Dr. Maureen Condic, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah, testifies before a Congressional hearing on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Dr. Condic earned her PhD from University of California, Berkeley.  She is a widely published scientist whose works have appeared in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals.

Read the LifeNews coverage of the story here.

Excerpts from her written remarks:

The neural circuitry responsible for the most primitive response to pain, the spinal reflex, is in place by 8 weeks of development. This is the earliest point at which the fetus experiences pain in any capacity.  And a fetus responds just as humans at later stages of development respond; by with withdrawing from the painful stimulus.
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Imposing pain on any pain-capable living creature is cruelty.  And ignoring the pain experienced by another human individual for any reason is barbaric.  We don’t need to know if a human fetus is self- reflective or even self-aware to afford it the same consideration we currently afford other pain-capable species.  We simply have to decide whether we will choose to ignore the pain of the fetus or not.  (emphasis in the original)

Video of her testimony: