Do the unborn feel pain or not?

What I’ve found really interesting over the last week is that a number of pro-choicers are attempting to justify the late-term abortions of unborn children with fetal anomalies by saying they were “mercy” abortions since the unborn child was or would be in pain.

I find this so curious because when National Right to Life Committee was prominently promoting legislation which would inform women considering abortions after 20 weeks that their child is capable of feeling pain, prominent pro-choice bloggers were almost uniformly against this measure, often times claiming the unborn likely couldn’t feel pain until much later in pregnancy. Many of them were even quite upset with NARAL after NARAL took a “neutral” position on the legislation.

What’s also interesting is you have to think: “Did these parents who were so concerned about their unborn child’s pain ever consider that abortion could cause their child some degree of pain?” Or “Aren’t there better measures in modern medicine to relieve pain than kill the individual in pain?”