Countdown to fetal pain standard for banning abortion

Nebraska's Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act begins Friday

This blog has covered the passage of a new Nebraska abortion ban, as it brings to light the medical fact that children in the womb can feel pain (and thus abortion) MORE acutely than they experience pain after birth, when the “pain-desensitizing”  process has matured.

Our sister NRLC affiliate, Nebraska Right to Life, heralds Friday as the start of a new chapter in ending  abortion, as it is the day this Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (LB 1103) goes into effect.

From their newsletter today:  “In April, the Nebraska Legislature passed LB 1103, which bans abortions at 20 weeks and beyond based upon medical documentation of an unborn baby feeling pain at that gestation.  When LB 1103 was going through the Legislature, abortion advocates hinted strongly that a legal challenge would be posed to thwart implementation of the law.

At this writing, with the enactment date of October 15th, it is not anticipated that any legal challenge will be mustered. UPDATE, Oct. 15: The law is in effect. Apparently, the abortion industry does not want to risk LB 1103 going up before the U.S. Supreme Court, thus replacing viability with a new standard of pain.

Their strategy instead seems to be battling this new legislation state by state, according to Mary Spaulding Balch, National Right to Life State Legislative Director, who worked closely with Speaker Mike Flood to get LB 1103 passed.  This is a pro-life victory as this legislation will take off like wildfire in State Legislatures just as the partial-birth abortion ban was passed in many States.  And, most importantly, this country will be exposed to the medical documentation that unborn children do feel pain when aborted and those children should be protected by law.” [end of newsletter item; links & emphases ours]

Legislation restricting late-term abortion (including Kansas law) has been based on the U.S. Supreme Court decisions (notably Roe, Casey and Gonzales) affirming that states can assert protection after the unborn child is at the stage of viability (ability to live outside the womb).

With the firm establishment of fetal anesthesia as a medical protocol, now is the time to frame abortion as unacceptable human torture, and not a personal choice.

The unborn child has less legal protection from feeling pain than commercial livestock!  (see Section 2 of the Humane Slaughter Act, 7 USC 1902)

Nebraska’s Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act has led the way to change that, and Kansas should follow that lead.