Overview - Abortion

So whence claims of “brain wave” activity at 6-8 weeks? Nearly all can be traced to three sources: Borkowski & Bernstine (1955), Goldenring (1982), and Hamlin (1964). The first is a short case report from a 1955 issue of the journal Neurology. Of the three, it is the only one that would have been subject to any level of scientific peer-review. The second is a 1982 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, and the third a speech given at a 1964 American Medical Association convention, both of which are essentially opinion statements.

In his letter, Goldenring presented his belief that EEG records of brain activity justified limiting abortions to 8 weeks development or prior.

”...[P]hysicians have always determined when a person is alive by measuring for the presence of certain "vital signs." ...[W]hen it became possible to replace both cardiac and pulmonary functions with machines, physicians turned to measuring the function of the only truly unique and irreplaceable organ — the brain. I submit that from this effort, the following principle has clearly emerged: The presence of a functioning human brain means that a patient, a person if you will, is alive. This is the medical definition of human life. We use it daily."

He in turn cited three primary sources for his comments: Ellingson & Guenter (1970), Hellegers (1978), and Bergstrom (1968). Hamlin’s speech did not even address the subject of abortion. His topic was the use of EEG data in pronouncement of death, and he mentioned fetal brain activity only in passing.

The electrophysiologic rhythm of the brain develops early. Detailed EEG tracings have been taken directly from the headend of 16 mm (crown-rump) human embryos at 40-odd days gestation, recovered from termination of pregnancies (Japan) 6 which revealed irregular slow waves, 0.2-2.0 per second at v. Recordingsµ v with superimposed fine waves of 30-40 per second at 1-5µ10-90 from embryos of 45 to 120 days gestation through surface and depth electrodes have shown responses to sedative and stimulant drugs, normal sleep spindles, and the effect of lack of oxygen by paroxysmal high voltage slow waves and ultimate electrical silence. The intra-uterine fetal brain responds to biochemical changes associated with oxygen deprivation by abnormal EEG activity similar to that produced in the adult brain. Thus at an early prenatal stage of life, the EEG reflects a distinctly individual pattern that soon becomes truly personalized. This is not so the ECG in producing its various types of records at all ages, many specimens of each type being identical and lacking any individual quality.”

(Hamlin, 1964)

Hamlin cited two primary sources: Bernstine (1961), and Okamoto & Kirikae (1951). Of the five primary sources referenced by Goldenring and Hamlin, only two are to actual peer-reviewed scientific research. Bernstine (1961) is a now out-of-print textbook for which checks of scholarly citation databases returned no citations to it from published scientific work, rendering it at best obscure and scientifically unimportant. Ellingson & Guenter (1970) was a review and discussion piece, and Hellegers (1978) was a reprint of a bioethics essay first published in the journal Theological Studies which although it was peer-reviewed, was clearly not a scientific work. None of the primary sources cited in either was to peer-reviewed research either.

In other words, the entire case for “brain waves” at 6-8 weeks fetal development boils down to a grand total of three published research papers: Bergstrom (1968), Borkowski & Bernstine (1955), and Okamoto & Kirikae (1951), which were selected from a period spanning well over half a century. The most up-to-date is nearly 40 years old and as it turns out, all were misquoted severely enough by Pro-Life advocates that it’s unclear whether they were even read much less understood.

All three studies measured brain activity in fetuses using surface and deep (needle electrode) EEG readings of the frontal and occipital fetal cortex. The fetuses came mainly from abdominal or vaginal abortions. Okamoto & Kirikae included two premature births (8 and 9 months development) and two full-term infants in their study. One of Borkowski & Bernstine’s fetuses came from an early tubal pregnancy. In all cases the readings were taken immediately after removal of the fetus and prior to death. Most importantly, all but a few of the fetuses used in these studies were at 3-7 months development. Only one was actually at 6 weeks (Borkowski & Bernstine’s tubal pregnancy). Furthermore, these studies evaluated brain activity, not brain “waves” of the sort that have anything to do with a functioning brain cortex.³

The activity observed consisted mainly of regular low frequency patterns with short bursts of high frequency activity bearing a superficial resemblance to sleep spindles. Borkowski & Bernstine and Okamoto & Kirikae both concluded that the majority of their signals came from the brain stem rather than the cortex, and that a significant portion of it was related to paroxysmal discharge (i.e. seizure like discharge of the nervous system electrical charge accompanying death). Borkowski & Bernstine also noted that their observations and those of Okamoto & Kirikae were very different than those observed in full-term infants (Borkowski & Bernstine, 1955; Okamoto & Kirikae, 1951). Bergstrom obtained similar results from fetuses as early as 10 weeks development, but mainly by artificially stimulating the brain stem, and similar were obtained from the embryos of rats, guinea pigs, cats, and chickens, and from stimulating reflex responses in fetal legs (Bergstrom, 1968).

In short, all these studies prove is that prior to 20 weeks development, the fetal nervous system and brain stem show electrical activity. This hardly amounts to “brain waves” or a fetus “feeling its mother.”