A panel of the House Judiciary Committee will begin action on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 1797), legislation to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain by generally prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks fetal age, with a public hearing on Thursday, May 23, 2013.
The bill is sponsored by Congressman Trent Franks (R-Az.), who also chairs the subcommittee that will consider the bill. It is based on a model bill developed by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of state right-to-life organizations, which has already been enacted in nine states.
In the form introduced on April 26, H.R. 1797 would have applied the policy solely to the District of Columbia, but on May 17 Rep. Franks announced that he would amend the bill in committee to apply nationwide, a plan immediately strongly endorsed by NRLC. "National Right to Life strongly concurs in Congressman Franks' decision that the time is ripe to seek protection for pain-capable unborn children nationwide," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. "Because of publicity surrounding the trial of Kermit Gosnell and subsequent revelations about other abortionists, many Americans are becoming aware for the first time that abortions are frequently performed late in pregnancy on babies who are capable of being born alive, and on babies who will experience great pain while being killed."
In a nationwide poll of 1,003 registered voters in March, The Polling Company found that 64% would support a law such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks -- when an unborn baby can feel pain -- unless the life of the mother was in danger. Only 30% opposed such legislation.
The legislation contains findings of fact regarding the medical evidence that unborn children experience pain at least by 20 weeks after fertilization (which is 22 weeks in the widely employed "LMP" system, or about the start of the sixth month), and prohibits abortion after
that point, except when an acute physical condition endangers the life of the mother. Some of the extensive evidence that unborn children have the capacity to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks fetal age, is available on the NRLC website at http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/Fetal_Pain/index.html
and also here: http://www.doctorsonfetalpain.com/
The science behind the findings in the bill will be further explored at the May 23 congressional hearing.
A medical illustration of a common method of late abortion ("D&E") is posted here: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/DEabortiongraphic.html
ACTION ON STATE LAWS
The nine states that have enacted bills based on the NRLC model are (in order of enactment) Nebraska, Kansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and North Dakota.
Johnson dismissed as inconsequential a May 21 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, blocking enforcement of an Arizona law that sought to restrict abortions at 18 weeks fetal age. "The Arizona law is primarily based on a very different legal justification and bears little similarity to the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act -- and in any event, no court of appeals in the nation is reversed as often as the Ninth Circuit," Johnson said. "The federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was ruled invalid by six lower federal courts before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it in 2007. Clearly, some judges on the lower federal courts still want to ignore the significance of the 2007 Supreme Court ruling upholding the national ban on the partial-birth abortion method."
HOW MANY LATE ABORTIONS AND ABORTIONISTS ARE THERE?
In 1995-96, many mainstream media outlets reported as unvarnished fact the claims of pro-abortion advocacy groups that partial-birth abortions were very "rare" and performed only in acute medical circumstances. These claims were later proven false by congressional investigators and investigative journalists, and were even ultimately repudiated by the head of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers (NCAP), who described the claims as a concocted "party line." NCAP Executive Director Ron Fitzsimmons admitted to the New York Times that the partial-birth abortion method was used 3,000-5,000 times annually, and "in the vast majority of cases" on "a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along" (New York Times, Feb. 26, 1997).
However, the same pattern of eagerness to minimize painful late abortions is found in some recent media coverage surrounding the Gosnell trial and revelations regarding other late-abortion practitioners. News stories often assert that late abortions are "rare" and sometimes assert that late abortions usually involve serious medical problems of the mother or fetus. Yet these "facts" are not supported by hard data, and indeed run contrary to much of the evidence that is available.
The phrase "late-term abortion" has no fixed legal or medical meaning. Its use in news stories, without specific definitions, can be misleading and distort the debate. This distortion is in part deliberately engendered by pro-abortion groups, who use the phrase "late-term" as code for "third-trimester," meaning after 27 weeks LMP (about the seventh month and later).
However, most Americans probably would agree that any abortion performed after the point that a live birth might occur (about 18 weeks in the LMP system, or the beginning of the fifth month) is a "late abortion," and would surely agree that any abortion in the second half of pregnancy (after 20 weeks LMP) is a "late abortion." The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection applies protection beginning at 22 weeks LMP (20 weeks fetal age), about the beginning of the sixth month. Beginning just one week later, one-fourth to one-third of premature babies survive long-term with good neonatal care.
So, how many abortions are performed in the U.S. on pain-capable unborn children, after 22 weeks LMP (20 weeks fetal age)? NRLC's Johnson said: "Nobody has a good handle on how many late abortions are really occurring, but there is growing evidence that they are far more common than most people want to think. The Gosnell case and recent hidden-camera videos issued by the organization Live Action provide further evidence that a great deal of the late abortion iceberg is below the water. Some of the jurisdictions with the most liberal abortion policies have no reporting requirements -- for example, California, Maryland, and D.C. -- or do not collect data on stage of pregnancy (Florida, for example). Other jurisdictions have reporting requirements but don't enforce them -- the Grand Jury report on Gosnell said (page 171) that between 2000 and 2010, Gosnell reported only one second-trimester abortion to the state. Yet it appears (pp. 26-27, 88) that Gosnell probably performed thousands of second-trimester and third-trimester abortions during that decade. Multiple other practitioners who perform large volumes of late abortions have also failed to report or not been required to report.
A 2008 study, "Abortion in the United States: Incidence and Access to Services, 2005," released by the Guttmacher Institute (which was originally founded as a special affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, currently the nation's largest abortion provider) found that, in 2005, there were at least 1,787 abortion providers in the United States. Of the 1,787 providers, the study found that "[t]wenty percent of providers offered abortions after 20 weeks [LMP], and only 8% at 24 weeks [LMP]…" This translates to at least 300 abortion providers who will perform abortions after 20 weeks LMP and around 140 willing to perform abortions at 24 weeks LMP.
The 140 or more abortion providers who perform abortions at 22 weeks LMP and later would be the providers directly affected by H.R. 1797.
