The Senate Judiciary Committee today is holding a hearing on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act — legislation that would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Although half of all unborn children killed in late-term abortions are little girls, Democrats in the Senate are bashing the pro-life bill by calling it a “war on women.”
Last September, Senate Democrats blocked a vote on a pro-life Senate bill to ban late-term abortions — a bill that would save as many as 18,000 unborn babies form abortions each and every year.
The bill highlights how unborn babies feel intense pain when they are killed in abortions and the hearing comes at a time when 12 expose’ videos have exposed the Planned Parenthood abrogation business selling aborted babies and their body parts.
Now, Senate Democrats are going all out again to trash the bill, amazingly calling the banning of abortions on little boys and girls a “war on women.”
Led by some of their most senior female members, Senate Democrats will take to the floor Tuesday to launch a new messaging offensive that ties the battle over replacing Justice Antonin Scalia to a GOP-led hearing on late-term abortions scheduled to occur later Tuesday.
The new tactic, led by Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the sole woman in Democratic leadership, is an attempt to galvanize women in the Supreme Court vacancy fight, particularly as the high court takes up critical abortion cases.
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The thrust of the message from Murray, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), and other Democratic senators will be this: Senate Republicans won’t take time to fulfill their advise-and-consent duties but will take time to do what Murray calls “everything they can to turn back the clock on women’s health care.”
“While they say they won’t even hold a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities— they were eager to hold a hearing to attack women’s constitutional rights,” Murray will say, according to her remarks provided in advance to POLITICO.
She continues: “They love to talk about the Constitution — unless we’re talking about a woman’s constitutional right to make decisions about her own body, or the part that lays out the Senate’s responsibilities when it comes to filling Supreme Court vacancies.”
During September’s vote on the 20-week abortion ban, Senator Dan Coats, a pro-life Republican from Indiana, was one of the many pro-life lawmakers speaking for the bill during the debate leading up to the vote.
“Advances in science and medical technology require us to confront, both now and in the future, some ethical questions that are profoundly important,” said Coats. “This week, the United States Senate will have the opportunity to do so. We have the opportunity to protect the unborn children in this country whose lives are being ended – in many cases brutally – at an age at which these children are capable of experiencing pain.”
Coats noted that prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy wouldn’t just be beneficial for unborn children.
“It also is indisputable that the later in pregnancy an abortion occurs, the riskier it is for the mother and the more painful it is for the child,” said Coats. “Research shows that a woman seeking an abortion at 20 weeks is 35 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester. At 21 weeks or more, she is 91 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester. These significant risks to maternal health should cause all of us concern.”
The bill was developed from model legislation offered by National Right to Life in 2010, enacted thus far in 12 states.
During the hearing on the last bill, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.
Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.
Americans strongly support legislation that would ban late-term abortions and protect babies who are capable of feeling intense pain during an abortion.
The vast majority of Americans are still very uncomfortable with abortion, according to a January Marist University poll. The survey finds support for abortion restrictions among both “pro-life” and “pro-choice” supporters. Despite the strong support, President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the pro-life bill.
According to the national survey, 84% of Americans want significant restrictions on abortion, and would limit abortions to, at most, the first three months of pregnancy. This includes almost 7 in 10 (69 percent) who identify themselves as “pro-choice” who support such abortion limits and oppose late-term abortions.
The same percentage (84 percent) also says that laws can protect both the well-being of a woman and the life of the unborn. In addition, by more than 20 points (60 percent to 38 percent), Americans say abortion is morally wrong.
Other national polls also show strong support nationwide for the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and stopping late-term abortions.
A poll conducted for the liberal Huffington Post find Americans support the ban on late-term abortions starting at 20-weeks of pregnancy by almost a 2-1 margin.
A national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger. Only 30% said they would oppose such a law.
A November 2014 poll from Quinnipiac found that 60 percent of Americans support legislation limiting abortions after 20 weeks, including 56 percent of Independents and 46 percent of Democrats.
The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy. The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it.
He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”
He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.
“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote.
“Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.
With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand has provided further research to substantiate their work.
One leading expert in the field of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand at the University of Tennessee, stated in his expert report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, “It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children.”
“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.
Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”
“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified. She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”
