Today's News & Views
February 8, 2005
Pushing for an "F" -- Part One

There can never be appointments to the Supreme Court--let alone two in four months--without the buzz of chatter about the fate of Roe v. Wade. As this morning's USA Today put it, "Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court put a national spotlight on abortion" and whether he "might be part of a legal avalanche that eventually topples Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion legal nationwide."

But that same front page article by Joan Biskupic noted in the very next sentence (with that unbiased, even-handed touch we've come to expect), "For now, however, most of the debates over abortion in state legislatures stem from abortion opponents' continuing push to emphasize the interests of fetuses and to create more hurdles for women seeking abortions." Biskupic turned to Elizabeth Nash, who follows state legislation for the Alan Guttmacher Institute. Planned Parenthood's special research affiliate, for the pro-abortion perspective.

Nash told Biskupic, "the social conservatives who want to restrict abortion had a bigger impact in the states last year than they had in the past several years." She added, "And from the legislation that was introduced in January, it appears there will be a lot of state activity on abortion restrictions in 2006."

And as an article in the February issue of National Right to Life News makes clear, NRLC's state affiliates are already hard at work. They are clarifying the reach of laws already on the books, coming back for another try on legislation stymied last year, and creatively probing for new approaches that heighten in the public's mind the dichotomy between the affection we shower on ever-more-visible unborn children and the grim truth that over one in every four of these little ones will be annihilated.

A second article that appears inside the paper states in the headline that "Abortion Foes Gain On New Front." And what might that new front be? "[P]roposals to require doctors to tell women seeking abortions that their fetuses might feel pain during the procedure" at "20 weeks or more gestational age."

Unborn Child Pain Awareness legislation is not new, but it is gaining increased visibility. The story, also written by Biskupic, says that 19 states introduced such bills in 2005 and four passed, although Wisconsin's was vetoed by pro-abortion Gov. Jim Doyle. (Parenthetically, I don't know how she determined the number was 19, but NRLC's figure is that 13 states introduced Unborn Child Pain Awareness legislation last year.)

Additional bills are moving through the legislative gauntlet in 2006. Biskupic correctly points out that the measure has passed in the Utah and Indiana Houses and headed for their respective state Senates. She did not mention that such laws have been introduced in five other states as well.

Biskupic touches on the rational offered by Gov. Doyle for vetoing Wisconsin's bill--that it failed "to reflect a consensus of medical opinion" and "intrudes on the doctor-patient relationship in a heavy-handed manner." Doyle cited what Biskupic correctly called "a controversial report in the Journal of the American Medical Association that said there is no conclusive evidence of when a fetus first feels pain."

Without going off on a lengthy side trail, the JAMA story was written by researchers with known pro-abortion credentials (including a well-known practitioner of late abortions), who did no new laboratory research. The report was merely a commentary on a selection of existing medical literature. The conclusions reached by the five were arrived at through a highly tendentious methodology, to put it politely.

When it comes to pain in neonates and the unborn, unquestionably the leading authority is Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand, a pain researcher who holds tenured chairs in pediatrics, anesthesiology, pharmacology, and neurobiology at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Anand said in a document accepted as expert by a federal court, "It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and that pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by newborns or older children."

[For a complete rebuttal of the JAMA article, go to http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/Fetal_Pain/NRLCrebuttalJAMA.html]

These Unborn Child Pain Awareness measures (labeled by Biskupic as "fetal pain" bills) are the bane of the Abortion Establishment's existence. As Tony Lauinger, executive director of Oklahomans for Life (and the Vice President of NRLC), told USA Today, measures like this are "legislation within the framework of Roe v. Wade ... to help the public more fully appreciate the humanity of the unborn."

If we believe NARAL's annual "Who Decides? The Status of Women's Reproductive Rights in the United States," the 50 states already had a cumulative "D-" grade coming out of 2005. Let's keep pushing until every state rings up an "F."

If you have any comments, please send them to Dave Andrusko at dandrusko@nrlc.org.

Part 2