their anti-abortion stance.
Iannetti’s work focuses on pain in the brain, specifically how the brain responds to pain, and his 2010 research was ‘misinterpreted’ in a study paper on fetal pain published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2020 by Dr. Stuart Derbyshire, a British associate professor of psychology at the National University of Singapore.
Derbyshire’s paper claims recent evidence suggests the cerebral cortex, the region responsible for high-level processes, is not needed to feel pain – and he cites Iannetti’s brain research to support the theory.
The cerebral cortex does not develop in the brain before 24 weeks, so Derbyshire’s work suggests the fetus can feel pain prior to it forming.
This research was used during Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that led to the end of Roe v. Wade.
Iannetti told BMJ that Derbyshire had ‘changed the question’ by conflating the ‘pain matrix’ activity —a brain signal that was erroneously considered a correlate of pain experience—with all cortical activity and that his experiment was not designed to answer the question ‘does the cerebral cortex have an overall role in pain?
Other scientists have also stepped forward to refute Derbyshire’s paper.
Dr. Vania Apkarian, director of the Centre for Translational Pain Research at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, told The Guardian: ‘There is no rational basis for arguing a fetus can suffer pain before 24 weeks.
‘The anatomy of the brain is not formed enough for that to be possible,’ he said, also noting that evidence on fetal pain has not changed since what was shown in 1973.
The Supreme Court ruled to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision Friday morning and some of the research used to come to this decision was ‘wrongly interpreted’
However, Iannetti’s work was wrongfully used in the case that sought to ban abortions after 15 weeks gestation.
Maureen Condic, a professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine who teaches human embryology, field a brief in support of Mississippi’s ban in which she argues that recent scientific evidence has cast doubt on the belief that fetuses are unable to feel pain before 24 weeks’ gestation, according to BMJ.
And Derbyshire’s paper is one of the sources she used to make her case.
Iannetti and several other researchers, however, signed their own brief to support the Jackson Women’s Health Organization – the opposing side.
The briefing stated that until 24 weeks gestation, the pathway needed to transmit stimuli to the cortex and the cortex itself are not sufficiently developed to experience pain.
Iannetti and several other researchers signed a brief stating that until 24 weeks’ gestation, the pathway needed to transmit stimuli to the cortex and the cortex itself are not sufficiently developed to experience pain.
However, these efforts did not stop the Supreme Court from overturning Roe v. Wade.
‘The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,’ the decision said.
The ruling gives a green light to state efforts to restrict abortions, which has already been underway during a decades-long effort, particularly in Republican-run states.
Roe v. Wade: The landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in America
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade. The landmark ruling legalized abortion nationwide but divided public opinion and has been under attack ever since.
The case was filed in 1971 by Norma McCorvey, a 22-year-old living in Texas who was unmarried and seeking a termination of her unwanted pregnancy.
Because of state legislation preventing abortions unless the mother’s life is at risk, she was unable to undergo the procedure in a safe and legal environment.
So McCorvey sued Henry Wade, the Dallas county district attorney, in 1970. The case went on to the Supreme Court, under the filing Roe vs Wade, to protect McCorvey’s privacy.
Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court handed down the watershed 7-2 decision that a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions, including the choice to have an abortion, is protected under the 14th Amendment.
In particular, that the Due Process Clause of the the 14th Amendment provides a fundamental ‘right to privacy’ that protects a woman’s liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion.
…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
The landmark ruling saw abortions decriminalized in 46 states, but under certain specific conditions which individual states could decide on. For example, states could decide whether abortions were allowed only during the first and second trimester but not the third (typically beyond 28 weeks).
Impact
Among pro-choice campaigners, the decision was hailed as a victory which would mean fewer women would become seriously – or even fatally – ill from abortions carried out by unqualified or unlicensed practitioners. Moreover, the freedom of choice was considered a significant step in the equality fight for women in the country. Victims of rape or incest would be able to have the pregnancy terminated and not feel coerced into motherhood.
However, pro-lifers contended it was tantamount to murder and that every life, no matter how it was conceived, is precious. Though the decision has never been overturned, anti-abortionists have prompted hundreds of states laws since then narrowing the scope of the ruling.
One such was the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act signed by President George W. Bush in 2003, which banned a procedure used to perform second-trimester abortions.
McCorvey lived a quiet life until the 1980s when she revealed herself to be Jane Roe
Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe)
Following the ruling, McCorvey lived a quiet life until the 1980s when she revealed herself to be Jane Roe. McCorvey became a leading, outspoken pro-abortion voice in American discourse, even working at a women’s clinic where abortions were performed.
However, she performed an unlikely U-turn in 1995, becoming a born again Christian and began traveling the country speaking out against the procedure.
In 2003, a she filed a motion to overturn her original 1973 ruling with the U.S. district court in Dallas. The motion moved through the courts until it was ultimately denied by the Supreme Court in 2005.
McCorvey died at an assisted living home in Texas in February 2017, aged 69.
‘The Heartbeat bill’
Multiple governors have signed legislation outlawing abortion if a doctor can detect a so-called ‘fetal heartbeat,’ part of a concerted effort to restrict abortion rights in states across the country.
Under the ban doctors will be prosecuted for flouting the rules.
Abortion-rights supporters see the ‘heartbeat bills’ as virtual bans because ‘fetal heartbeats’ can be detected as early as six weeks, when women may not be aware they are pregnant.
Anti-abortion campaigners have intensified their efforts since Donald Trump was elected president and appointed two conservative justices to the US Supreme Court, hopeful they can convince the right-leaning court to re-examine Roe v. Wade.
Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, and Louisiana have enacted ‘heartbeat laws’ recently, and Alabama passed an even more restrictive version in May, amounting to a near total ban on abortion from the moment of conception. Other states have similar legislation pending.
Similar laws has also been passed in Arkansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, Iowa and Kentucky, though they have been blocked by courts from going into effect as legal challenges have been brought against them.
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