http://www.scribd.

com/doc/1452308/Abortion-in-the-Philippines
(e2 ung website for survey
Can an embryo feel pain?

During pregnancy, human life is medically referred to as an

embryo during its first 56, 61, or 91 days (sources differ). Later it
is called a fetus until it is born.
Many pro-life groups emphasize that embryos start to develop
pain sensors a few weeks after conception. Many readers of their
literature then assume that embryos can feel pain from this point
in pregnancy onwards. However all available evidence shows that
even though these sensors develop early in pregnancy, human
embryos cannot actually sense pain. Certain major components
of the central nervous system that are necessary to feel pain are
not present and functioning.
One can only imagine the needless pain and anxiety felt by
women who believe -- on the basis of some pro-life literature --
that their embryos have suffered pain during an abortion,
miscarriage, or emergency treatment for an ectopic pregnancy.

Can a fetus feel pain?

Many physicians and medical researchers believe that fetuses
can begin to feel pain sometime during the third trimester. This is
long after:

Essentially all miscarriages occur,

Ectopic pregnancies have been dealt with, and

After about 99% of abortions are performed.

Some researchers suggest fetuses cannot sense pain, no matter
how far along in pregnancy. They believe that pain can only be
felt after birth.
Some pro-life physicians believe that fetuses can feel pain much
earlier in pregnancy.
Women's rights groups today (Monday) called for the abortion to
be partly legalised in the Philippines after reports that an
estimated half a million turn to unsafe procedures each year.
The Philippines, a poor, mostly Catholic country, bans all forms of
abortion no matter what the details of the case are.
About 560,000 Filipino women turn each year to illegal and
unsafe abortions, including inserting catheters into the uterus
and ingesting herbs or other concoctions sold in the streets.
The study released today by New York-based Centre for
Reproductive Rights showed that about 90,000 of those women
suffer from complications and about 1,000 die every year.
The centre said the Philippine government was directly
responsible for the crisis and accused it of neglecting the rights of
these women by not solving the effects of the ban.
“Criminalisation of abortion has not prevented abortion in the
Philippines, but it has made it extremely unsafe,” the report says.
Nancy Northup, the centre’s president, said in a statement out
yesterday that the capital, Manila “has created a dire human
rights crisis” with hundreds of thousands of women resorting to
unsafe abortion “to protect their health, their families and their
livelihood. Yet, the government sits idly by, refusing to tackle the
issue or reform the policies that exacerbate it.”
Poor women with no way of accessing contraceptive services
often resort to illegal and mostly unsafe abortions. Among the
abortion methods the study mentions are abdominal massages,
taking anti-ulcer drugs like Cytotec to bring on contractions, and
taking herbs and potions. These often cause complications like
haemorrhage, damage to internal organs, and even death, the
study says. And most of the women interviewed for the report
“had resorted to abortion more than once, and they had tried
more than one risky method each time.”
“If women had greater control over their fertility through effective
methods of family planning and access to unbiased, truthful
medical information, there would be far fewer unplanned
pregnancies” and fewer women “would be compelled to resort to
unsafe abortions,” the study says.
The ban doesn’t work to prevent women from ending unwanted
pregnancies, said lawyer Clara Rita Padilla, from the women’s
rights organisation, EnGendeRights Inc. "The impact of lack of
access to safe and legal abortion is a grave public health issue in
the Philippines, " she said. "Our Congress should address this
issue by passing a law that expressly allows safe and legal
abortion."