Unborn children feel pain in the womb, a position the Australian Christian Lobby has long advocated and is now highlighted by a significant British case. “Australian governments have a legal duty to update advice to expectant mothers,” ACL WA State Director Peter Abetz said today.
“A grieving British mother is launching a landmark legal bid to force clinics to tell their patients that an unborn child may feel pain during termination,” Mr Abetz noted, “A recent review of research published in the Journal of Medical Ethics has shown that real pain can be felt at as young as 12 weeks’ gestation.
“For a woman to give the genuinely informed consent legally required in WA for an abortion, she needs to be told that her unborn child can experience significant pain after 12 weeks.
“Now that science has established that unborn babies experience pain at a much earlier stage than was previously thought, the outdated official WA Health Department information booklet ‘Termination of Pregnancy (Abortion) – Information to consider’ needs an urgent update, and abortion providers have a duty of care to inform their clients of foetal pain.”
ENDS
