Looking Ahead To President Bush's Second Term
Pro-Life Response to Roe:  Federal Legislation

Evidence Mounts
Abortion is Excruciatingly Painful to Unborn Children
By Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ)

Editor's note. The long, intense debate over banning the gruesome partial-birth abortion technique educated the entire nation. The sharp educational curve continued at three trials initiated by pro-abortion litigants. The testimony brought before the American public in a dramatic fashion the issue of the incredible pain unborn children experience in an abortion. As noted below, Congressman Smith and Senator Sam Brownback (R-Ks.), joined by many cosponsors, have introduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act.

While the judicial hearings on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban only began last year, the trials are already taking their rightful place as a key part of human rights history. The details they uncovered shocked the public and spawned new pro-life legislation called the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. The trials exposed the excruciating pain unborn babies experience every day when their lives are violently snuffed out by abortion, and the whole country has now been made aware of their anguish.

Some of the most powerful testimony on the violence of partial-birth abortion, and the coldness of those who commit it, came from New York, where Judge Richard C. Casey did not allow euphemisms to be used in place of plain descriptions of what actually happens in an abortion. On March 31, an abortionist testified,

Abortionist: "What they did, they delivered the fetus intact until the head was lodged in the cervix. Then they reached up and crushed it. They used forceps to crush the skull."

Judge Casey: "Like a cracker that they use to crack a lobster shell?"

Abortionist: "Like an end of tongs you use to pick up a salad, except they are thick enough and heavy enough to crush the skull."

Judge Casey: "Except in this case you are not picking up a salad, you are crushing a baby's skull. The fetus is still alive at this point?"

Abortionist: "Yes, sir."

Judge Casey: "The fingers of the baby opened and closed?"

Abortionist: "I did not observe the hands when I observed the procedure."

Judge Casey: "Were the feet moving?"

Abortionist: "Yes, sir, until the skull was crushed."

In expert testimony provided to each court considering the partial-birth abortion ban, Dr. Sunny Anand, Director of the Pain Neurobiology Laboratory at Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute explained, " the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children."

Dr. Anand further described before the court that,

"The highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero from 20 to 30 weeks gestation. During this period, the epidermis is still very thin, leaving nerve fibers closer to the surface of the skin than in older neonates and adults." He went on to explain that, "...the pain inhibitory mechanisms (fibers which dampen and modulate the experience of pain) do not begin to develop until 32-34 weeks of gestation. Thus, a fetus at 20-32 weeks of gestation would experience a much more intense pain than older infants or children or adults, when these age groups are subjected to similar types of injury or handling..." (emphasis added)

After hearing expert testimony from both sides, on August 26, 2004, Judge Casey, made the following formal "findings of fact":

"The Court finds that the testimony at trial and before Congress establishes that D&X [partial-birth abortion] is a gruesome, brutal, barbaric, and uncivilized medical procedure. Dr. Anand's testimony, which went unrebutted by Plaintiffs, is credible evidence that D&X abortions subject fetuses to severe pain. Notwithstanding this evidence, some of Plaintiffs' experts testified that fetal pain does not concern them, and that some do not convey to their patients that their fetuses may undergo severe pain during a D&X."

Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act

Because of the new recognition these trials brought to the issue of the incredible pain unborn children experience in an abortion, Senator Brownback and I, joined by many cosponsors, introduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act (HR 4420/S 2466) last Congress and will introduce it again this Congress. The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act would require that those performing abortions at or beyond the 20-week point, provide the mother with certain information regarding the capacity of the unborn child to experience pain during the abortion, and offer the mother the option of having pain-reducing drugs administered directly to the unborn child to reduce his or her pain.

While the partial-birth abortion trials established that unborn children feel pain during a partial-birth abortion, it is easy to understand why the method of abortion called Dilation and Evacuation causes probably even more pain than a Partial-Birth Abortion.

The Dilation and Evacuation method of abortion, which is used in most second-trimester abortions, involves the abortionist grasping the unborn child's body parts at random with a long-toothed clamp. The fetal body parts are then torn off of the body and pulled out of the mother. The remaining body parts are grasped and pulled out, one by one, until only the head remains. The head is then grasped and crushed in order to finally remove it from the mother. It takes 30 minutes from beginning to end. Just like Partial-Birth Abortion, which was exposed in court as painful, this is incredible violence against helpless children.

So the question isn't whether unborn babies suffer pain during an abortion, but how much. We don't even allow livestock to be treated that way. Congress requires pain to be minimized when livestock are slaughtered. It has numerous provisions to prevent pain in laboratory animals, but nothing for unborn human beings. Section 2 of the Humane Slaughter Act (7 U.S.C. 1902) states:

"No method of slaughter or handling in connection with slaughtering shall be deemed to comply with the public policy of the United States unless it is humane. Either of the following two methods of slaughtering and handling are hereby found to be humane: (i) in the case of cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep, swine, and other livestock, all animals are rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut;..." (emphasis added)

Women have the right to know the scientifically accurate facts about the medical development of unborn children and that an unborn child feels pain during an abortion. An April 15-17, 2004, Zogby Poll found that 77% of th public favor "laws requiring that women who are 20 weeks or more along in their pregnancy be given information about fetal pain before having an abortion." Only 16% disagreed.

The partial-birth abortion trials have revealed the awful truth - - every day during abortions performed in each of our cities and towns unborn children feel unimaginable pain, more pain than you or I as adults are capable of feeling. As we go about our daily lives, right down the street babies are losing their lives by being ripped limb from limb in a painful way that would create an outcry if they did it to a cat, dog, cow or pig.

Let's stop the denial and recognize the truth - - abortion is excruciatingly painful to unborn children.

 [Extensive additional information on the pain of the unborn, and the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, can be found on the NRLC website at http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/fetal_pain/index.html]