Do
unborn children feel pain during an abortion? It’s a
controversial question—one that first erupted in 1984 and
one to which Congress returns this year as it debates a bill
to insure women seeking abortions are told their unborn
child will experience severe pain.
Twenty-one years ago President Ronald Reagan stirred a
national controversy when he said that “when the lives of
the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain—pain that
is long and agonizing.”
A Washington Post columnist accused him of
“outright demagoguery” and the abortion-friendly American
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said he was
wrong. ‘’We are unaware of any evidence of any kind that
would substantiate a claim that pain is perceived by a
fetus,” an ACOG official said.
But a group of 26 experts, including two former
presidents of ACOG backed up the President. The experts told
Reagan in a letter that “in drawing attention to the
capability of the human fetus to feel pain, you stand on
firmly established ground.”
U.S. District Judge William C. Casey returned to the
question last year in a trial of the Partial Birth Abortion
Ban Act. Judge Casey closely questioned pro-abortion expert
witnesses, eliciting gruesome and graphic accounts about
partial-birth abortion, a procedure in which the abortionist
stabs the child in the base of the skull, and suctions her
skull.
Don’t
Know, Don’t Care
“Does the fetus feel pain?” Judge Casey asked abortionist
Dr. Timothy Johnson during the trial.
“I don’t know,” Johnson answered. “I don’t know of any
scientific evidence one way or the other.”
“Does it ever cross your mind when you are doing a
dismemberment?” Casey asked, adding, “Simple question,
Doctor. Does it
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cross your mind?”
“No,” Johnson answered.
“Never crossed your mind.”
“No.”
In ruling against the federal ban on partial birth
abortion because of an earlier Supreme Court ruling,
Casey said the abortionists he questioned offered
answers on fetal pain that “ranged from uncertainty
about whether fetuses feel pain to a lack of caring on
the matter.” Casey said in his decision that the
evidence for the existence of fetal pain was both
“credible” and “unrebutted” at trial.
Despite the professed ignorance of abortion
practitioners, anesthesia is routinely given to unborn
children during fetal surgery. When doctors at
Vanderbilt operated in 1999 on 21-week old Samuel Armas
for spina bifida, he was given anesthesia, according to
the doctor who performed the surgery. The picture of
Samuel’s tiny hand grasping the surgeon’s finger was
displayed in newspapers around the world.
There is now compelling medical evidence to show that
dismembering an unborn child during abortion, or, in the
case of partial-birth abortion, puncturing the base of
the skull and
Please see
Abortion Pain
page 4
Election Improves
Pro-life Prospects |
The pro-life cause gained ground in Congress on
November 2. Twenty of 38 new House members, and
seven of nine new senators, are pro-life, according
the National Right to Life Committee.
The Senate pickups are significant since it has been a
“graveyard” for key pro-life legislation, according
to Douglas Johnson, the NRLC’s legislative director.
While Johnson cautioned that the Senate will still
Please see Pro-Life Prospects,
page 4 |
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