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Statement of Facts #4 from:

Reversing_Landmark_Abomination_Cases

Saving Babies from judges & voters
Saving Souls from ‘Scrupulous Neutrality’ about Religion

by proving in courts of law and in the Court of Public Opinion that:

 The right to live of a baby and of a judge are equal
 The Bible & reality-challenged religions are NOT equal

A strategy of Life that relies on the Author of Life
for pro-life, pro-Bible Lawmakers, Leaders, Lawyers, and Laymen

by Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa (talk) 18:11, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Try to imagine how a judge, reviewing a prolife law with these Findings of Facts, would be able to dodge this evidence - in fact, see if you can find ANYONE who can refute these facts - as opposed to not caring about facts - that is, not caring about reality:

Statement of Facts #4 of 12: Heartbeats & Brain Waves are Legally Recognized Evidence of Life.

Detectable heartbeats and brain waves are evidence that a person has not yet died, throughout state and federal law. ^[1] Reason demands they be accepted as evidence that a person has begun to live. ^[2]

INDEX to all 12 Statements of Facts
Statement_1_+_Footnotes Courtrecognized, court-tested Finders of Facts unanimously establish that unborn babies are fully human
Statement_2_+_Footnotes Courts Accept the Fact-Finding Authority of Legislatures, Juries, Experts for the same good reasons their findings persuade the public.
Statement_3_+_Footnotes The FACT that Babies are Fully Human was never denied or ruled irrelevant by SCOTUS.
Statement_4_+_Footnotes Heartbeats & Brain Waves are Legally Recognized Evidence of Life.
Statement_5_+_Footnotes Legislatures should regulate abortion, as Dobbs held, just as legislatures regulate the prosecution of all other murders.
Statement_6_+_Footnotes The full humanity of a tiny physical body is hard for many to grasp. But what distinguishes us from animals isn’t physical, and has no known pre-conscious stage.
Statement_7_+_Footnotes Congress has Already Enacted a Personhood Law as Strong as a “Life Amendment”. The 14th Amendment already authorizes Congress to require all states to outlaw abortion.
Statement_8_+_Footnotes Roe, Dobbs, and the 14th Amendment agree: All Humans are “Persons”.
Statement_9_+_Footnotes SCOTUS never denied that state personhood laws are strong evidence in an abortion case.
Statement_10_+_Footnotes “Exceptions” do NOT Mitigate or Undermine Personhood Assertions.
Statement_11_+_Footnotes The 14th Amendment requires this state, as every state, to thoroughly outlaw abortion. Restrictions of abortions for the purpose of saving mothers cannot be reviewed by strict scrutiny,1 even though the safety of mothers is a fundamental right, because the safety of their babies is an equally fundamental right. Legislatures can best delineate the most life-saving balance of harms.
Statement_12_+_Footnotes Judicial Interference with Constitutional Obligations is Impeachable.

FOOTNOTES

↑ More about “...throughout state and federal law.” https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/the-challenges-of-defining-and-diagnosing-brain-death
     Virtually the same thing is meant when Leviticus 17:11 says “the life of the flesh is in the blood....” The existence in a physical body of flowing blood is proof of life.
     Before animal meat may be eaten, according to the Bible, its blood must be drained. Genesis 9:4 “...flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”
     Shedding blood guarantees and certifies death. “Shedding blood” of a man kills the man. Genesis 9:6 “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”
↑ More about “...evidence that a person has begun to live.”
     The link at footnote one is about using the cessation of brainwaves and heartbeats to document when life ends. This footnote is about the beginning of brainwaves and heartbeats to document when life begins.
     The expert medical evidence in the amicus briefs filed in Dobbs are an especially useful source of this documentation for lawmakers because (1) it is prepared by America’s top legal experts for a purpose which requires the most exacting, irrefutable preparation, (2) it is presented in the kind of court language which lawmakers need for their legal arguments for each other and for consideration in Findings of Facts of bills, and (3) it comes with a context of Supreme Court case citations all ready for lawmakers to Findings of Facts or Resolutions.
     Five of the 140 Amicus Briefs filed in Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) address brainwaves and heartbeats. A sixth Amicus only has a little about heartbeats. The Amicus with the most detail is from the American College of Pediatricians, below. Here are the paragraphs from the six briefs about brainwaves and heartbeats, with footnotes and links where you can find more documentation:
     American Association of Prolife Obstretricians [1]
Mississippi’s law is partially based on legislative findings pertaining to the advanced development and humanity of pre-born children at the gestational age of fifteen to twenty weeks. Pet. at 7-9. At twenty two days, the child’s heart begins to beat. https://www.ehd.org/your-life-before-birth-video/ (last visited July 15, 2020). At six weeks, the child begins moving. Id. At seven weeks, scientists can detect a child’s brainwaves, and the child can move his or her head and hands. Id. The child displays leg movements and the startle response. Id. At eight weeks, the child’s brain exhibits complex development. Id (Page 18)

     Jewish Prolife Foundation [2]

This tragic human rights violation must be remedied. The Mississippi law in this case seeks to protect the God-given right to life for babies of 15 weeks gestation and beyond. Yet, most significant developmental milestones occur during the first eight weeks following conception. A baby’s heart beats at 22 days, and her brainwaves can be measured at 6 weeks. At 9 weeks all internal organs are present and the baby is sensitive to touch.4 As early as 8 weeks, the “infant”5 feels real physical pain during an abortion.6 This is much sooner than the 15-week issue before the Court, a gestational age when the pain felt by the baby must surely be considered. Jeremiah 22:3 admonishes us to avoid causing pain and death to the powerless: “Do what is right and just; rescue the wronged from their oppressors; do nothing wrong or violent to the stranger, orphan or widow; don’t shed innocent blood in this place.”

     Footnotes:
     4 Endowment for Human Development. Prenatal Summary. https://www.ehd.org/prenatal-summary.php
     5 Gonzales 159, 160
     6 5 Gonzales 159, 160.
     6 Expert Tells Congress Unborn Babies Can Feel Pain Starting at 8 Weeks. Ertelt, Steven. May 23, 2013. LifeNews. https://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/23/expert-tells-congress-unborn-babies#can-feel-pain-starting-at-8-weeks/
     Center for Medical Progress and David Daleide www.supremecourt.gov /DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185155/20210728163153060_Amici%20Brief%20of%20CMP-Daleiden.pdf]

1. By 15 weeks’ gestation, the human infant in the womb unmistakably manifests “the human form” identical to any other member of our community. Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 160 (2007). Ironically, it is precisely from this point when the fetus becomes most recognizably a fellow human being, that the fetuses vulnerable to abortion become most useful as an experimental biologic “resource.” Even though four-month-old infants in the womb move, kick, suck their thumbs, hiccup, and demonstrate a readily discernable heartbeat and brainwaves, App. 65a,4 and even though the Constitution guarantees that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” shall exist in America nor that any person be deprived of life without due process of law, U.S. Const., amends. XIII § 1, XIV § 1, these same children can be routinely killed through livedismemberment abortions or trafficked and sold for experimental use. (Page 3)

     Footnote: 4 Katrina Furth, Fetal EEGs: Signals from the Dawn of Life, ON POINT SERIES 28 (Nov. 2018), https://lozierinstitute.org/fetal#eegs-signals-from-the-dawn-of-life/; Winslow J. Borkowski & Richard L. Bernstine, Electroencephalography of the Fetus, 5(5) NEUROLOGY 362–65 (May 1, 1955)
     National Catholic Bioethics Center, et al. [www.supremecourt.gov/ DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185239/20210729121001402_19-1392%20tsac%20National%20Catholic%20Bioethics%20Center.pdf]

Mississippi’s law is partially based on legislative findings pertaining to the advanced development and obvious humanity of pre-born children at the gestational age of fifteen to twenty weeks. Pet. at 7-9. At twenty-two days, the child’s heart begins to beat. https://www.ehd.org/your-life-before-birth-video/ (last visited July 15, 2020). At six weeks, the child begins moving. Id. At seven weeks, scientists can detect a child’s brainwaves, and the child can move his or her own head and hands. Id. The child also displays leg movements and the startle response by that time. Id. At eight weeks, the child’s brain exhibits complex development. Id. (p. 14)

     American College of Pediatricians www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185265/20210729133245734_Dobbs%20Amicus.pdf]

2. What we know today—as uncontroverted scientific fact—is that the child develops much more quickly than the Court in Roe presumed. The Court then was told that “in early pregnancy . . . embryonic development has scarcely begun.” Brief for Appellant at 20, Roe, 410 U.S. 113 (No. 70-18), 1971 WL 128054. But that is wrong. From conception, the unborn child is a unique human being who rapidly develops the functions and form of a child long before viability. (page 2-3)

At five weeks’ gestation (just three weeks after conception),1 the unborn child’s heart starts beating. By six weeks, brain waves are detectable, and the nervous system is steadily developing. By seven weeks, the child can move and starts to develop sensory receptors. By nine weeks, the child’s eyes, ears, and teeth are visible. By ten weeks, multiple organs begin to function, and the child has the neural circuitry for spinal reflex, an early response to pain. By twelve weeks, the child can open and close fingers and sense stimulation from the outside world. By fifteen weeks—when Mississippi’s law limits abortions—the child can smile and is likely sensitive to pain. Medical interventions after this stage (other than abortion) use analgesia to prevent suffering. And by eighteen weeks, pain induces hormonal responses in the child. All this happens long before viability. Reflecting these advances in medical knowledge, ultrasound imagery available at the time of Roe looks much different from the imagery available today: (Image not shown here)

Page 11-12: During the fifth week, “[t]he cardiovascular system is the first major system to function in the embryo,” with the heart and vascular system appearing in the middle of the week.33 By the end of the fifth week, “blood is circulating and the heart begins to beat on the 21st or 22nd day” after conception.34

By six weeks, “[t]he embryonic heartbeat can be detected.”35 Technological advances permit not only imaging detection at this early stage, but also videography of the unborn child, including footage of the child’s heartbeat.36

After detection of a fetal heartbeat—and absent an abortion—the overwhelming majority of unborn children will now survive to birth.37 “[O]nce a fetus possesses cardiac activity, its chances of surviving to full term are between 95%–98%.”38

Also during the sixth week, the child’s nervous system is developing, with the brain already “patterned” at this early stage.39 The earliest neurons are generated in the region of the brain responsible for thinking, memory, and other higher functions.40 And

     Footnotes for Page 12:
     34 Id. at 2662.
     35 Id. at 2755.
     36 See, e.g., Endowment for Hum. Dev., The Heart in Action: 4 Weeks, 4 Days, available athttps://www.ehd.org/movies/21/The#Heart-in-Action [3] (last visited July 28, 2021) (showing footage of a heartbeat at six weeks); see also, e.g., Endowment for Hum. Dev., Your Life Before Birth (Mar. 18, 2019), available at https://vimeo.com/325006095 [4] (last visited July 28, 2021) (displaying video footage of a child’s development).
     37 Joe Leigh Simpson, Low Fetal Loss Rates After Ultrasound Proved-Viability in First Trimester, 258 J. Am. Med. Ass’n 2555, 2555–57 (1987).
     38 Forte, supra note 11, at 140 & nn.121–22 (footnote omitted) (collecting post-Casey medical research).
     39 Thomas W. Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology 72 (14th ed. 2019); see generally id. at 59–95.
     40 See, e.g., Irina Bystron et al., Tangential Networks of Precocious Neurons and Early Axonal Outgrowth in the Embryonic Human Forebrain, 25 J. Neuroscience 2781, 2788 (2005).

(Page 13) the child’s face is developing, with cheeks, chin, and jaw starting to form.41 At seven weeks, cutaneous sensory receptors, which permit prenatal pain perception, begin to develop.42 The unborn child also starts to move.43 During the seventh week, “the growth of the head exceeds that of other regions” largely because of “the rapid development of the brain” and facial features.44 At eight weeks, essential organs and systems have started to form, including the child’s kidneys, liver, and lungs.45 The upper lip and nose can be seen.46 At nine weeks, the child’s ears, eyes, teeth, and external genitalia are forming.47

     Footnotes for page 13:
     41 See Sadler, supra note 39, at 72–95.
     42 Kanwaljeet S. Anand & Paul R. Hickey, Special Article, Pain and Its Effects in the Human Neonate and Fetus, 317 New Eng. J. Med. 1321, 1322 (1987).
     43 Alessandra Pionetelli, Development of Normal Fetal Movements: The First 25 Weeks of Gestation 98, 110 (2010).
     44 Keith L. Moore et al., The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology 65–84.e1 (11th ed. 2020).
     45 See Sadler, supra note 39, at 72–95.
     46 Moore et al., supra note 44, 1–9.e1.
     47 See Sadler, supra note 39, at 72–95; see also App. 66a.
     48 Pionetelli, supra note 43, at 65 (2010).

Page 14: At ten weeks, vital organs begin to function, and the child’s hair and nails begin to form.49 By this point, the neural circuitry has formed for spinal reflex, or “nociception,” which is the fetus’s early response to pain.50 Starting around ten weeks, the earliest connections between neurons constituting the subcortical-frontal pathways—the circuitry of the brain that is involved in a wide range of psychological and emotional experiences, including pain perception—are established.51 At the time of Roe, “the medical consensus was that babies do not feel pain.”52 Only during the late 1980s and early 1990s did any of the initial scientific evidence for prenatal pain begin to emerge.53 Today, the “evidence for the subconscious incorporation of pain into neurological development and plasticity is incontrovertible.”54 Every modern review of prenatal

     Footnotes for page 14:
     49 See Sadler, supra note 39, at 106–127; Moore et al., supra note 44, at 65–84.e1; Johns Hopkins Med., The First Trimester, available at https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness#and-prevention/the-first-trimester [5] (last visited July 28, 2021); see also App. 66a.
     50 See, e.g., Int’l Ass’n for the Study of Pain, IASP Terminology (last updated Dec. 14, 2017), available at https://www.iasp#pain.org/Education/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1698#Nociception [6] (last visited July 28, 2021); see also App. 80a.
     51 Lana Vasung et al., Development of Axonal Pathways in the Human Fetal Fronto-Limbic Brain: Histochemical Characterization and Diffusion Tensor Imaging, 217 J. Anatomy 400, 400–03 (2010).
     52 Am. Coll. of Pediatricians, Fetal Pain: What is the Scientific Evidence? (Jan. 2021), available at https://acpeds.org/position#statements/fetal-pain [7] (last visited July 28, 2021).
     53 Ibid.
     54 Curtis L. Lowery et al., Neurodevelopmental Changes of Fetal Pain, 31 Seminars Perinatology 275, 275 (2007).

Page 15: pain consistently issues the same interpretation of the data: by ten to twelve weeks, a fetus develops neural circuitry capable of detecting and responding to pain.55 Even more sophisticated reactions occur as the unborn child develops further.56 And new developments have provided still more evidence strengthening the conclusion that fetuses are capable of experiencing pain in the womb.57

     Footnotes for page 15:
     55 See, e.g., Carlo V. Bellieni & Giuseppe Buonocore, Is Fetal Pain a Real Evidence?, 25 J. Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Med. 1203, 1203–08 (2012); Richard Rokyta, Fetal Pain, 29 Neuroendocrinology Letters 807, 807–14 (2008).
     56 See Royal Coll. of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists, Fetal Awareness: Review of Research and Recommendations for Practice 5, 7 (Mar. 2010), available at https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/rcogfetalawarenesswpr0610.pdf [8] (last visited July 28, 2021); Susan J. Lee et al., Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence, 294 J. Am. Med. Ass’n 947, 948–49 (2005); see also App. 76a, 84a–85a.
     57 See Lisandra Stein Bernardes et al., Acute Pain Facial Expressions in 23-Week Fetus, Ultrasound Obstetrics & Gynecology (June 2021), available at https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/uog.23709?af=R [9] (last visited July 28, 2021)

Page 17: Moreover, by twelve weeks, the parts of the central nervous system leading from peripheral nerves to the brain are sufficiently connected to permit the peripheral pain receptors to detect painful stimuli.68 Thus, the unborn “baby develops sensitivity to external stimuli and to pain much earlier than was believed” when Roe and Casey were decided. MKB Mgmt. Corp. v. Stenehjem, 795 F.3d 768, 774 (8th Cir. 2015) (cleaned up).

     Footnote for page 17:
     68 Sekulic et al., supra note 65, at 1034–35.

Page 21: By eighteen weeks, the child can hear his or her mother’s voice, and the child can yawn.87 The nervous system in the brain is also developing the circuitry for all the senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing.

     Footnote for page 21:
     87 Ibid.; see also Cleveland Clinic, Fetal Development: Stages of Growth (last updated Apr. 16, 2020), available at https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/7247-fetal#development-stages-of-growth [10] (last visited July 28, 2021).

Page 25: Around twenty-six weeks, the child’s eyes open, and he or she can fully see what is going on around him or her.106 Brain wave activity increases throughout this period.

     Footnote:
     106 Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hosp., A Week-by-Week Pregnancy Calendar: Week 26, available at https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/Patients-Families/Health-Library/HealthDocNew/Week-26?id=13484 [11] (last visited July 28, 2021).
     World Faith Foundation and Institute for Faith and Family [12]

The viability line is arbitrary, lacks constitutional support, and conflicts with legal principles in other contexts. Developments in medical technology expose the reality of a child in the womb worthy of legal protection. “Emerging science never shows the unborn to be less than human; rather, each advancement further reveals the humanity of the developing child in all its wonder”—even at 15 weeks, the developing child has “fully formed eyebrows, noses, and lips,” and “the baby’s fully formed heart pumps about 26 quarts of blood per day.”3

Yet this Court has stubbornly maintained the viability line, reaffirming Roe’s “recognition of the right of the woman” to choose abortion “before viability . . . without undue interference from the State.” Casey, 505 U.S. at 846. Gonzales began by presuming the same principle and timeline (Gonzales, 550 U.S. at 146)—but on the next page described the unborn child as “a living organism within the womb, whether or not it is viable outside the womb” (id. at 147, emphasis added).

      Footnote:
      https://lozierinstitute.org/cli-experts-urge-scotus-to-catch-up-to#science-in-mississippi-abortion-case/; https://lozierinstitute.org/new-paper-coauthored-by-cli-scholars-examines-treating-the-patient#within-the-patient/. These articles described in further detail the baby’s fetal development at 15 weeks.

Page 13: Another critical development is the ability to detect a child’s heartbeat in the womb. Several years ago, the Eighth Circuit considered whether the state could prohibit abortions of “unborn children who possess detectable heartbeats.” MKB, 795 F.3d at 770. Experts testified that “fetal cardiac activity is detectable by about 6 weeks” although viability does not occur “until about 24 weeks.” Id. at 771. Sadly, the court concluded that Roe dictated the outcome but suggested that “good reasons exist for [this] Court to reevaluate its jurisprudence.” Id. at 774.

     Ironically, no discussion or evidence of infant heartbeats is given in the amicus by Heartbeat International. /DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185354/20210729164709878_Dobbs%20Amicus%20Brief%20-%20FINAL.pdf. The word “heart” comes up 39 times, but only to state the organization’s name.

[1] More about “...throughout state and federal law.” https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/the-challenges-of-defining-and-diagnosing-brain-death
Virtually the same thing is meant when Leviticus 17:11 says “the life of the flesh is in the blood....” The existence in a physical body of flowing blood is proof of life.
Before animal meat may be eaten, according to the Bible, its blood must be drained. Genesis 9:4 “...flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”
Shedding blood guarantees and certifies death. “Shedding blood” of a man kills the man. Genesis 9:6 “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”

[2] More about “...evidence that a person has begun to live.”
The link at footnote one is about using the cessation of brainwaves and heartbeats to document when life ends. This footnote is about the beginning of brainwaves and heartbeats to document when life begins.
The expert medical evidence in the amicus briefs filed in Dobbs are an especially useful source of this documentation for lawmakers because (1) it is prepared by America’s top legal experts for a purpose which requires the most exacting, irrefutable preparation, (2) it is presented in the kind of court language which lawmakers need for their legal arguments for each other and for consideration in Findings of Facts of bills, and (3) it comes with a context of Supreme Court case citations all ready for lawmakers to Findings of Facts or Resolutions.
Five of the 140 Amicus Briefs filed in Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) address brainwaves and heartbeats. A sixth Amicus only has a little about heartbeats. The Amicus with the most detail is from the American College of Pediatricians, below. Here are the paragraphs from the six briefs about brainwaves and heartbeats, with footnotes and links where you can find more documentation:
American Association of Prolife Obstretricians [1]
Mississippi’s law is partially based on legislative findings pertaining to the advanced development and humanity of pre-born children at the gestational age of fifteen to twenty weeks. Pet. at 7-9. At twenty two days, the child’s heart begins to beat. https://www.ehd.org/your-life-before-birth-video/ (last visited July 15, 2020). At six weeks, the child begins moving. Id. At seven weeks, scientists can detect a child’s brainwaves, and the child can move his or her head and hands. Id. The child displays leg movements and the startle response. Id. At eight weeks, the child’s brain exhibits complex development. Id (Page 18)

Jewish Prolife Foundation [2]

This tragic human rights violation must be remedied. The Mississippi law in this case seeks to protect the God-given right to life for babies of 15 weeks gestation and beyond. Yet, most significant developmental milestones occur during the first eight weeks following conception. A baby’s heart beats at 22 days, and her brainwaves can be measured at 6 weeks. At 9 weeks all internal organs are present and the baby is sensitive to touch.4 As early as 8 weeks, the “infant”5 feels real physical pain during an abortion.6 This is much sooner than the 15-week issue before the Court, a gestational age when the pain felt by the baby must surely be considered. Jeremiah 22:3 admonishes us to avoid causing pain and death to the powerless: “Do what is right and just; rescue the wronged from their oppressors; do nothing wrong or violent to the stranger, orphan or widow; don’t shed innocent blood in this place.”

Footnotes:
4 Endowment for Human Development. Prenatal Summary. https://www.ehd.org/prenatal-summary.php
5 Gonzales 159, 160
6 5 Gonzales 159, 160.
6 Expert Tells Congress Unborn Babies Can Feel Pain Starting at 8 Weeks. Ertelt, Steven. May 23, 2013. LifeNews. https://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/23/expert-tells-congress-unborn-babies#can-feel-pain-starting-at-8-weeks/
Center for Medical Progress and David Daleide www.supremecourt.gov /DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185155/20210728163153060_Amici%20Brief%20of%20CMP-Daleiden.pdf]

1. By 15 weeks’ gestation, the human infant in the womb unmistakably manifests “the human form” identical to any other member of our community. Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 160 (2007). Ironically, it is precisely from this point when the fetus becomes most recognizably a fellow human being, that the fetuses vulnerable to abortion become most useful as an experimental biologic “resource.” Even though four-month-old infants in the womb move, kick, suck their thumbs, hiccup, and demonstrate a readily discernable heartbeat and brainwaves, App. 65a,4 and even though the Constitution guarantees that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” shall exist in America nor that any person be deprived of life without due process of law, U.S. Const., amends. XIII § 1, XIV § 1, these same children can be routinely killed through livedismemberment abortions or trafficked and sold for experimental use. (Page 3)

Footnote: 4 Katrina Furth, Fetal EEGs: Signals from the Dawn of Life, ON POINT SERIES 28 (Nov. 2018), https://lozierinstitute.org/fetal#eegs-signals-from-the-dawn-of-life/; Winslow J. Borkowski & Richard L. Bernstine, Electroencephalography of the Fetus, 5(5) NEUROLOGY 362–65 (May 1, 1955)
National Catholic Bioethics Center, et al. [www.supremecourt.gov/ DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185239/20210729121001402_19-1392%20tsac%20National%20Catholic%20Bioethics%20Center.pdf]

Mississippi’s law is partially based on legislative findings pertaining to the advanced development and obvious humanity of pre-born children at the gestational age of fifteen to twenty weeks. Pet. at 7-9. At twenty-two days, the child’s heart begins to beat. https://www.ehd.org/your-life-before-birth-video/ (last visited July 15, 2020). At six weeks, the child begins moving. Id. At seven weeks, scientists can detect a child’s brainwaves, and the child can move his or her own head and hands. Id. The child also displays leg movements and the startle response by that time. Id. At eight weeks, the child’s brain exhibits complex development. Id. (p. 14)

American College of Pediatricians www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185265/20210729133245734_Dobbs%20Amicus.pdf]

2. What we know today—as uncontroverted scientific fact—is that the child develops much more quickly than the Court in Roe presumed. The Court then was told that “in early pregnancy . . . embryonic development has scarcely begun.” Brief for Appellant at 20, Roe, 410 U.S. 113 (No. 70-18), 1971 WL 128054. But that is wrong. From conception, the unborn child is a unique human being who rapidly develops the functions and form of a child long before viability. (page 2-3)

At five weeks’ gestation (just three weeks after conception),1 the unborn child’s heart starts beating. By six weeks, brain waves are detectable, and the nervous system is steadily developing. By seven weeks, the child can move and starts to develop sensory receptors. By nine weeks, the child’s eyes, ears, and teeth are visible. By ten weeks, multiple organs begin to function, and the child has the neural circuitry for spinal reflex, an early response to pain. By twelve weeks, the child can open and close fingers and sense stimulation from the outside world. By fifteen weeks—when Mississippi’s law limits abortions—the child can smile and is likely sensitive to pain. Medical interventions after this stage (other than abortion) use analgesia to prevent suffering. And by eighteen weeks, pain induces hormonal responses in the child. All this happens long before viability. Reflecting these advances in medical knowledge, ultrasound imagery available at the time of Roe looks much different from the imagery available today: (Image not shown here)

Page 11-12: During the fifth week, “[t]he cardiovascular system is the first major system to function in the embryo,” with the heart and vascular system appearing in the middle of the week.33 By the end of the fifth week, “blood is circulating and the heart begins to beat on the 21st or 22nd day” after conception.34

By six weeks, “[t]he embryonic heartbeat can be detected.”35 Technological advances permit not only imaging detection at this early stage, but also videography of the unborn child, including footage of the child’s heartbeat.36

After detection of a fetal heartbeat—and absent an abortion—the overwhelming majority of unborn children will now survive to birth.37 “[O]nce a fetus possesses cardiac activity, its chances of surviving to full term are between 95%–98%.”38

Also during the sixth week, the child’s nervous system is developing, with the brain already “patterned” at this early stage.39 The earliest neurons are generated in the region of the brain responsible for thinking, memory, and other higher functions.40 And

Footnotes for Page 12:
34 Id. at 2662.
35 Id. at 2755.
36 See, e.g., Endowment for Hum. Dev., The Heart in Action: 4 Weeks, 4 Days, available athttps://www.ehd.org/movies/21/The#Heart-in-Action [3] (last visited July 28, 2021) (showing footage of a heartbeat at six weeks); see also, e.g., Endowment for Hum. Dev., Your Life Before Birth (Mar. 18, 2019), available at https://vimeo.com/325006095 [4] (last visited July 28, 2021) (displaying video footage of a child’s development).
37 Joe Leigh Simpson, Low Fetal Loss Rates After Ultrasound Proved-Viability in First Trimester, 258 J. Am. Med. Ass’n 2555, 2555–57 (1987).
38 Forte, supra note 11, at 140 & nn.121–22 (footnote omitted) (collecting post-Casey medical research).
39 Thomas W. Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology 72 (14th ed. 2019); see generally id. at 59–95.
40 See, e.g., Irina Bystron et al., Tangential Networks of Precocious Neurons and Early Axonal Outgrowth in the Embryonic Human Forebrain, 25 J. Neuroscience 2781, 2788 (2005).

(Page 13) the child’s face is developing, with cheeks, chin, and jaw starting to form.41 At seven weeks, cutaneous sensory receptors, which permit prenatal pain perception, begin to develop.42 The unborn child also starts to move.43 During the seventh week, “the growth of the head exceeds that of other regions” largely because of “the rapid development of the brain” and facial features.44 At eight weeks, essential organs and systems have started to form, including the child’s kidneys, liver, and lungs.45 The upper lip and nose can be seen.46 At nine weeks, the child’s ears, eyes, teeth, and external genitalia are forming.47

Footnotes for page 13:
41 See Sadler, supra note 39, at 72–95.
42 Kanwaljeet S. Anand & Paul R. Hickey, Special Article, Pain and Its Effects in the Human Neonate and Fetus, 317 New Eng. J. Med. 1321, 1322 (1987).
43 Alessandra Pionetelli, Development of Normal Fetal Movements: The First 25 Weeks of Gestation 98, 110 (2010).
44 Keith L. Moore et al., The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology 65–84.e1 (11th ed. 2020).
45 See Sadler, supra note 39, at 72–95.
46 Moore et al., supra note 44, 1–9.e1.
47 See Sadler, supra note 39, at 72–95; see also App. 66a.
48 Pionetelli, supra note 43, at 65 (2010).

Page 14: At ten weeks, vital organs begin to function, and the child’s hair and nails begin to form.49 By this point, the neural circuitry has formed for spinal reflex, or “nociception,” which is the fetus’s early response to pain.50 Starting around ten weeks, the earliest connections between neurons constituting the subcortical-frontal pathways—the circuitry of the brain that is involved in a wide range of psychological and emotional experiences, including pain perception—are established.51 At the time of Roe, “the medical consensus was that babies do not feel pain.”52 Only during the late 1980s and early 1990s did any of the initial scientific evidence for prenatal pain begin to emerge.53 Today, the “evidence for the subconscious incorporation of pain into neurological development and plasticity is incontrovertible.”54 Every modern review of prenatal

Footnotes for page 14:
49 See Sadler, supra note 39, at 106–127; Moore et al., supra note 44, at 65–84.e1; Johns Hopkins Med., The First Trimester, available at https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness#and-prevention/the-first-trimester [5] (last visited July 28, 2021); see also App. 66a.
50 See, e.g., Int’l Ass’n for the Study of Pain, IASP Terminology (last updated Dec. 14, 2017), available at https://www.iasp#pain.org/Education/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1698#Nociception [6] (last visited July 28, 2021); see also App. 80a.
51 Lana Vasung et al., Development of Axonal Pathways in the Human Fetal Fronto-Limbic Brain: Histochemical Characterization and Diffusion Tensor Imaging, 217 J. Anatomy 400, 400–03 (2010).
52 Am. Coll. of Pediatricians, Fetal Pain: What is the Scientific Evidence? (Jan. 2021), available at https://acpeds.org/position#statements/fetal-pain [7] (last visited July 28, 2021).
53 Ibid.
54 Curtis L. Lowery et al., Neurodevelopmental Changes of Fetal Pain, 31 Seminars Perinatology 275, 275 (2007).

Page 15: pain consistently issues the same interpretation of the data: by ten to twelve weeks, a fetus develops neural circuitry capable of detecting and responding to pain.55 Even more sophisticated reactions occur as the unborn child develops further.56 And new developments have provided still more evidence strengthening the conclusion that fetuses are capable of experiencing pain in the womb.57

Footnotes for page 15:
55 See, e.g., Carlo V. Bellieni & Giuseppe Buonocore, Is Fetal Pain a Real Evidence?, 25 J. Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Med. 1203, 1203–08 (2012); Richard Rokyta, Fetal Pain, 29 Neuroendocrinology Letters 807, 807–14 (2008).
56 See Royal Coll. of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists, Fetal Awareness: Review of Research and Recommendations for Practice 5, 7 (Mar. 2010), available at https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/rcogfetalawarenesswpr0610.pdf [8] (last visited July 28, 2021); Susan J. Lee et al., Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence, 294 J. Am. Med. Ass’n 947, 948–49 (2005); see also App. 76a, 84a–85a.
57 See Lisandra Stein Bernardes et al., Acute Pain Facial Expressions in 23-Week Fetus, Ultrasound Obstetrics & Gynecology (June 2021), available at https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/uog.23709?af=R [9] (last visited July 28, 2021)

Page 17: Moreover, by twelve weeks, the parts of the central nervous system leading from peripheral nerves to the brain are sufficiently connected to permit the peripheral pain receptors to detect painful stimuli.68 Thus, the unborn “baby develops sensitivity to external stimuli and to pain much earlier than was believed” when Roe and Casey were decided. MKB Mgmt. Corp. v. Stenehjem, 795 F.3d 768, 774 (8th Cir. 2015) (cleaned up).

Footnote for page 17:
68 Sekulic et al., supra note 65, at 1034–35.

Page 21: By eighteen weeks, the child can hear his or her mother’s voice, and the child can yawn.87 The nervous system in the brain is also developing the circuitry for all the senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing.

Footnote for page 21:
87 Ibid.; see also Cleveland Clinic, Fetal Development: Stages of Growth (last updated Apr. 16, 2020), available at https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/7247-fetal#development-stages-of-growth [10] (last visited July 28, 2021).

Page 25: Around twenty-six weeks, the child’s eyes open, and he or she can fully see what is going on around him or her.106 Brain wave activity increases throughout this period.

Footnote:
106 Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hosp., A Week-by-Week Pregnancy Calendar: Week 26, available at https://www.hopkinsallchildrens.org/Patients-Families/Health-Library/HealthDocNew/Week-26?id=13484 [11] (last visited July 28, 2021).
World Faith Foundation and Institute for Faith and Family [12]

The viability line is arbitrary, lacks constitutional support, and conflicts with legal principles in other contexts. Developments in medical technology expose the reality of a child in the womb worthy of legal protection. “Emerging science never shows the unborn to be less than human; rather, each advancement further reveals the humanity of the developing child in all its wonder”—even at 15 weeks, the developing child has “fully formed eyebrows, noses, and lips,” and “the baby’s fully formed heart pumps about 26 quarts of blood per day.”3

Yet this Court has stubbornly maintained the viability line, reaffirming Roe’s “recognition of the right of the woman” to choose abortion “before viability . . . without undue interference from the State.” Casey, 505 U.S. at 846. Gonzales began by presuming the same principle and timeline (Gonzales, 550 U.S. at 146)—but on the next page described the unborn child as “a living organism within the womb, whether or not it is viable outside the womb” (id. at 147, emphasis added).

Footnote:
https://lozierinstitute.org/cli-experts-urge-scotus-to-catch-up-to#science-in-mississippi-abortion-case/; https://lozierinstitute.org/new-paper-coauthored-by-cli-scholars-examines-treating-the-patient#within-the-patient/. These articles described in further detail the baby’s fetal development at 15 weeks.

Page 13: Another critical development is the ability to detect a child’s heartbeat in the womb. Several years ago, the Eighth Circuit considered whether the state could prohibit abortions of “unborn children who possess detectable heartbeats.” MKB, 795 F.3d at 770. Experts testified that “fetal cardiac activity is detectable by about 6 weeks” although viability does not occur “until about 24 weeks.” Id. at 771. Sadly, the court concluded that Roe dictated the outcome but suggested that “good reasons exist for [this] Court to reevaluate its jurisprudence.” Id. at 774.

Ironically, no discussion or evidence of infant heartbeats is given in the amicus by Heartbeat International. /DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185354/20210729164709878_Dobbs%20Amicus%20Brief%20-%20FINAL.pdf. The word “heart” comes up 39 times, but only to state the organization’s name.

[1]

[2]

Statement 4 + Footnotes

Reversing_Landmark_Abomination_Cases

Statement of Facts #4 of 12: Heartbeats & Brain Waves are Legally Recognized Evidence of Life.

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