September 12, 2016

Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act introduced by Senator Lankford

Sen. James Lankford
Sen. James Lankford
On Thursday pro-life Senator James Lankford (R-Ok.) introduced legislation to nationally ban dismemberment abortion, an abortion method that involves using steel tools to tear apart a well-developed unborn child by brute force.

Last April the Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act (H.R. 3515) was introduced in the House by Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a veteran legislator who is co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, with Vicki Hartzler (R-Mo.), Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), and Trent Franks (R-Az.) as original cosponsors.

The bill is a top National Right to Life legislative priority.

“No unborn child should be subjected to the brutality of having her arms and legs torn off with steel tools that grasp, tear, and crush,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.

The measure is based on a model state bill proposed by National Right to Life, which has already been enacted in Kansas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. The bill has also been introduced in Idaho, Missouri, and Nebraska, and is expected to be introduced in several other states.

The bill defines “dismemberment abortion” as “knowingly dismembering a living unborn child and extracting such unborn child one piece at a time from the uterus through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slice, crush or grasp a portion of the unborn child’s body in order to cut or rip it off . . .”

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