WASHINGTON – [Today], a law will go into effect that will protect unborn children in Texas who are capable of feeling pain. The Texas bill, HB 2, was signed by Governor Perry on July 18, 2013. Despite efforts to derail other elements of HB 2, the central portion protecting pain-capable unborn children was never challenged.
That central portion of HB 2, protecting pain-capable unborn children is based on the Pain Capable-Unborn Child Protection Act, drafted by National Right to Life. Texas will now join nine other states in prohibiting the excruciating deaths of the smallest members of our human family.
“While attacking smaller pieces of HB 2, opponents of pro-life legislation never challenged the protections on pain-capable children; even our opponents realize this legislation, and the extensive science behind it, is sound,”said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., National Right to Life director of state legislation. “Unborn children and their mothers deserve better than the violence of abortion.”
Forty years ago, the unborn child virtually did not exist in medicine. “Fetal medicine” was an oxymoron. Our understanding of pain was so primitive that even a newborn undergoing surgery did so without anesthesia! They received only a paralytic to keep them still. Today, pain-capable unborn children are treated as patients. And now Texas joins nine other states in protecting them from being killed by abortion.
In a nationwide poll of 1,003 registered voters in March 2013, 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 is in danger. Only 30% opposed such legislation. Women voters split 63%-31% in support of such a law, and 63% of independent voters supported it.
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 www.nrlc.org/abortion/fetalpain and also here: www.doctorsonfetalpain.com
A medical illustration of one common method of late abortion (“D&E”) is posted here: www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/DEabortiongraphic
“The American public understands the importance of this law. Pain-capable unborn children should be protected from the violent act of a dismemberment abortion. Sadly, 40 states still allow it. We continue to work for a day when mothers and their children are fully protected and respected by our laws and our society,” added Balch.
Founded in 1968, National Right to Life, the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.
