Unborn babies would have to be given painkilling drugs during late abortions or for surgery in the womb, under guidelines to be considered by the British government.

Health Minister Tessa Jowell is reviewing medical evidence on foetal pain and will hold a meeting with doctors, scientists and pressure groups wanting the issue formally addressed after the summer recess.

The guidelines would deal with a legal anomaly which protects unborn animals against scientific experiments but allows operations, including abortions, to be performed on human fetuses.

They would also acknowledge growing scientific concern that a fetus can feel pain in the last months of pregnancy.

The matter is certain to cause controversy, however, with protest groups determined to use the evidence in anti-abortion campaigns. The guidelines would cover operations such as in utero transfusions, late abortions, and shunt insertions for problems including excess fetal fluid.

Research from University College London disclosed in early August showed that newborn babies have a nervous system that makes them respond differently to pain, feeling longer and more sensitively than adults.

The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology last year issued a report recommending that doctors consider using analgesia and anaesthetics in tests or surgery on the fetus after 24 weeks' gestation.

The new guidelines would recommend that analgesia be used from 20 or even 18 weeks. This would mean that pain relief would have to be given to a baby before he or she was aborted.

-- UK News