Abortion, Babies and Pain

 

We plead “guilty” to wanting to ban abortions of pain-capable unborn children

 

By Dave Andrusko
We try to address most of the attacks on the science that demonstrates the fact that the unborn child can experience pain by no later than 20 weeks. Why? Because, as do we, pro-abortionists understand how transformative this could be to the abortion debate.
We tackled the article written earlier this week by Pam Belluck for the New York Times twice. We’ll be re-visiting it indirectly again today because the Times—being the Times—is treated reverentially in certain circles.

Writing on the Slate.com site, William Saletan uses the quotations and paraphrases from various doctors that Belluck uses to argue (as the headline suggests) that “The doctors cited by pro-lifers say their fetal pain research doesn’t support abortion bans.”
Let me make four points.

#1. Whether they do or don’t want a ban on abortions performed on pain-capable unborn children was never the point that NRLC and other like-minded pro-life groups made. The issue is whether their research (along with others not mentioned by Belluck or Saletan) demonstrates that there is substantial medical evidence that by 20 weeks after fertilization an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain. It does.

#2. A mainstay backup intended to trivialize what is taking place is to argue that most abortions occur before the unborn can experience pain. (Note there is a concession that at some point the child can feel pain.) And, of course, that is true. But if “only” 1%-2% of the abortions that are performed are on pain-capable unborn babies, that 13,000 to 20,000+ babies each year that die an unimaginable painful death. That doesn’t qualify as “only” to me.

#3. Using his own sleight of hand, Saletan accuses those who follow the model legislation of Mary Spaulding Balch, JD, NRLC’s director of state legislation, of an “underlying sleight of hand.” Which is what, exactly? That NRLC wants not merely to “regulate” abortions performed on pain-capable unborn babies but “ban” them. Hello? Of course we don’t want to “regulate” the annihilation of unborn child who are capable of experiencing pain. We want to prevent their horrific deaths.

#4. Perhaps, like me, you did a double-take when you read the word “regulate.” What can that possibly mean? It means that you avoid the issue of pain altogether. How? You poison the child in utero (dressed up as a “lethal injection”) or you administer “fetal anesthesia,” as if you could do so without placing the mother’s life in jeopardy. In either case, viola.

Saletan believes the public is just as cold-blooded as he appears to be. Give them an option between banning abortions of pain-capable unborn babies and peacefully, blissfully, painlessly dispatching them (don’t forget without “hurting them”), and Saletan is confident those silly old “qualms about fetal pain” will go poof.

If you look at the polling data, there is overwhelming support for legislation like the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Pro-abortionists will do anything to take the public’s eye off of the victims. Our job is to make sure these unborn victims are not lost in subterfuge and misdirection.

Source: NRLC News