Like many Americans, I was shocked — shocked — when I heard that a Republican congressman had said that abortion should be banned after 15 weeks because of ….fetal masturbation. During a House Rules Committee debate on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy, Michael Burgess (R-TX), a Tea-Partying former OB-GYN and the current Vice President of the Subcommittee on Health, said (emphasis mine):

This is a subject that I do know something about…. There is no question in my mind that a baby at 20-weeks after conception can feel pain. The fact of the matter is, I argue with the chairman because I thought the date was far too late. We should be setting this at 15-weeks, 16-weeks… You watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. They feel pleasure, why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?

I would think that if there was one thing that could convert anti-abortion crusaders to support abortion, it would be the idea of a fetus engaging in sinful behavior. Accepting and even honoring masturbation seems dangerously close to the very moral decadence the right is committed to ending. What’s next? Comprehensive sex ed? Marriage equality?

Since there seems to be an inverse relationship between what anti-abortion politicians say and what’s scientifically accurate, it’s worth looking into whether there is any evidence whatsoever backing up the four implicit and explicit claims made by Burgess.

Claim One (explicit): Fetuses masturbate.  It turns out that in a much-cited 1987 letter published in the Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine called “Sonographic observation of in utero fetal masturbation,” Dr. Israel Meizner reported seeing a fetus behaving “in a fashion resembling masturbation movements” over the course of 15 minutes. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a fetal ‘masturbation’ in utero,” said Meizner. OK. So that’s one case. Anything else? Actually, there is! In 1996 two Italian doctors published a letter (“Ultrasonographic observation of a female fetus’ sexual behavior in utero”) in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in which they described observing a fetus making “masturbation movements.”

Claim two (implicit): Masturbating fetuses are usually male.  The first observed case was indeed of a male fetus. Meizner described the fetus “grasping his penis in a fashion resembling masturbation movements.” But the Italian doctors Giorgio Giorgi and Marco Siccardi observed a female fetus, “touching the vulva with the fingers of the right hand. The caressing movements were centered primarily on the region of the clitoris. Movements stopped after 30 to 40 seconds and started again after a few minutes. Furthermore, these slight touches were repeated and were associated with short, rapid movements of pelvis and legs. After another break, in addition to this behavior, the fetus contracted the muscles of the trunk and limbs, and then clonicotonic movements of the whole body followed. Finally, she relaxed and rested. We observed this behavior for about 20 minutes.”