ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the evidence for fetal and neonatal painience, and discusses the moral significance of painience for both human fetuses and neonates, as well as other patient populations and nonhuman animals. It also focuses on the ethical, legal, and social issues, with an emphasis on the abortion debate. Capacities for both nociception and painience has clinical and neuroethical significance. Neonates might experience both the sensory and affective aspects of pain, which underscores the need for better clinical pain management, since many routine procedures could cause pain and suffering and alter neurodevelopment. If sentience or painience is sufficient for moral patiency, then full-term human neonates are moral patients. Fetal pain bans seek to prohibit any abortion procedure on the grounds of fetal pain rather than restricting women to procedures less likely to cause pain. The moral and legal significance of fetal painience is far from clear.
