Senate Democrats Can’t Even Bring Themselves to Oppose Abortions After Five Months

Opinion   |   Tony Perkins   |   Nov 8, 2013   |   11:02AM   |   Washington, DC

Politico‘s headline for today’s pro-life pain debate is “Abortion Fight Returns to the Hill.” But when did it ever leave? The two sides have been duking it out in for months as part of ObamaCare, budget funding, judicial nominees, even the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The problem isn’t that abortion is back — the problem is that it never left!

Today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is doing what he can to give the country some relief from this constant battle by introducing some common sense limits on a procedure that’s taking advantage of millions of women and unborn lives. If Sen. Graham and his 33 cosponsors are successful, the federal government would follow several states’ lead and start banning abortion after five months of pregnancy — a move that could save more than 15,000 lives every year.

One of the conservatives in favor of the bill is Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who, in a nod to the latest polling, said, “You gotta work pretty hard to find anything but a huge majority” supporting this legislation.

Like the House’s version, which passed earlier this summer, Graham’s bill is based on the overwhelming scientific evidence that, even in the womb, children can feel excruciating pain. Most experts agree that the latest possible point of that sensory development is 20 weeks — though many believe that babies suffer from abortion much earlier that that.

During her House testimony, Dr. Maureen Condic, a pediatric expert who is also an Associate Professor of Neurobiology, explained that even at eight weeks, children begin establishing the spinal circuitry for pain. By nine weeks, when the baby is barely an inch long, their sensory nerves have already reached the skin.

At five months, these tiny children are completely vulnerable to the pain of their own abortions. While liberals rant and rave about the “extremism” of bills like Graham’s, they’re actually putting themselves at odds with modern medicine. As several people pointed out in the House debate, there’s a reason doctors provide anesthesia when they perform surgery on “wanted” babies at the same stage. Anything less is inhumane.

But the Left is so fiercely protective of America’s culture of killing and sex without “consequences” that it’s unwilling, even for a second, to consider the torture abortion inflicts on defenseless children.

When the bill was introduced, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) tried to accuse Republicans of distracting America away from “more important matters.” “In election after election,” she fumed, “people have said, ‘Focus on jobs.'” As far as most people are concerned, Republicans are focused on the most important job of all! Motherhood.

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Murray went on to say the GOP would embrace this bill “at their own peril” — a pretty ironic statement considering the latest polling data. Once they hear the facts on fetal pain, 64% of people throw their support behind the 20-week abortion ban. And that includes 63% of women, who seem to have a great deal more compassion than senators like Patty Murray — or even the President, who’s already threatened to veto the bill.

That isn’t deterring pro-life groups, including FRC, whose Anna Higgins spoke at a Capitol press conference earlier this afternoon on behalf of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This, Anna reminded everyone, “is the human rights issue of our time.” And “efforts to protect women and innocent children from late-term abortion are worthy of our support no matter how fierce the opposition.” Use your voice. Contact your senators and urge them to sign on to Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill — for life.

LifeNews Note: Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council.