Questão 16 - UFPI PSIU 1ª Série 2010

Leia os textos e responda à questão.

 

TEXTO 01

 

New law claims fetuses feel pain

 

Can fetuses feel pain – and if so, when? The questions have long been debated by scientists and are key for 
opponents of abortion. But this week Nebraska became the first US state to restrict abortion on that basis.  

    The Nebraska law, passed on 13 April, lays out several arguments about fetal pain. Each was contradicted 
last month in a letter to the Nebraska legislature by Mark Rosen of the University California, San Francisco, 
[5] co-author of a 2005 review on the subject. 

    The law states that at 20 weeks a fetus “has the physical structures necessary to experience pain”. But 
Rosen argues that fetuses don’t have the brain connections needed to feel pain until about 29 weeks. 

    The law also claims that after 20 weeks fetuses have reflex responses to evade painful stimuli. Rosen 
counters that these responses are involuntary, and, like “knee-jerk” reflexes, don’t correspond to pain. 

[10]    Vivette Glover of Imperial College London says that fetuses may feel pain at 20 weeks, but they can be 
given anaesthetics in any case. 

    Rosen and others believe the law is designed to provoke a legal challenge from LeRoy Carhart, a surgeon 
who performs late-term abortions in Nebraska. This could take the claims of fetal pain to the US Supreme Court, 
which has the power to overturn the Roe vs Wade ruling of 1973 that gave US women almost unrestricted 
[15] access to abortion.

(NewScientist, 24 April 2010.)

 

TEXTO 02

 

Fetuses have their own immunity

 

Fetuses aren’t as defenceless as they seem – they may be armed to fight off viruses long before birth.

    It was thought that fetal immune cells were too immature to be useful and that fetuses and newborns relied 
on antibodies provided by their mothers. Now David Vermijlen at the Institute for Medical Immunology in 
Brussels, Belgium, and his colleagues have shown that fetuses just 21 weeks old may be capable of fending off 
[5] infections using their own immune cells. This could lead to new vaccines for newborns and unborn babies. 

    Vermijlen’s team analysed cord blood from 19 newborns infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV) – which can 
cause serious symptoms in infected infants and give fetuses brain damage – and 22 uninfected newborns. The 
team found that the number of gamma delta T-cells was higher in the CMV-infected babies, and that a greater 
proportion of these immune cells were activated. 

[10]    When the team compared the types of immune cells activated in the fetus with those in the mother, there 
were clear differences, suggesting that fetuses generate an independent immune response to CMV (Journal of 
Experimental Medicine, DOI: 10.1084/jem.20090348). 

(NewScientist , 1 May 2010.)

Marque a opção na qual todos os verbos expressam ação que ocorreu em um passado determinado.