WASHINGTON (January 19, 2012)–Key pro-life lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are poised to press forward on several major NRLC-backed bills during the months ahead, despite anticipated strong resistance from the pro-abortion majority that controls the U.S. Senate, and from pro-abortion President Barack Obama.

During 2011, the House passed several major pro-life measures, including a measure to completely cut off federal funds from Planned Parenthood, and a bill to permanently prohibit federal funding for abortion. Both bills ran into a brick wall of opposition from the Obama White House, including veto threats, and from the Democrat majority that controls the Senate. (See “Pro-Life House and Pro-Abortion Senate Divided on Pro-Life Issues, As Obama Pushes Pro-Abortion Agenda,” Fall 2011 NRL News, page 1.)

But pro-life leaders in the House are not giving up.

At NRL News deadline, pro-life Congressman Trent Franks (R-Az.) had announced plans to introduce a new pro-life bill on January 23—the day of the annual “March for Life” in Washington—titled “The District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”

Franks’ proposal is strongly backed by NRLC—and in fact, is closely patterned after NRLC-originated model legislation to protect “pain-capable unborn children,” which has already been enacted in five states. In 2012, NRLC affiliates will be pushing for enactment in at least five additional states. (See “In a Year of Important Pro-Life Victories, None Was More Important Than Passage of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” page 9.)

In 2010, Nebraska became the first state to enact the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. During 2011, four more states (Kansas, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Alabama) enacted such bans.

In enacting each of these bills, the respective legislatures declared that there is substantial scientific evidence that the unborn child is capable of experiencing great pain during abortion procedures conducted at 20 weeks after fertilization. (These bills leave open the question of whether there is now, or will be in the future, scientific evidence that the unborn child experiences pain earlier than that.) On the basis of these “legislative findings,” the bills place a general ban on abortion, with certain exceptions, from 20 weeks on (i.e., from about the beginning of the sixth month, in layman’s terminology).

No serious legal challenge has yet been mounted to any of these five laws. Enactment of the Nebraska law persuaded notorious abortionist Leroy Carhart to abandon his practice in that state. He has since set up shop in Maryland.

However, in the Federal District—the district created by the U.S. Constitution for the specific purpose of serving as the seat of the national government—abortion is currently legal, for any reason, at any point in pregnancy. The Constitution confers legislative authority to do something about this solely on a single legislative body: The Congress of the United States. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says explicitly that Congress shall “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District ... .“

Franks’ bill would prohibit aborting a “pain-capable unborn child” within the Federal District, with narrowly defined exceptions. It contains findings of fact and other provisions similar to those found in the state bills.

“Today, in our nation’s capital, an unborn child can be killed at any point prior to birth, for any reason,” said NRLC Federal Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. “Under the U.S. Constitution, the sole and exclusive legislative authority to protect unborn children within the Federal District resides with the Congress. In short, abortion will remain unrestricted in the nation’s capital, during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth months, only if the lawmakers who control one house of Congress, or the President, obstruct this bill.”

Franks chairs the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, which is the primary panel to which the new bill will be referred. A staff person for the chairman of the full House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tx.), told NRL News that Smith also supports the bill.

At least two abortionists currently are advertising that they provide abortions in D.C. past the point that the bill establishes the cutoff—in one case to 24 weeks after fertilization, and in the other case during the third trimester, with no limitation stated.

“Enactment of the D.C. Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act will be a top priority for NRLC during 2012,” said NRLC’s Johnson. “The capital city of the United States should not also be the capital for causing torment to unborn babies in the sixth month and later.”

(A letter sent by NRLC to members of the U.S. House on January 19, 2012, urging them to sign up as original cosponsors on this bill, is posted on the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org/abortion/Fetal_Pain/NRLCtoHouseonDCPainBan.html.)

NRLC has also endorsed another bill authored by Congressman Franks which is likely to emerge from the House Judiciary Committee during the next few months—the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA, pronounced “PREN-dah”) (H.R. 3541).

This bill would apply a national ban on abortions performed on the basis of the race or sex of the unborn child.

Mr. Franks chaired a public hearing on the bill in the Constitution Subcommittee on December 6, 2011. (A video recording of this hearing may be viewed on the House Judiciary Committee website, at http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_12062011_2.html).

H.R. 3541 would apply federal criminal penalties to any person who does any of the following four things: “(1) performs an abortion knowing that such abortion is sought based on the sex, gender, color or race of the child, or the race of a parent of that child; (2) uses force or the threat of force to intentionally injure or intimidate any person for the purpose of coercing a sex-selection or race-selection abortion; (3) solicits or accepts funds for the performance of a sex-selection abortion or a race-selection abortion; or (4) transports a woman into the United States or across a State line for the purpose of obtaining a sex-selection abortion or race-selection abortion.”

The bill also provides for private civil lawsuits against violators. However, the bill provides that a woman cannot be prosecuted or sued in connection with her own abortion.

Testifying at the December 6 hearing, Steven W. Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, said: “While it is difficult to say with any exactitude how many sex-selection abortions take place in the U.S. each year, the number is not trivial. Consider that among the populations demonstrated to practice sex-selective abortion there are 3.9 million Chinese-Americans, 2.8 million Asian-Indians, and 1.6 million Korean-Americans living in the United States.” Two academic studies found ”highly skewed sex ratios” among these groups, findings that ”suggest that, among these groups alone, tens of thousands of unborn girls have been eliminated for no other reason than they are considered by some to be the wrong sex.”

In 2006, the Zogby polling first asked, “Do you agree or disagree that it should be illegal in the US to have an abortion because of the sex of the fetus?” Eighty-six percent (86%) agreed, while only 10% disagreed.

However, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL, said in a release that the PRENDA was “out of touch with our nation’s values and priorities,” and would result in women being “stigmatized for their choices.”

Also slated for House Judiciary Committee action is the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA, pronounced “see-ANNA”) (H.R. 2299), sponsored by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl.).

This bill would require any abortionist to notify a parent before performing an abortion on a minor who is a resident of another state, with certain exceptions.

More than half of the states require notification of or consent from at least one parent, or authorization from a court, prior to performance of an abortion on a minor, but these laws are often avoided by minors who cross state lines, either on their own or with the collaboration of abortion providers and others.

In addition to the notification requirements, the bill also would make it a federal offense to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion without fulfilling the requirements of a parental involvement requirement that is in effect in the home state.

The CIANA passed the House several times in earlier years. The most recent House approval occurred in 2006, when it also received majority support in the U.S. Senate, but was blocked by a filibuster by Democrat senators.

On June 21, 2011, the CIANA also was introduced in the U.S. Senate by freshman Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) as S. 1241.

“State parental involvement laws have been undermined and circumvented by those who simply travel to other states,” Rubio said at the time. “It is important that this practice end permanently and states have the ability to enforce their laws.”