WASHINGTON — Statehouses across the United States have served as
venues for the abortion debate to play out in the past few months, but the
action April 9 was on Capitol Hill with a hearing held by the Senate Judiciary
Committee on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
And this time, ideological adversaries sparred over what criteria
make a fetus capable of experiencing pain.
Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who presented the
legislation over a year ago, opened the session by stressing that his bill is
humane and backed by scientific evidence.
"It would provide common sense protections for unborn
children at 20 weeks after fertilization," Graham said, "a point at
which there is significant scientific evidence that abortion inflicts
tremendous pain on the unborn child."
He continued: "(It is) standard medical practice to provide
anesthesia to a child at the 20-week period because we know they feel pain. ...
That says a lot, I think, about the development of the unborn child."
Graham's bill, while banning abortions past 20 weeks and
instituting high standards of care for children who do survive abortions that
it permits, still contains exceptions if a procedure is necessary to save the
life of the mother, or if a woman is pregnant due to rape or incest.
Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., rebutted Graham once
he had finished, presenting her own evidence that fetuses at 20 weeks gestation
would not feel pain.
And her testimony bore a stamp of approval from the American
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: "This is the premier
professional organization," she said.
Feinstein quoted from a statement given by that group: "A
human fetus does not have the capacity to experience pain until after
viability. Rigorous scientific studies have shown that the connections necessary
to transmit signals ... as well as the brain structures ... to process those
signals do not develop until at least 24 weeks of gestation."
At this point, a layman would rightly be confused. Why would
doctors administer anesthesia to a fetus that studies show can't detect pain
during an abortion?
After expert witnesses had gotten the chance to testify, however,
new facts began to come to light.
Dr. Donna Harrison, executive director of the American
Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, spoke in favor of the
bill and provided insight into why both sides seemed to be talking past each
other's facts.
She stated: "It is scientific fact that 20-week babies are
very sensitive to pain. They react the same way that you do. They withdraw from
painful stimuli, they release stress hormones, their heart rate increases, and
their breathing increases."
While not contesting Feinstein's assertion that fetuses at 20
weeks still have some incomplete neurological structures, Harrison did reveal
that their physical reactions to painful stimuli are almost indistinguishable
from that of an already-born human being.
This might explain why fetuses at this stage are anesthetized
prior to an abortion.
Graham may have been aware of this too, as his bill notes in the
"legislative findings" section that "recent medical research and
analysis, especially since 2007, provides strong evidence for the conclusion
that a functioning cortex is not necessary to experience pain."
In other testimony against the bill, Georgia State Sen. Jen
Johnson described a heinous toll she said Georgia's pain-capable abortion ban
has allegedly taken on women since its passage in 2012.
In addition to mentioning declining numbers of hospitals in rural
areas of the state, Johnson remarked: "Since the passage of Georgia's
20-week ban, we have seen the maternal mortality rate double, if not triple, in
the state of Georgia."
While it is true that Georgia ranks near the bottom among U.S.
states with regard to maternal mortality rates, several states with bans
similar to Georgia's don't appear to have had the same plight: According to
data gathered by USA Today, North Carolina has only 18.6 maternal deaths per
100,000 births to Georgia's 48.4, even with a 20-week ban that has been in
place longer than Georgia's.
As the hearing got underway, the chairman of the U.S. bishops'
pro-life committee issued a statement calling on Congress to pass the
Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and stop "the barbaric practice
of late-term abortion."
"This bill draws the public's attention to the shameful
reality that the United States is one of only seven nations worldwide that
allows the barbaric practice of late-term abortion, when a child likely feels
pain and might even live outside the womb with appropriate medical
assistance," said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, who
is chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life
Activities.