By Dave Andrusko

Gov. Dave Heineman (left) when he signed Nebraska's historic "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.” With him are  Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood, who worked tirelessly on behalf of the bill, and Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life.

I don't know if the comparison is to an itch that can't be scratched or to a really, really bad case of a really uneasy, troubled conscience. Whatever the explanation, pro-abortionists are drawn like a moth to a flame to Nebraska's "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act."

After muttering that "this will not stand," it appears as if the pro-abortion lobby may take a pass on challenging the law. They seem to realize that they may not like what would happen should the Supreme Court have a look.

As you recall, passed by the unicameral Nebraska legislature on a 44-5 vote, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act means "You don't kill unborn children capable of feeling pain," in the words Mary Spaulding Balch, NRLC's State Legislative Director. The Nebraska legislature, basing its conclusion on an enormous body of medical research, sets the demarcation at 20 weeks.

Of course one reason pro-abortion Susan Yanow talked about the law today is that it goes into effect on October 15.

Yanow headlines her equally hysterical and revealing contribution, "Nebraska and the Falsehood of Fetal Pain"
[www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/09/10/nebraska-falsehood-fetal-pain].

The problem Yanow faces is the same dilemma their attorneys run into. While she denounces the research behind the law as "pseudoscience and unsubstantiated 'acts'" (merely "tools in the war to limit access to abortion"), she grudgingly concedes,

"The science of what a fetus experiences is complicated--without verbal reports and direct access to the mind of a fetus, scientists can only make inferences about what fetuses are able to experience." (That's not entirely true, but let's let that go).
Moreover, "The question of whether or not a fetus feels pain during an abortion can be a troubling one to some women and clinicians." [Did she write "some"?]

Yanow then rehashes the high[low] points of the "Fetal Awareness" paper issued by Britain's Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists. Unfortunately for her, she even includes the claim that proponents feel is their real trump card: "New research shows that the fetus is kept in a continuous sleep-like unconsciousness by the presence of specific chemicals in the uterine environment."

But in his thorough and brilliant critique, Dr. Paul Ranalli puts that nonsense to rest. "For the authors [of the report] to imply that this sleeplike state obviates a potential for fetal pain is like saying that we shouldn't worry about the suffering experienced by a victim in light sleep who is suddenly attacked and stabbed repeatedly. It should be obvious that, after a split-second delay, the pain will be all too palpable." (See
www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/July10/nv071510.html)

It tells you all you really need to know about the pro-abortion set that they will say anything, believe anything, in order to do anything: slaughter unborn babies fully capable of experiencing horrific pain. What a bunch.