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Infants can feel pain, stress

By Father Dennis Meinen
View from the scooter

Respect/reverence for life at all its stages is not above anyone’s pay grade

According to a recent column by Fr. Frank Pavone/Priests for Life, not so long ago, it was thought that newborns could not feel pain. Surgery was carried out on newborn and premature infants with minimal or no anesthesia. But since 1986, this practice has been unacceptable, and it is recognized that they can experience severe pain. Pain cannot be measured directly. What has to be examined, in the case of babies, are things like stress reactions, measured by the release of certain hormones in the blood, and the presence of the various anatomical structures necessary for the transmission and perception of pain.

In 1994, an article in the prestigious British medical journal, the Lancet, revealed hormonal stress reactions in the fetus. The article concluded with the recommendation that painkillers be used when surgery is done on the fetus. The authors wrote, "This applies not just to diagnostic and therapeutic procedures on the fetus, but possibly also to termination of pregnancy, especially by surgical techniques involving dismemberment." In 1991, scientific advisors to the Federal Medical Council in Germany had made a similar recommendation. And the Australian national Health and Medical Research Council requires painkillers to be used on the fetuses of animals!
In talking about babies, whether one uses terms like “tissue” or “fetus,” they’re still babies, created in God’s image. Genesis 1:26-27: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;
Speaking of “pay grades,” most presidents have had IQs around 130. According to the Lovenstein Institute:

In IQ order:
182 - William J. Clinton (D)
175 - James E. Carter (D)
174 - John F. Kennedy (D)
155 - Richard M. Nixon (R)
147 - Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
132 - Harry Truman (D)
126 - Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
122 - Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
121 - Gerald Ford (R)
105- Ronald Reagan (R)
098 - George Bush (R)
091 George W. Bush (R)
??? - Barack Hussein Obama II

Having an IQ over 140 may on average be worth about 10 points (give or take) in the presidential success rankings. IQ alone certainly is not enough to turn a Herbert Hoover (128) into a Teddy Roosevelt or a Lincoln. But perhaps if Hoover's IQ were over 140, he would have handled a difficult situation better and in turn be remembered as average rather than something of a bust." (Matthew Atkinson, a professor at UCLA) Perhaps if all our presidents had IQ’s over 140 they could reason that respect/reverence for ALL HUMAN LIFE AT ALL STAGES IS THE RIGHT WAY. Those who do otherwise diminish and disable our country!

Mother Teresa at the National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C, Feb. 5, 1994.
“But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.”