July 14, 2010

By Dave Andrusko

Good evening. Part Two of TN&V talks about how the Obama Administration is pushing for a pro-abortion constitution in Kenya. Part Three examines the GOP call that Elena Kagan recuse herself on cases involving ObamaCare, should she be confirmed to the Supreme Court. At National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), you'll find out how you can watch "Infinite Possibilities" online and the good news about another use for adult stem cells. Please send all of your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are now following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.

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.

It seemed almost an afterthought. The story out of Nebraska was how U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp had granted Planned Parenthood of the Heartland a preliminary injunction against a law intended to provide women with information about abortion's risks and alternatives.

Tucked away at the end of the story by the Associated Press's Nate Jenkins was a three-sentence reference to another law passed earlier this year by Nebraska--its first-in-the-nation "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act."

Jenkins wrote, "It initially drew threats of a legal challenge, but attorneys on both sides of the debate have recently theorized that the law might be allowed to stand over fears that losing a challenge to it would change the legal landscape for abortion."

Talk about lacking the power of your own convictions!

On April 13, when Gov. Dave Heinemen signed LB1103 into law, seemingly you could draw two conclusions, one from the pro-life side, the other from the pro-abortion side.

The Nebraska Legislature agreed, "You don't kill unborn children capable of feeling pain," in the words Mary Spaulding Balch, NRLC's State Legislative Director. The law, basing its conclusion on an enormous body of medical research, sets the demarcation at 20 weeks.

Pro-abortion groups seemed primed. The Center for Reproductive Rights was quoted in stories online threatening to challenge the law in court. Abortionist LeRoy Carhart, whose specialty is aborting children after 20 weeks, "has also suggested he might challenge the law," according to the Associated Press.

Three months later….silence…. until yesterday's suggestion that they may sit this one out. How can that be?

Hadn't Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Associated Press, "Courts have been chipping away at abortion rights...this would be like taking a huge hacksaw to the rights." The point Northrup (and other abortion advocates) made was that LB 1103 "absolutely cannot survive a challenge without a change to three decades of court rulings."

Precisely, which is why they appear to very, very reluctant to challenge the law.

It is crucial to understand that the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the issue of an unborn child's pain. "If/when they do," Balch said, "it would be a case of 'first impression,' as lawyers put it."

As much as pro-abortionists wish it were otherwise, time (and medical technology) has not stood still since. In the 37 years since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, technological improvements in fetal care have moved the point of viability back from the third trimester to 22-24 weeks. Alongside those breakthroughs "there's been an avalanche of new information about the unborn child, including demonstrating that she is pain-capable at 20 weeks," Balch explained.

Naturally, pro-abortionists carefully read what the Supreme Court has said and what it said between the lines. Worth remembering as this case moves along is that there are expressions both in the case that rejected a state ban on partial-birth abortions (Stenberg v. Carhart) and the case that upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortion (Gonzales v. Carhart) that some justices "get it."

For example, there is this from the dissent in the case overturning Nebraska's ban, referring to D&E abortions-- "The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb."

Nebraska's new law also raises a quintessential first-principle issue for the medical profession. Apropos that there is also this from Stenberg v. Carhart:

"[In the 1992 Casey decision] We held it was inappropriate for the Judicial Branch to provide an exhaustive list of state interests implicated by abortion…. Casey is premised on the States having an important constitutional role in defining their interests in the abortion debate. It is only with this principle in mind that Nebraska's interests can be given proper weight. . . . States also have an interest in forbidding medical procedures which, in the State's reasonable determination, might cause the medical profession or society as a whole to become insensitive, even disdainful, to life, including life in the human fetus. . . . A State may take measures to ensure the medical profession and its members are viewed as healers, sustained by a compassionate and rigorous ethic and cognizant of the dignity and value of human life, even life which cannot survive without the assistance of others." (Emphasis added.)

But the reason the law is so powerful is not just because judges and justices and the medical profession may get a wake up call. "People who know nothing about abortion 'get it,'" Balch said. "You don't need coursework in fetal anatomy to know that babies this mature will suffer excruciating pain as they are being torn apart."

Part Two
Part Three