Several pro-life groups have already issued statements within the first hour following passage of the bill. Below is a collection of some of the statements LifeNews has received.

National Right to Life:

“This legislation reflects the views of the overwhelming majority of both men and women,” said NRLC President Carol Tobias. “The Obama White House, and all but a handful of House Democrats, fought for essentially unlimited abortion in the sixth month or later, despite growing public awareness of the violence perpetrated by late-term abortionists such as Kermit Gosnell and the pain they inflict on unborn babies.”

Tobias said a veto threat issued yesterday by the Obama White House was not surprising, “because as a legislator, Barack Obama said he would trust abortionists to take good care of any babies born alive — he would trust the Gosnells, in other words. Obama’s veto threat harkened back to his opposition to the ban on partial-birth abortion, and his attacks on the Supreme Court for upholding the ban on that brutal method of late abortion.”

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins:

“I applaud the House vote on a bill that is truly informed by modern science, which shows unborn children are fully capable of experiencing pain by 20 weeks after fertilization. Unborn children in their sixth month of pregnancy or later are routinely given anesthesia during prenatal surgery, so this legislation conforms federal abortion law to modern science.

“It’s disappointing that the president is stuck in the Roe v. Wade science of the ’70s and has threatened to veto the bill. Ignoring modern science is harmful to both unborn children and mothers, as we know babies can survive as early as 22 weeks after gestation. The horrific pain of being ripped apart limb by limb must be stopped.

“Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s house of horrors shows we must stop late abortion. He was convicted of murdering babies born alive but also of 21 counts of illegal late abortions after 24 weeks in violation of state law. Yet many states continue to allow these brutal late abortions through the ninth month.

“The only difference between killing a baby born alive and aborting them just prior to birth is location. Human dignity is not dependent upon location.

“We call on the Senate to update legal protection for pain-capable children and pass this legislation to stop future Gosnells. Americans overwhelmingly support restrictions to late abortion and we urge the Senate to ignore the president’s advisors and pass the House bill,” concluded Perkins.

Susan B. Anthony List:

“Congress has taken an important first step toward making sure we stop abortionists like Kermit Gosnell and his horrific abortion clinic and procedures. The House listened to the overwhelming majority of Americans, men and women, who instinctively recoil at the dehumanizing and degrading practice of late-term abortion,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the SBA List. “This pro-woman, pro-science, Constitutional bill deserves an immediate vote in the U.S. Senate. It’s simple: children capable of experiencing unimaginable pain from abortion must be protected across the country.

“The big abortion industry cannot defend late-term abortions. Americans are disturbed by the callous nature of this practice, the disgusting clinic conditions in Pennsylvania, Delaware and other states, the 330,000 abortions Planned Parenthood of America performs every year as it receives half a billion in taxpayer dollars, and the repeated harm women experience as a result of their exploitation. Women and the unborn deserve better than abortion, and making late-term abortions illegal is a simple step in that direction. Votes have consequences. Congress should take note we’re pulling together our 2014 target list tonight.”

Concerned Women for America:

“We applaud the House of Representatives for a brave vote for life. Today, women led the vote and the lobbying on a monumental bill. After the Kermit Gosnell trial, the American people were horrified and demanded action and, today, the House answered by passing the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Gosnell was not an aberration, and we praise the legislators who acted to prevent future babies from the same fate. Now the battle moves to the Senate. Supporters of this bill recognize that these babies can’t speak for themselves but that they can feel pain and respond to their mother’s voice.

“Our members were overwhelmingly engaged in this battle. This movement was driven by women. CWALAC saw 250,000 members actively engaged on this bill, knowing how monumental this vote is and its potential to change the debate in our country. We praise them and their legislators for their courage to take on this issue.”

The Catholic Association:

“The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act passed Tuesday in the House will save lives. We are deeply grateful to the supporters of this bill. The brutality of the Gosnell case demonstrated that not only is late-term abortion a danger to viable babies, but to women as well. A recent poll reported that only 14 percent of Americans support third-trimester abortions and only 27 percent support second-trimester abortions showing that Americans overwhelmingly support restrictions on late-term abortion.” Ashley McGuire, Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association

“We commend Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn and the House for voting to limit late-term abortion in the wake of the murder conviction of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. The overwhelming majority of Americans support such a ban, recognizing that there is no difference between a fetus in-utero in the sixth month of pregnancy and a baby in the NICU born at six months of pregnancy, except the protection of the law.” Maureen Ferguson, Senior Policy Advisor with The Catholic Association

Americans United for Life:

Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest commended the U.S. House for voting to limit abortion after a child reaches 20 weeks – or about 6 months – of pregnancy. “Even though the bill did not contain explicit findings regarding the adverse effects of late term abortion on maternal health, there is no dispute that the health risks of abortion to women greatly increases with late-term procedures and the pain endured by the child in the womb is clearly horrific,” said Dr. Yoest. “I applaud the members of the U.S. House for respecting the viewpoint of the vast majority of women, who do not support such gruesome abortion procedures performed against fully formed infants.”

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“This bill both safeguards unborn children and takes an important and necessary step toward protecting the health and safety of women from the dangers inherent in abortion,” said Dr. Yoest, who noted that a woman seeking an abortion at 20 weeks is 35 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester. At 21 weeks or more, she is 91 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester.

“Now the members of the U.S. Senate should stand with the women of America protect women and unborn, infant children, from dangerous, later-term procedures,” said Dr. Yoest.

Indiana Right to Life:

“We applaud Reps. Susan Brooks (IN-5), Larry Buschon (IN-8), Luke Messer (IN-6), Todd Rokita (IN-4), Marlin Stutzman (IN-3), Jackie Walorski (IN-2) and Todd Young (IN-9) for protecting innocent human life from a horrific abortion procedure when they are capable of feeling pain,” stated Becky Rogness, Communications Director for Indiana Right to Life. “These unborn babies should not suffer by the abortionist’s hand when they will feel the procedure. The passage of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a positive step forward in valuing our country’s unborn children and will help prevent future atrocities like the kind uncovered in the Kermit Gosnell ‘House of Horrors.’”

The vote for the bill broke down on mostly partisan lines with Republicans supporting the ban on late-term abortions and Democrats opposing it. The House approved the bill on a 228-196 vote with 7 Democrats voting for the bill and 6 Republicans voting against it. (See end for how members voted).

The bill, if it receives a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate, is not expected to pass and pro-abortion President Barack Obama has issued a veto threat. But pro-life groups hope to use the measure as an election tool in 2014 in an attempt to wrest the Senate from abortion advocates.

Leading pro-life organizations issued statements praising the House for the vote.

“I would hope that stopping atrocities against little babies is something we can agree to put an end to,” Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota said during the debate. “We’re talking about babies who, if they were born and simply given a chance, they could survive outside the womb.”

Congresswoman Wagner of Missouri added: “As science and technology continue to advance, we are changing hearts and mind. It is not only the pain of the child we must consider, but also the pain of the mother. Everyone talks about the right to choose, but no one discusses the implications of that choice. I am for life at all stages. I am for the life of the baby, and I am also for the life of the mother. I will continue to work for a day when abortion is not only illegal, but absolutely unthinkable.”

Rep. Chris Smith, the head of the pro-life caucus in the House, spoke eloquently from the House floor.

“The brutality of severing the spines of defenseless babies—euphemistically called “snipping” by Gosnell—has finally peeled away the benign façade of the billion dollar abortion industry” he said.

“Like Gosnell, abortionists all over America decapitate, dismember and chemically poison babies to death each and every day. That’s what they do. Americans are connecting the dots and asking whether what Gosnell did is really any different than what other abortionists do. A D&E abortion—a common method after 14 weeks—is a gruesome, pain-filled act that literally rips and tears to pieces the body parts of a child,” he added. “The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a modest but necessary attempt to at least protect babies who are 20 weeks old—and pain-capable—from having to suffer and die from abortion.”

One leading expert in the field of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand at the University of Tennessee, stated in his expert report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, “It is my opinion that 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.”

“Surgeons entering the womb to perform corrective procedures on unborn children have seen those babies flinch, jerk and recoil from sharp objects and incisions. Ultrasound technology shows unborn babies at 20 weeks post-fertilization and earlier react physically to outside stimuli such as sound, light and touch,” Smith continued. “Surgeons routinely administer anesthesia to unborn children in the womb before performing lifesaving surgeries, and this has been associated with a decrease in the baby’s stress hormone levels during the medical procedure.”

A recent national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger.   Only 30% said they would oppose such a law.

During the hearing, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.

Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.

The committee also saw graphic pictures of babies who were killed by Douglas Karpen, who is considered the second Kermit Gosnell.

The late-term abortion ban would allow abortion after 20 weeks post-fertilization if the mother’s life is endangered, or in cases of rape and incest reported prior to the abortion to appropriate authorities.

H.R. 1797 contains congressional findings of fact regarding the medical evidence that unborn children experience pain at least by 20 weeks “post-fertilization age,” or the start of the sixth month.

The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy. The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it.

He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”

He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen  were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.

“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote.

“Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.

With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center has provided further research to substantiate their work.

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“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified. She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”

Final Vote Results for HR 1797 Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

Consider the following exchange from Chapter 12. Several white passengers are traveling on a riverboat which happens to also be transporting slaves in chains:

Passenger 1: “What a shame to our country that such sights are to be seen!”

Passenger 2: “O, there’s a great deal to be said on both sides of the subject.  I’ve been south, and I must say I think the Negroes are better off than they would be to be free.”

Passenger 1: “In some respects, some of them are well off, I grant.  The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages on the feelings and affections, – the separation of families, for example.”

Passenger 2: “That is a bad thing, certainly.  But then, I fancy, it don’t occur often.”

Consider the two arguments for slavery contained in this exchange:

1. Slavery is ultimately better for Africans.
2. The really heartrending stuff does not occur very often.

Have you ever encountered the echoes of these arguments in your own conversations about abortion?

1. Abortion is ultimately better for children. Parents abort because they cannot afford a child, they do not want a child, or their child has been diagnosed with some defect. Therefore, abortion prevents situations in which children grow up in poverty, experience abuse and neglect, or live life with some miserable disability.
2. Sure, the Gosnell-style beheadings, partial-birth abortions, and agonizing late-term dismemberments are bad, but all that stuff is quite rare.

How should we respond to these arguments? Well, we could point out that (1) even poor, bullied, and ugly people generally prefer to be alive, and (2) late-term abortion is most certainly not rare. However, perhaps we would do best to answer as did a young parson, also traveling on the riverboat: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.”

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Towards the end of the chapter, Stowe offers her own commentary on slavery: “The weak [are] broken and torn for the profit and convenience of the strong!” Tragically, even though slavery has been abolished in America, Stowe’s words are still quite true. Literally.

LifeNews Note: Murray Vasser is a 27-year-old science teacher and theology student who contributes to Live Action News and blogs at http://murrayvasser.blogspot.com. This article is reprinted with permission.

Despite increased calls from the international community to rescind the policy, new notices have popped up all over the city of Huizhou by the so-called Centralized Services for Population and Family Planning: “A decision has been made after some research that a focused family planning service campaign shall be conducted in the community under our jurisdiction. This implementation plan is therefore formulated for the purpose.”

Faces of the Policy

The “one-child policy” has been in effect for 33 years, and most persons outside of China have heard repeated stories of the horrific human rights abuses which accompany the policy.

It is easy to grow emotionally complacent after more than three decades of horror stories, but these horrors will now be visited anew on the city of Huizhou: the new notices spell fear and sadness for the women of Huizhou.

The women in this city of 4 million people now face stricter child-bearing limitations imposed by Communist Party members who have the power to prevent employment, health care, housing and movement. One family planning official recounted her days in the Chinese hospitals:

A few, when I asked if they consented to the operation, burst into bitter laughter. “Why ask me?” one scoffed. “I don’t have any choice.” The population control workers in my unit have been after me for months. ‘Fanxing, fanxing!’ they ordered me. ‘Reflect on your mistake!’ Only if I undergo ‘remedial measures’ will they stop pressuring me and my husband.^[1]

Another mother was hounded by family planning officials, and she tells the story of her and her husband’s attempt to evade the policy:

“What can we do?” he responded, sounding defeated. “If the authorities are going to make an issue of this, what choice do we have but to go along? How can an egg break a rock?”

My eyes began to fill with tears. The outcome of my pregnancy was now a foregone conclusion. In a few hours my baby would be taken from me. Wei Xin put his arm around me and held me close.^[2]

Such is the reality of the new “focused family planning service campaign” which descended on Huizhou last month.

Fertility and Development in the Guangdong Province

According to recent reports, the new push for population control in Huizhou originates from the city’s “poor performance” in meeting prior quotas for births. Indeed, the women in the province of Guangdong have had a slightly higher fertility than the rest of China since the institution of the one-child policy in 1979.^[3] In the context of China, of course, a “high birth rate” does not mean large families. Guangdong province has had below replacement rate fertility—less than 2.1 children per woman—for over a decade.^[4]

The province has also been slowly but surely approached the same fertility trends of the rest of the nation. As the province developed, industrialized, and urbanized, the birth rate fell. The cities in the Pearl River Delta (including the city of Huizhou) have had lower fertility rates than the rest of the China for decades.^[5]

If China put half the energy into developing its economy as it does into population control, it would prosper, and birth rates would take care of themselves. A paper produced by the National Bureau of Statistics of China found that, “at least half of the change in the Total Fertility Rate [in the province of Guangdong] is accounted for by economic and social development, and less than half to marriage and fertility policy.^[6]”

After the change of regimes in the late 1970’s the Guangdong province was the first to reform away from the commune system of labor. As a result, the area experienced faster economic growth than any other province. The average person in the Pearl River Delta earns 24,000 yuan per year, while the national average is only 14,000 yuan per year.^[7]

Another recent article published by professors at the School of Management and the Institute for Population and Development Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong University wrote, “Given the negative effect of urbanization on the Total Fertility Rate, it is possible to relax the one-child policy without having adverse implications for population growth.^[8]”

The policy which has torn families apart and forcibly aborted over 300 infants has always been morally reprehensible, but 33 years ago, Chinese officials attempted to make utilitarian policy arguments. After decades of the policy, and decades of research, we can say that the utilitarian economic and demographic arguments do not hold either. China is digging its own demographic grave; it is time for the one-child policy to be revoked.

As National Review notes:

In an interview this morning, after Melvin cited that some feel evidence of pain before the third trimester is “limited,” Representative Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) explained to Melvin that premature babies, “these tiny little preemies,” respond to “the pricks and the prods and the pain” as doctors try to save them, and that surgeons operating on fetuses use anesthesia. Melvin interrupted her explanation to say, “I don’t want to get bogged down” with the issue. “I think a great deal of people would agree that science and that public opinion is on your side,” he said, before moving to another topic.

Later in the interview, Melvin interrupted Blackburn again to ask whether the bill before the House that would ban almost all abortions after 20 weeks was “purely pandering.” The congresswoman took offense, asking, “Is saving the life of women and babies ‘pandering?’ Absolutely not, I can’t believe you would say something like that.”

More transcript from the interview:

Melvin asks at 10:28: “Is this pandering?”

Blackburn: “No it isn’t pandering at all.”

Melvin: “Okay.”

Blackburn: “Is saving the life of women and of babies pandering? Absolutely not! I can’t believe you’d say something like that. My goodness.”

Melvin: “But Congressman, you know, you and I both know the President is not going to sign it. The Senate is not going to take it up. So clearly, this is a measure that is symbolic, is it not?”

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Blackburn: “You know what? It would be terrible if we sat on our hands knowing what we found out through Kermit Gosnell’s trial. Knowing that even his own attorney said ‘24 weeks is a bad determiner — the law needs to be moved back to 16/17 weeks.’ We’re not moving this as far back as Kermit Gosnell’s attorney said it should be moved back. We are taking a very reasonable step because the American people have spoken out and said they wanted something done. The U.S. House of Representatives is the people’s house. There are so many debates that are up to us to start the discussion. We will do that today and thank you for your attention to the issue.”