By Dave Andrusko

When pro-lifers look back on 2011, they can be proud not only of the number of protective measures passed in many states but of the variety. To name just a few ...

Laws requiring ultrasounds before the mother aborts; regulations to begin to rein in at least a few specific types of the abuses associated with many abortion clinics; new or enhanced women’s right to know laws; taking advantage of the provision on ObamaCare that allows states to prohibit coverage of abortions under the qualified health plans offered through the health insurance exchanges; and laws targeting webcam abortions by requiring the abortionist to actually be in the same room as the mother.

But what might be a sleeper issue to the larger public is the measure that National Right to Life and its affiliates will give extraordinary attention to in 2012: the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. These measures, now the law in five states, protect from abortion unborn children capable of experiencing pain.

What is that point? Medical science has established that this takes place no later than 20 weeks after fertilization—in more common parlance from the start of the sixth month.

We don’t have to go into excruciating detail to understand the excruciating pain the unborn child endures as she is torn limb from limb. For many of the very same reasons the American people—and therefore Congress—were deeply moved by the debate over partial-birth abortion, so, too, will the public be moved to outrage if we can convey this truth.

As NRLC’s January 23 press conference, NRLC Director if State Legislation Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., explained to reporters both why the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is so significant and how we got to this point.

In some ways it is almost as if we knew more about the moon in the 1970s than we did about the unborn child. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that the concept of the unborn child as patient was born, followed by the beginning of the sub-specialty known as fetal medicine.

Fetal surgery on unborn children is now a frequent occurrence at several hospitals around the country. Physicians began to observe that unborn children experienced pain during the surgery. Subsequently they began to regularly administer anaesthesia to the unborn child at around 20 weeks after fertilization.

All this new information—and more—paved the way for legislation to protect these unborn children from the horrific pain inflicted during an abortion. Nebraska was the first in 2010. It would be difficult to overstate its historic importance.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act could someday present the Supreme Court with the opportunity to bring its abortion jurisprudence into the 21st century. The law is grounded in a moral empathy that resonates with the American people: “You don’t kill unborn children capable of feeling pain.” Basing its conclusion on an enormous body of medical research (literally hundreds of studies), this first-of-its-kind law conservatively sets the demarcation at 20 weeks.

As Balch has written elsewhere:

“It is critically important to understand that the interest asserted here is not just one in diminishing or eliminating the unborn children’s pain during an abortion. Rather, it is that the unborn child’s capacity to experience pain is a significant developmental milepost, making the unborn child at that point sufficiently akin to an infant or older child to trigger a compelling state interest.

“The stage of development at which the unborn child is capable of experiencing pain is at least as ‘clear’ and arguably more ‘workable’ in comparison with viability. While viability is predominately an extrinsic measurement of the capacity of medical science to sustain the life of a premature infant, the capacity to feel pain is an intrinsic, innate feature of the unborn child at a particular stage of development.”

It is extremely revealing that after broadly hinting it was just a matter of time, no pro-abortion organizations has challenged the law in court. Why?