Literally, A Web Log

Today’s news carried a story about researchers who have determined that fetuses do not feel pain. Abortion opponents seized the opportunity to remind us that such academic medical research can be accompanied by a a serious risk of insect assault. The CNN News story reported that critics angrily disputed the report’s findings and that Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand, a fetal pain researcher at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said that the researchers had “literally stuck their hands into a hornet’s nest.” If so, I imagine that it established that academic researchers feel pain, even if fetuses do not.

• The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control