In 2013, the House of Representatives passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which prohibited abortion after 20 weeks gestation, when an unborn child is capable of feeling pain. Unfortunately, the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to take the bill up for a vote, and the bill died there. Now that the GOP controls both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the bill has been re-introduced by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
From LifeNews:
“More than 18,000 ‘very late term’ abortions are performed every year on perfectly healthy unborn babies in America. These are innocent and defenseless children who can not only feel pain, but who can survive outside of the womb in most cases, and who are torturously killed without even basic anesthesia. Many of them cry and scream as they die, but because it is amniotic fluid going over their vocal cords instead of air, we don’t hear them.”
“Late term Abortion in America has its defenders, but no true or principled defense. The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act seeks to afford basic protection to mothers and their unborn babies entering the sixth month of gestation,” he said. “Throughout America’s history, the hearts of the American people have been moved with compassion when they discover a theretofore hidden class of victims, once they grasp both the humanity of the victims and the inhumanity of what is being done to them. America is on the cusp of another such realization.”
While this is certainly a step in the right direction in protecting unborn lives, right now it's unlikely that the bill will actually become law. President Obama has promised to veto the bill if it ever came on his desk, and there isn't a veto-proof majority of pro-life Senators. Still, the law is widely supported in public polls, and this is positive momentum for change.
Stay tuned!