It has been almost a year since Nebraska passed and enacted its “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” which “bans” abortion after twenty weeks gestation. A number of other states are now in the process of attempting to enact similar laws – which are based on scientific evidence showing that these unborn children feel pain. But are these laws truly pro-life? The answer is no—and here’s why:
Research indicates that the vast majority of abortions take place well before the twentieth week of pregnancy. So, why the 20-week limit? What about younger preborn children? Expert testimony from fetal neurosurgeons during the Partial Birth Abortion Act trials revealed that preborn children have highly developed pain receptors at that gestational age. But remember, they were also specifically addressing partial birth abortion, which is performed in the third trimester.
Many other experts estimate the age at which a preborn child feels pain is as early as eight to 10 weeks of gestation and definitely by 13 and one half weeks. According to Abortionfacts.com, “What is needed is (1) a sensory nerve to feel the pain and send a message to (2) the thalamus, a part of the base of the brain, and (3) motor nerves that send a message to that area.” All of these are well in place by that time.
The abortion videotaped via ultrasound in the film The Silent Scream was performed during the first trimester. As her heart rate doubles, the baby can be seen repeatedly moving to dodge the abortionist’s suction instrument. Then, as she is dismembered, her mouth opens in a silent scream. It is obvious to any reasonable viewer that this child suffered pain during the abortion.
In addition, these “fetal pain” laws contain exceptions. The Nebraska legislation notes two: First, when the “pregnancy puts the mother in danger of death or ‘substantial and irreversible’ physical harm to a major bodily function;” and the second “allows an abortionist to perform an abortion in order to increase the probability of a live birth, or to preserve an unborn child’s life and health after a live birth.”
In the first case, we should understand that “there is never a situation in the law or in the ethical practice of medicine where a preborn child’s life need be intentionally destroyed by procured abortion for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. A physician must do everything possible to save the lives of both of his patients, mother and child. He must never intend the death of either.” (Read here)
The second exception just doesn’t even make sense when one understands the definition of abortion. How does an abortionist preserve the life and health of the child by forcing that child’s expulsion from his mother’s womb prematurely?
Abortion is violence—against preborn children and against the women in whose bodies the violence takes place.
Our country has been implementing imperfect laws concerning abortion for more than 30 years. And, because none of these laws recognize the personhood of the preborn, abortion continues to ravage our society. If a truly pro-life bill is to be introduced, why not try a really novel approach and declare that the preborn child is a person who possesses the same inalienable right to life as the rest of us—from the first moment of his or her biological development and not just at 20 weeks? Now, that would be a pro-life bill.