Discounting fetal pain.(Correction notice)

ITEM: A widely published Associated Press story reported on August 23: "A review of medical evidence by a group of researchers in California concludes that fetuses likely don't feel pain until the final months of pregnancy, a powerful challenge to abortion opponents who hope that discussions about fetal pain will make women think twice about ending pregnancies."

ITEM: Shortly thereafter, it was disclosed that two authors of the review were abortion promoters and providers. However, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer for August 27: "The UCSF [University of California at San Francisco] researchers have not conceded any failings. 'The research team does not believe that being an abortion provider is a conflict of interest, nor that such information should be disclosed as part of the publication,' declared a statement released by Philip D. Darn

CORRECTION: Not only are the conclusions of this medical review suspect, so are the motivations of its authors and promoters. Yet, when these conflicts of interest were made public, Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), denied that the publishing decision was "politically motivated." The utter dubiousness of that contention is reflected in the review's very first sentence, which states that proposed legislation would require physicians to tell pregnant women considering abortions that fetuses feel pain and to offer anesthesia for the unborn.

Does not legislation fall squarely into the realm of "politics"? Of course it does, which is why the review is being pushed by opponents of the proposed legislation.

The lead author of the JAMA review, Susan Lee, has been a lawyer for the pro-abortion group NARAL; she is now a medical student. One coauthor, Dr. Eleanor Drey, is the director of the largest abortion clinic in San Francisco. Drey has acknowledged that her clinic performs about 600 abortions per year during the fifth and sixth months (weeks 21 through 23 of pregnancy), as recounted by the National Right to Life organization.

JAMA's editor subsequently said that she had been unaware of any potential conflict of interest with the reviewers, but that she would have disclosed their affiliations if she had known about them. Obviously distraught that her professionalism had been challenged, the editor maintained to USA Today that the reviewers' pro-abortion affiliations "aren't relevant"--begging the question about why she would have published that supposedly irrelevant information.

Does one really believe that JAMA would publish the work of pro-life medical personnel supportive of the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act without mentioning their affiliations? To ask the question is to answer it.