Twenty-five years of delivering babies and a specialization in high-risk obstetrics provide me some experience to refute the claim that fetuses feel no pain until 30 weeks. Many of the tiny babies that I deliver, some as small as 1 pound at 23 weeks, have required surgery during their difficult neonatal battle for life. All of them receive anesthesia.

Before the 1970s, many newborns, both term and preterm, were operated on without anesthesia in the mistaken belief that they could not feel pain. They certainly couldn't tell anyone about their discomfort. With more sophisticated monitoring it became clear that blood pressure and pulse rose dramatically during the trauma of surgery. Subsequently, a subspecialty of pediatric anesthesia developed.

Those who deny fetal pain claim that hormonal and withdrawal responses to invasive procedures are mere reflexes and are no evidence of pain. Recently, I performed an amniocentesis on a patient at 21 weeks gestation because of a possible infection. On ultrasound, the fetus pulled away from the needle when it grazed her arm. It is clear to me that this fetus felt discomfort, and that she would feel horrible pain if she were dismembered in the exercise of an unjust constitutional right.

Soon, fetuses outside the mother would be considered persons whether or not they are still connected to the mother...

The infant's extraction from its mother into a state of aliveness can occur from induced labor, cesarean section or induced abortion...

This act would be applied to cases of failed aborting surgeries. Should a mistake in an abortion occur that leads to a fetus with a functioning muscular, cardiovascular or respiratory system outside the mother, that infant would be deemed a person...

"A critical question is whether the fetus is viable (and) can it subsist when removed from the female's body?" Carmen said. "If yes, the proposed legislation is consistent with Roe v. Wade, which gives the states considerable authority to regulate late-term abortions. If no, then the bill runs afoul of Roe. Thus, if the fetus requires an umbilical chord for survival, it likely is not viable and the mother retains her right to choose..."

"I can understand how the pro-life side sees this as a victory, but at the same time, many of them believe a human-being is alive at conception, not when it's functioning on its own."

"I don't think it solves any issues with the continued abortion debate," Mallon said. "It is another technicality that answers no questions. It doesn't seem to provide any resolution in any direction."