ALABAMA SENATE VOTES TO PROTECT PAIN-CAPABLE UNBORN CHILDREN

NRLC urges Alabama House to take final action before midnight

 

WASHINGTON – Today, the Alabama Senate voted 26-5 to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which protects unborn children capable of feeling pain. The action of the Alabama Senate continues a trend sweeping through the state legislatures. Already this session, the Alabama House has voted in favor of enacting similar legislation this past April. The House has until midnight tonight to concur with the small changes made by the Senate.

 

“Alabama is the latest in a line of states poised to protect unborn children capable of feeling pain," said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).  "State legislatures are stepping up to protect these children, thus reflecting the majority wishes of their constituents."

The model Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, drafted by the National Right to Life Committee’s state legislation department, protects the life of the unborn child at the point that they are capable of feeling pain except when the mother "has a condition which so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion of her pregnancy to avert death or to avert serious risk of substantial or irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function or...it is necessary to preserve the life of an unborn child."  Further documentation and links to the scientific studies can be found at: www.doctorsonfetalpain.com.

 

"We are calling on the Alabama House of Representatives, which already passed the bill, to quickly concur with the Senate version before tonight's midnight legislative deadline," said Cheryl Ciamarra, Alabama Citizens for Life national director.

 

This continued trend in the states during the spring legislative session began in Nebraska last year when they passed this first-of-its-kind legislation. Already this year, the legislation has been passed in Idaho, Kansas and Oklahoma.  In addition to Alabama, the National Right to Life model Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is currently under consideration in Oregon, Massachusetts, and Minnesota.

 

"We are pleased with the progress we have been making in the states,” said Spaulding Balch.  “We are working to ensure that pain-capable unborn children all across the country will be protected from horrendous death by abortion.”

 

Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.