Whether a 20-week fetus has neurological pathways sufficient for feeling pain is surely a question that science can answer, if it has not already. Already there are myriad intrauterine medical procedures, some involving anesthesia: Doctors can heal lives that America’s extremely permissive abortion law says can be terminated with impunity. Only seven nations allow unrestricted abortion after 20 weeks. Most European nations restrict abortions by at least week 13. France and Germany are very restrictive after 12, Sweden after 18.

Getting a scientific answer to the pain question, even if it is “yes,” should gratify the Party of Science. If the answer is “yes,” those who think fetal suffering is irrelevant can explain why they do.

New medical technologies and techniques are lowering the age of viability. And increasingly vivid sonograms, showing beating hearts and moving fingers, make it increasingly difficult to argue that the “fetal material” is at no point, in any way, a baby. Science is presenting inconvenient truths to the Party of Science, truths that are the reasons the percentage of pregnancies aborted is the smallest since 1973.