A University College London scientist has accused lawyers in the US of using his work on the brain to justify the dismantling of the landmark ruling on abortion in America.
Iannetti said his research was misinterpreted to make an anti-abortion argument.
A draft legal opinion leaked last week shows a majority of supreme court judges support ending federal protections for abortion, which could result in 26 states banning it. The court is considering a case that challenges Mississippi's ban on abortion after 15 weeks.
The anti-abortion lawyers argued that scientific understanding has changed since 1973, when the court ruled that the right to abortion was a constitutional right.
A discussion paper on foetal pain published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2020 was the basis of their argument.
According to the paper, some of Iannetti's research results suggest that we don't need a cerebral cortex to feel pain.
Iannetti, an Italian professor of neuroscience who now leads a laboratory in Italy but spent the past 16 years researching at UCL and Oxford University, is adamant that this is an unwarranted leap.
My results don't mean that the cortex isn't necessary to feel pain. They were used in a clever way to prove a point. He said that his work was misinterpreted and became one of the pillar arguments made by the lawyers.
Prof Iannetti had no idea the paper was being used to justify the dismantling of Wade until American colleagues contacted him to say they were shocked. He helped academics in the US draft a response to the lawyers, but he doesn't feel like he has much to do to stop them.
The international scientific consensus is that it is not possible for a fetus to experience pain in the first few weeks of life.
Wood said that all serious scientists agreed that a foetus cannot feel pain until it is born.
He said that lawyers were correct to say that science has moved on since 1973.
He told the Observer he is pro choice. He claimed that Iannetti's work had nothing to do with foetal pain, and that he had not overstepped in his paper.
I don't think we can rule out the foetus having some raw experience that is akin to pain. It will not be an equivalent to what you or I experience, but that doesn't mean it isn't.
The Centre for Translational Pain Research at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago has been studying pain in humans and animals for two decades.
There is no reason to argue that a fetus can suffer pain before 24 weeks of age. He said that the brain isn't formed enough for that to be possible.
The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in the US and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the UK were involved in the Jackson Women case. He spent months looking for evidence that his side had missed.
The Mississippi case claimed that the foetus was suffering when it was aborted. They claimed that because it was so emotional. He said that it is also untrue.
The bottom line is that a patient's health is more important than a theory.
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