Pro-lifers push bill on unborn’s pain in abortion

By Tom Strode - Jan 31, 2005 - comment

Pro-life members of Congress have reintroduced legislation requiring women to receive information about the pain their unborn children will experience if they undergo late-term abortions.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., and Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., introduced on consecutive days the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, S. 51 in the Senate and H.R. 356 in the House of Representatives. Brownback offered his bill with 31 cosponsors Jan. 26, one day after Smith presented his measure. The House bill has 85 cosponsors.

The bill has two provisions: (1) An abortion doctor would have to provide a woman at least 20 weeks into pregnancy with scientific evidence about the severe pain her unborn child would experience during the procedure, and (2) if the woman still decides to have an abortion, the doctor would be required to offer anesthesia for her unborn baby in order to reduce his pain.

Abortion opponents expressed hope there would be bipartisan support for what Smith called a “very modest effort.” He looks forward to a day when the unborn are protected by the law, Smith said, but in the meantime, “Shame on us if we do not take immediate measures to relieve the pain” of babies who are aborted. Abortion clinics are “not only killing mills, but they are torture chambers,” Smith said.

Barrett Duke, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s vice president for public policy, said he could not “imagine that any caring, compassionate person could object to this common sense, humane legislation.”

“For 32 years, abortionists have been tearing babies apart in their mother’s wombs with no regard for the pain of the child,” Duke said. “This must stop. The very least we can do is make sure that these innocent human beings do not have their last experience on earth an experience more excruciatingly painful than any person living today could tolerate.”

The other measure widely promoted by pro-lifers at the beginning of the 109^th^ Congress is the Child Custody Protection Act, which would outlaw the transportation of a minor by a non-parental adult to another state for an abortion when the girl’s home state requires parental notification or consent.

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