Besides the proliferating evidence of fetal consciousness well prior to “viability,” scientific advances since Roe and Casey have clarified what neural structures are necessary for the fetus to experience pain. There is long-standing, effectively universal scientific agreement that connections between the fetus’s spinal cord and the thalamus region of the brain form between twelve and 18 weeks. And growing evidence that later-developing connections to the cortex are not necessary for a conscious experience of pain has radically revised our understanding of fetal neurological development and led to the conclusion that the fetus can and does experience pain from early in the second trimester.
Stuart Derbyshire, a brain-mapping researcher and pro-choice consultant, was, until recently, considered “a leading voice against the likelihood of fetal pain.” Indeed, he was one of only two neuroscientists on the panel that produced the 2010 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) report that rejected the possibility of fetal pain before 22 weeks. Yet, faced with mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, Derbyshire just last year abandoned his prior position and concluded that even without a fully formed cortex, neural connections from the thalamus to the subplate could be sufficient for pain perception.
