Pro-Life Atheists

[Angrboda]

Please define fetal "pain" and "experience".

If the central nervous system is developed enough for it to be noticed and potentially traumatic.

Abortion itself is necessarily "traumatic" as it involves the destruction of a living organism. But that's obviously not what you meant by traumatic. The reasonable conclusion would be that you mean that it would be painful, so you've essentially defined fetal pain as being that which would be felt as pain, which tells us nothing. It's essentially just substituting a synonym for pain. I don't know specifically the intent behind the original question, but I suspect he's asking how we know at what point the fetus can have experiences, including experiencing pain, in the same way that we as fully developed humans experience and feel pain. Saying that this stage is developed enough for it to be noticed (essentially another synonym, enough for the fetus to experience it) and for it to be painful (potentially traumatic) is essentially just saying that it becomes pain and experience when the fetus' central nervous system is developed enough to feel pain and have experience. It doesn't tell us anything about when that point is other than that it occurs some time in the development of the central nervous system, which is a long process encompassing the bulk of fetal development. So you haven't really answered the question. You've just said that fetal pain and experience occurs when the CNS is developed enough for fetal pain and experience to occur. It neither defines those two terms, nor, what appears to be the aim of your response, tells us when in the development of the central nervous system that occurs.