Rep. Louie Gohmert

The day has gotten away from me, so I will not have the necessary time to do an in-depth follow up to yesterday’s post about the first hearing on a nationwide Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 1797). But, fortunately, pro-life Congressman Chris Smith wrote an impressive and impassioned op-ed for the Washington Post which we have reproduced (see “Gosnell case shows abortion law needed to protect unborn children.”)

Instead, for today, let me offering three brief impressions, with a promise to revisit Thursday’s hearing conducted by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice next week.

#1. Talk about being hoisted on your own petard. As John McCormack of the Weekly Standards pointed out today

“Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, the sponsor of the bill and the subcommittee chairman, quoted heavily from Obama’s speech in response to the Newtown massacre. ‘This is our first task: caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how we as a society will be judged,’ Franks said, quoting Obama. ‘Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage. That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?’”

#2. POLITICO’s account of the hearing characterized yesterday’s hearing as filled with “the same familiar arguments in the fight over abortion.” It is true that in some sense you always return to the basics: you either believe that repeating the “it’s a woman’s decision” mantra obliterates every other concern or you don’t. But H.R. 1797 is exploring territory only a tiny percentage of the population has ever considered: what if—WHAT IF—the unborn child at no later than 20 weeks is capable of experiencing pain?

Anthony Levatino, MD, who once performed 2nd trimester “D&E” abortions before he became pro-life , explained in excruciating detail what takes place. You can watch Dr. Levatino’s testimony at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8szDctI9lXM&feature=youtu.be?

Prof. Maureen L. Condic then explained how and why babies of 20 weeks (if not earlier) do experience pain. Her conclusion:

In light of the scientific facts, the observations of medical professionals, our own experience of pain, and our indirect experience of others’ pain, we must conclude that there is indeed a “compelling governmental interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that they are capable of feeling pain.” And this unambiguously requires a 20 week fetus to be protected from pain, as proposed under H.R. 1797.

Even after listening to this mesmerizing testimony can anyone even pretend to grasp what agony it would be to have arms and legs torn off?

#3. I was absolutely transfixed by the quiet comments of Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tx.) In just six minutes he explained that their first child was a preemie. It was a “very difficult time in our lives” because they knew “our baby was in big trouble.”

And then he said this: Their neonatologist, Dr. Tsing, “said it is so important that the baby hear your voice. Please talk to your baby, and caress her. Talk to her. Her eyes don’t work real well; she won’t recognize you. But she will know your voice, because she’s heard you in utero.”

Rep. Gohmert said “My wife said go do anything you can for our baby. You can sit for two hours, so I sat.”

Dr. Tsing came by and asked, “Did you see the monitors?” The little girl’s vitals—breathing and heartbeat– were still off but they had stabilized. “She’s drawing strength,” Dr. Tsing told Gohmert, “she’s drawing life from you.”

What could I possibly add to that? See you next week.

(You can watch Rep. Gohmert as he spoke at www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0l419YViV0)

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Ma Jian

I so regularly trash the New York Times for its vast variety of errors of commission and omission that it is only right I offer praise for running “China’s Brutal One-Child Policy,” by novelist Ma Jian.

Whatever exceptions there may be in the one child policy, especially for the rich, according to Jian, for the poor, “the policy is a flesh-and-blood tiger with claws and fangs.”

Early in the op-ed we read

“Village family-planning officers vigilantly chart the menstrual cycle and pelvic-exam results of every woman of childbearing age in their area. If a woman gets pregnant without permission and is unable to pay the often exorbitant fine for violating the policy, she risks being subjected to a forced abortion.

“According to Chinese Health Ministry data released in March, 336 million abortions and 222 million sterilizations have been carried out since 1971. (Though the one-child policy was introduced in 1979, other, less-stringent family planning policies were in place before it.)

“These figures are easy to quote, but they fail to convey the magnitude of the horror faced by rural Chinese women. During a long journey through the hinterlands of southwest China in 2009, I was able to find some of the faces behind these numbers.”

When you read Jian’s description, it is readily apparent why China has the highest rate of female suicide in the world. In remote areas he met what he described as “’ family-planning fugitives’–couples who’d fled their villages to give birth to an unauthorized second or third child in neighboring provinces.” Virtually every pregnant woman he talked to had suffered a mandatory abortion.

“One woman told me how, when she was eight months pregnant with an illegal second child and was unable to pay the 20,000 yuan fine (about $3,200), family planning officers dragged her to the local clinic, bound her to a surgical table and injected a lethal drug into her abdomen.”

It gets worse.

“For two days she writhed on the table, her hands and feet still bound with rope, waiting for her body to eject the murdered baby. In the final stage of labor, a male doctor yanked the dead fetus out by the foot, then dropped it into a garbage can. She had no money for a cab. She had to hobble home, blood dripping down her legs and staining her white sandals red.”

Occasionally you read hints in press accounts that the Party leadership is reconsidering—perhaps making the policy less stringent. There is much evidence to suggest otherwise plus a factor I had never taken into consider. The fines bring in an enormous amount of money “while allowing it to maintain firm control over people’s lives,” Jian writes.

His conclusion is a searing indictment and a call to action.

“Ending this scourge is a moral imperative. The atrocities committed in the name of the one-child policy over the last three decades rank among the worst crimes against humanity of the last century. The stains it has left on China may never be erased.”

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In a story that carries eerily similar overtones to Kermit Gosnell’s “House of Horrors,” the Baltimore Sun reported this afternoon that “State health regulators have suspended the licenses of several abortion clinics owned by Associates in OB/GYN Care for the second time after an employee with no health care license or certification gave a patient a drug [Misoprostol] to induce an abortion at the Baltimore facility.”

Testimony at his trial and evidence given to the Grand Jury proved that Gosnell routinely came in at night after his untrained and unlicensed assistants had already started the abortion procedure often many hours before he arrived.

The Sun story, written by Andrea K. Walker, paints a lengthy history of problems.

For example, on May 4 the employee at the Baltimore facility also performed an ultrasound on a woman carrying multiple babies, even though she had no training, again like Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society. The Sun says the “doctor” (abortionist) subsequently arrived but refused to perform the abortion, saying “this facility is not equipped to do this procedure safely,” according to the state records.

After receiving an anonymous complaint, the Office of Health Care Quality investigated and suspended its license on May 7. Other abortion clinics owned by OB/GYN Care—in Frederick, Silver Spring and Cheverly—were looked into and their licenses were as well, according to Walker.

“The investigation found that it was common practice to administer the drug Misoprostol to induce an abortion in patients 11 weeks or more pregnant even if the patient has not been seen by a doctor and there was no physician at the clinic,” Walker reported.

In March the OB/GYN-run clinics in Baltimore, Landover and Silver Spring had their licenses suspended “after a woman had complications following an abortion at the Baltimore facility and died at a local hospital,” Walker reported. The woman had trouble breathing, the state said, and “suffered cardiac arrest at the clinic, although the clinic disputed that assessment.”

An administrator with OB/GYN responded that “the patient suffered from a fatal heart condition, may have had defective heart valves and was probably in heart failure,” according to Walker.

State investigators found the woman’s death raised questions about whether doctors at the clinic could handle an abortion that goes wrong, although the conclusion was that the woman’s death “was caused by underlying conditions and not the abortion,” Walker reported.

In the same March timeframe (again, very much like what investigators found at Gosnell’s abortion clinic), other problems were found at the facilities. According to Walker investigators

“found the physician who performed the abortion wasn’t certified in CPR and the defibrillator at the clinic did not work. Investigators observed a patient at the Silver Spring clinic who was left alone for three minutes after waking up, leaving her at risk of falling. At the Landover location, the nurse did not know how to use the defibrillator or suction machine, and the defibrillator pads had expired.

“The licenses were reinstated about two weeks later after OB/GYN Care submitted what is called a ‘plan of correction.’ A spokeswoman for the clinics said at the time that the company had corrected the issues at all three facilities. The defibrillators were fixed and staff retrained. They also performed emergency drills.”

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“Baby Boy B,” with slit neck.

Equipped with a clever play on words (“Kermit Gosnell: Epiphany for Birthers?”), Professor John B. Londregan walks his readers through an exquisite argument for the protection of the unborn. In this context, “birthers” are those who have persuaded themselves that there is some mysterious transformation that makes what is perfectly legal—killing unborn children in the womb—into a crime—when that same baby is born alive ten minutes later and her spinal cord slit.

“It is past time we abandoned the “birther” myth that we are transformed magically through the process of birth from being tumorous growths within our mothers into fully human infants. The uncivilized confusion on the part of abortion advocates about whether newborns are fetuses or infants highlights the artificial nature of making birth the definition of humanity.”

The confusion Londregan alludes to was the habit—a reflex really—that showed up in many accounts of Gosnell’s murder trial: the babies who were aborted alive and then murdered were often labeled “fetuses.” Ironically, this was “unconsciously recognizing the continuity of life from one minute to the next, from the beginning to the end of the miracle of life.”

Like many observers, Prof. Londregan points to the powers of ultrasound to demystify:

“If any were then uncertain about the grisly shredding of a helpless human being that takes place in an abortion, that tatter of ambiguity has long since been rent asunder by the increased viability of people at earlier and earlier stages of gestation, by the clarity of in vivo tomography and ultrasound images, and by simple common sense.

“Would we tolerate a Supreme Court ruling that resulted in the killing of 1.1 million people every year, including disproportionately many girls and minority children? Would we shrug our shoulders and declare the question to be ‘above our pay grade’”? (an allusion to a comment then-candidate Obama made to a question from Rick Warren).

Londregan elaborates his basic point –“the artificial nature of making birth the definition of humanity”—with skill and insight. If you have a few minutes, be sure to go to www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/05/10186.

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Editor’s note. This appeared in the Washington Post.

Rep. Chris Smith

There are Kermit Gosnells all over our country today, inflicting not only violence, cruelty and death on very young children but excruciating pain as well.

Many Americans — including some who self-identify as pro-choice — were shocked and dismayed by the details that came to light in Gosnell’s recent trial. Perhaps our culture of denial and decades of deceptive marketing have made it difficult to see and understand a disturbing reality: Even after 40 years of abortion on demand — during which some 55 million babies have been killed and millions of mothers wounded — many people somehow construe abortion as victimless. With Gosnell’s exposure, that has changed.

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

Abortionists like Gosnell decapitate, dismember and chemically poison babies to death every day. Now Americans are connecting the dots and asking whether what Gosnell did differs from what other abortion providers do. Not really. A dilation and evacuation abortion — a method, known as a D&E, that is common after 14 weeks — is a gruesome, pain-filled act that rips and tears to pieces the body parts of a child. And that is considered a safe and legal abortion.

The D.C. Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, authored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and co-sponsored by several members, including myself, is a modest but necessary attempt to at least protect babies who are 20 weeks old, and capable of feeling pain, from having to suffer and die from abortion.

There is ample documentation that unborn children experience serious pain from at least the 20th week. When feeling pain, all humans go to great lengths to mitigate its severity and duration. No one wants to die a painful death. Unborn children deserve no less.

Kaiba with his mother April

May 23, 2013 – Six weeks earlier April and Bryan Gionfriddo had proudly brought their newborn son, Kaiba, home from the hospital. To all appearances he was a perfectly healthy baby boy.

But then one night, while at dinner at a restaurant, Kaida suddenly stopped breathing and turned blue. Bryan placed his son on the table and began frantically performing CPR.

Kaiba survived this episode. Doctors sent him home from the hospital 10 days later. But two days after that, he again stopped breathing.

That was when doctors diagnosed him with tracheobronchomalacia, a condition in which the trachea is too weak and periodically collapses, making it impossible for the patient to breathe.

Kaiba’s case was grave. While in the hospital his breathing and heart would stop almost daily. Doctor’s weren’t hopeful.

“Quite a few of them said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive. It was pretty scary,” said his mother, April. “We pretty much prayed every night, hoping that he would pull through.”

Fortunately the parents were put in touch with researchers at the University of Michigan who were working on cutting edge medical treatments involving the burgeoning field of 3-D printing.

The researchers were able to “print” a splint specifically fitted to Kaiba’s windpipe using a 3-D printer, a machine that creates a 3D object by spraying successive thin layers of material, usually some form of plastic.

“It’s magical to me,” Dr. Glenn Green, an associate professor of pediatric otolaryngology at the University of Michigan, told CNN.  ”We’re talking about taking dust and using it to build body parts.”

Green’s colleague in the risky venture, University of Michigan biomedical engineer Scott Hollister, described his emotions on being asked to help Kaiba as, “a mixture of elation and, for lack of a better word, terror.”

“When someone drops something like this in your lap and says, ‘Look, this might be this kid’s only chance’ … it’s a big step.”

The researchers had already tested the technology on animals, but this was the first time it had ever been tried on a human being.

After receiving emergency clearance from the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Green implanted the splint into Kaiba.

Almost immediately the scientists were able to see the fruits of their labors.

“When the stitches were put in, we started seeing the lung inflate and deflate,” Green said. “It was so fabulous. There were people in the operating room cheering.”

Kaiba is now 19 months old, and has not had any more breathing episodes since being sent home a year ago. The splint is designed to disintegrate within about three years, by which time Kaiba should be able to breathe on his own.

According to scientists, this is just the first success of what is likely to be a brave new frontier in medicine – using 3D printing to create replacements for any number of body parts.

Editor’s note. This appeared at www.lifesitenews.com.

Editor’s note. With NRLC’s annual convention rapidly approaching (see nrlconvention.com), this story from the February 19, 1999, edition of National Right to Life News seems perfect for our year-long “Roe at 40” series. As you recall, we are reprinting the best stories and columns from NRL News going back to 1973! If you are not a subscriber, please call us at 202-626-8828.

Chris Burke

You may remember him as Charles “Corky” Thatcher on the hit ABC-TV series “Life Goes On.” You might have caught his guest-starring roles on “The Commish” or “The Promised Land” or his TV movie, “Jonathan, The Boy Nobody Wanted.” Or perhaps you know him as Taylor, an angel who has Down Syndrome, in the highly acclaimed CBS-TV series “Touched by an Angel.”

But if you are lucky enough to be at the NRL Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 24-26 you’ll get to do more than admire the talents of Golden Globe Award-nominated Chris Burke on television. You’ll be treated to a rousing celebration of life during an hour-long concert starring Chris and musicians John and Joe DeMasi. Together the trio, whose most recent album Forever Friends, has received a Parents’ Choice Gold Award for Excellence, will provide a rollicking good time while at the same time delivering a message that the whole world needs to hear.

“The songs are about love, inclusion, friendship and fun songs, too,” Joe DeMasi told NRL News. Or, as Chris put it, “We all have disabilities. It’s what we do with our abilities that counts.”

Thirty-three-year-old Chris Burke, who has Down syndrome, has been using his abilities as an actor and entertainer to bring a message of acceptance and inclusion of people with disabilities to audiences around the world for more than a decade. But his interest in performing started much longer ago, when as a young teenager he attended a summer camp for children with disabilities.

There he met twin brothers John and Joe DeMasi, professional musicians and songwriters who worked at the camp as music counselors. Chris became the DeMasi brothers’ close friend and biggest fan, participating in all of the musical activities and shows they ran.

Seeing his friends perform sparked Chris’s interest in entering the entertainment business himself. Though his family gently tried to dissuade him from pursuing a seemingly impossible goal, Chris followed his dream, writing TV scripts, reading books, corresponding with people in the film industry, and attending evening acting classes in New York City.

His persistence paid off.

He landed his first role in 1987, playing a boy with Down Syndrome on the ABC-TV movie “Desperate.” His work so impressed the network executives that the film’s producer was asked to write a show with Chris in mind.

The result? The critically acclaimed drama Life Goes On, which aired from 1989-1993 and earned Chris a Golden Globe nomination. Other roles soon followed.

Meanwhile, the DeMasi brothers continued to pursue their musical careers while still staying active in bringing the performing arts to individuals with disabilities.

Then in 1993, Chris and the DeMasi brothers decided to pool their considerable talents and put together an album that would teach about the acceptance and inclusion of people with disabilities. Their efforts resulted in “Lollypops and Love Songs,” a 14-song sing-along tape for young children. Their second album, “Singer With The Band,” released in 1994, has sold over 60,000 copies, and their third, “Forever Friends,” released last summer, garnered them a Parents’ Choice Gold Award for Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the Parents Choice organization.

Word of the threesome’s uplifting program spread quickly. Soon, Chris and his friends were performing over 150 shows a year at schools, conferences, festivals, and conventions throughout the United States and Canada, and helping run two summer performing arts programs for people with disabilities. In addition, the group has appeared on numerous national and local television shows including “Good Morning America” and “Entertainment Tonight.”

As if all of this were not enough to keep him busy, Chris also works for the National Down Syndrome Society as the editor in chief of News and Views, a quarterly news magazine which is written by and for people with Down Syndrome. Chris also serves as the spokesperson for the McDonald’s McJobs program, the National Down Syndrome Congress, and the National Down Syndrome Society which, using him as an example, proclaims, “Having Down Syndrome doesn’t mean you can’t reach the stars … or sometimes even become one.”

NRL News spoke recently with Chris and his mother, Marian Burke, about his work using the entertainment industry to bring a message of inclusion and acceptance for people with disabilities. “I think it’s marvelous,” Mrs. Burke said. “It has shown a number of people the ability of people with disabilities. His work has opened up doors for others and I hope it keeps going on.”

She added, “We feel so fortunate. Having Chris was one of the best things that ever happened to our family. He has impacted so many people in the world, bringing a message of hope and ability.”

For his part, Chris said that he has “always wanted to be an entertainer just like Michael Jackson.”

“To be able to have a music career with my two best friends, the guys who taught me all about music, is a dream come true,” he added.

Regarding the issue of abortion, Mrs. Burke said, “We are very strongly pro-life.” Noting that abortion was not legal in New York in 1965, when Chris was born, she stressed that “Chris knows that, if we had had a `choice,’ we definitely would have had him.”

Chris added, “I’m glad that I have parents.”

In fact, Chris knows that he is not only blessed to have parents, but doubly blessed to have the parents and family that he has.

“We were told when Chris was born to put him in an institution,” Mrs. Burke said, an option which they never considered, she stressed. Instead, the Burkes brought their son home and showered him with the same love and affection they gave to their other three children. Thriving in this loving environment, and confident of his infinite worth in the eyes of his family and God, Chris began to call Down Syndrome “Up Syndrome.”

“Our family was always close, but Chris is the one who brought us that much closer together,” Mrs. Burke said. “I cannot tell you how fulfilled our lives are because of Chris.”

Chris and the DeMasi brothers will perform at the NRL Convention on June 24, at the General Session at 8:00 p.m.

Editor’s note. This appeared earlier this week on the blog of the British Christian Medical Fellowship.

Savita Halappanavar

Ireland is one of the few developed countries in the world where abortion remains illegal under sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. However this could change if proposed new legislation is passed through the Irish Parliament

Despite the significance, and potential effect, of the proposed legislative changes under the Irish ‘Heads of Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill’, there has not been much news coverage of it in England, Scotland and Wales. There has, however, been a great deal of coverage on the ‘Savita’ case. And the two in fact are closely linked.

Savita Halappanavar was an Indian woman who tragically died in Galway, Ireland from infection last October after allegedly being denied an abortion when 17 weeks pregnant.

News of her death reverberated around the world, with accusations that denying her an abortion had directly caused her death. The story was stoked by criticism from the pro-abortion lobby of the Irish abortion law. This CMF blog details more about the story and outcome of the inquest into her death.

The Inquest decided that Savita’s death was primarily down to medical malpractice in failing to treat an infection, not the denial of an abortion.

However this has not stopped the pro-abortion lobby, and some Parliamentarians, from using the case as a lever to loosen the law on abortion in Ireland. The start is this new Bill which aims to ‘clarify’ the law for the medical profession in cases of threatened suicide or when the mother’s life is in danger.

This might appear to be a useful and relatively harmless measure to take, in the light of both Savita and the X case (which established the right of Irish women to an abortion if her life was at risk because of pregnancy, including the risk of suicide.) But is it? There are two important questions to consider.

1. Is the Bill necessary?

2. What would the effect of the new Bill be?

1. Is it necessary?

The Offences against the Person Act 1861 is the basis for a ban on all abortion in Ireland as it criminalises abortion. However, Ireland’s law already allows abortion if there is a risk to the mother’s life – not health – as detailed at http://www.cmfblog.org.uk/2012/12/13/ireland-and-abortion-an-update-on-recent-events-and-the-current-legislative-predicament/

So if the doctors caring for Savita had felt that the continuance of the pregnancy posed a ‘real and substantive risk’ to her life (as opposed to her health), the current law would already have permitted them to induce the baby’s premature delivery to save her.

How often is abortion really necessary to save the life of the mother?

In the UK in the first 25 years of the operation of the Abortion Act 1967 only 0.013% of all abortions were performed ‘to save the life of the mother’. Irish women are not travelling to Britain to procure abortions in order to save their lives. In fact, not one abortion has been carried out in order to save an Irish woman’s life since 1992, the year of the X case. Ireland is one of the safest countries in the world to have a baby, with a maternal mortality rate half that of the UK and USA.

A symposium on maternal healthcare in Dublin in 2012 issued a Dublin Declaration on Maternal Healthcare. This stated that abortion in no way assists in the health of the mother:

‘As experienced practitioners and researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.’

Alan Guttmacher, former President of the pro-abortion US Planned Parenthood Federation has said:

‘Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save life’[1]

Of even more concern to us is a proposal in the draft Bill to permit abortion when a mother is suicidal and requests a termination. In such cases, is abortion the answer?

The Bill assumes there is evidence that abortion for threatened suicide is beneficial. Yet medical evidence and data does not indicate that abortion is a safe or reasonable treatment for threatened suicide. There is in fact no research evidence that abortion is an effective treatment for women who are suicidal, because this has not been investigated. Therefore it would be misleading for anyone to state emphatically that abortion does or does not help suicidal women until better research data is available.

One of Ireland’s most experienced obstetricians, Dr Sam Coulter Smith has publicly challenged the inclusion of suicidal intent as grounds for abortion:

‘Our psychiatric colleagues tell us that there is currently no available evidence to show that termination of pregnancy is a treatment for suicidal ideation or intent and, as obstetricians, we are required to provide and practise evidence-based treatment.’

113 of 127 psychiatrists in Ireland who took part in a survey agreed with a statement that they were ‘deeply concerned’ about plans to legislate for suicidality as grounds for an abortion being carried out:

‘We as psychiatrists are being called upon to participate in a process that is not evidence-based and we do not believe that this should be asked of the profession.’

One Psychiatrist, Prof Patricia Casey, at Mater Hospital and UCD, says:

‘In my work as a psychiatrist, I run the attempted suicide service in the Mater Hospital in which we see and assess more than 400 attempted suicides in women per year. I have never seen a pregnant woman who was suicidal for whom an abortion was the only answer.’

In fact the opposite is more likely to be the problem: that abortion leads to an increased risk of suicide.

The most recent major review of all recent reviews on the relationship between abortion and mental health, published only last month, found that abortion was associated with a moderate increase in the risk of suicidal behavior (AOR 1.69, 95% CI 1.12-2.54; p<0.01).

A large Finnish study found that in the year following a pregnancy event, women who choose abortion have a six times higher suicide rate than women who choose to deliver. In those who gave birth, it was half the national average.

2. What would the effect of the new Bill be?

This (rather misleadingly named) Bill, the ‘Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013’, would, if approved, make the direct and intentional killing of unborn children lawful in Ireland for the first time.

The Bill proposes:

· A new ground for abortion. As noted above, the Bill would make threatened suicide an explicit, statute-level ground for abortion. This would be beyond the permitted grounds of even Britain’s 1967 Abortion Act, let alone Irish law.

· To set no term limit on when an abortion can be performed. So, in theory, a medical condition at eight and a half months could allow for a partial-birth abortion.

· To repeal Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, thus offering far less protection to the unborn child.

· To require a doctor with a conscientious objection to have a ‘…duty to ensure that another colleague takes over the care of the patient…’. The draft Bill also imposes a duty on all hospitals (institutions), which would include Catholic hospitals and any with an objection or abortion,
to provide legal abortions, without exception.

Some have argued, I believe correctly, that the effect will be to increase the demand for, and numbers of, abortions in Ireland, and will lead to a gradual weakening of the law in other areas over time (See this post on Archbishops Cranmer’s site about this). Dr Coulter Smith committee that it was his own view and the view of many of his colleagues that:

‘the inclusion of suicidality within the legislation may, and I stress may, in the long-term lead to an increase in demand for termination in this country.’

Experience shows that allowing abortion on the grounds of mental health effectively opens the floodgates for abortion. This Bill would put psychiatrists in the unenviable position of deciding what degree of suicidality qualifies for legal protection and what does not. Medical judgments can be wrong and psychiatrists should not be asked to adjudicate and predict in these cases. Suicidal intent is an easily fabricated condition and it is very difficult for psychiatrists to prove that a woman who says she is not suicidal is not, nor is it their job to do so.

There are other concerns with the proposed Bill.

Repealing the 1861 Act would be a significant, and very concerning, step. The 1861 Act is the primary law criminalising abortion and has an important function in deterring all abortions. Recently, it helped to prevent the abortion provider Marie Stopes from keeping open a centre in Belfast. Any substitution would be less than that provided now under the Act.

Also, the conscientious objection clause as drafted is narrowly applied only to those who: ‘…carry out, or assist in carrying out…’ an abortion. And it suggests a duty to refer, which would put pressure on doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion. Moreover, all institutions – including Catholic hospitals – would have to participate in lawful abortions.

It is important that a doctor and other healthcare staff who object to abortion should be excused from all participation in the abortion process (apart from attendance in emergency), including direct referral. There has been helpful clarification on the extent of conscience in a recent, and significant, high profile Scottish Court ruling last month for midwives as extending ‘not only to the actual medical or surgical termination but to the whole process of treatment given for that purpose.’

The obvious conclusion to draw from my two questions above is that the new legislation is not needed and its effect will be to liberalise the law in Ireland.

The problem is, the difficult and tragic death of Savita Halappanavar has been seized upon by the media and by those who have long wanted the country’s abortion law to be liberalised. They have seen this incredibly rare case as providing a perfect opportunity. But there is an underlying agenda here that goes far beyond legalising abortion to save the mother’s life alone.

It’s no wonder that the proposed legislation has been welcomed by all the main pro-abortion groups in Ireland.

[CMF contributed, along with many others, to the pre-legislative scrutiny at Heads of Bill stage, which is a consultative process involving the Committee examining written submissions along with hearing from invited expert witnesses from the medical, psychiatry and legal fields. Our submission is here at hww.cmf.org.uk/publicpolicy/submissions/?id=157.]

Editor’s note. There is still time to register for the National Right to Life convention June 27-29 in Dallas. Go to nrlconvention.org.

National Right to Life President and Pro-Life Perspective Host Carol Tobias has devoted all week to the pro-life classic, President Ronald Reagan’s Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation. If you missed any episodes this week, you can go back and listen to them on our website at prolifeperspective.com.

Mrs. Tobias returns for a third day to a neglected part of President Reagan’s pro-life legacy: his ferocious resistance to infanticide, his unalterable determination not to allow babies born with disabilities to be fatally neglected—up to and including starving these newborns to death!

As the President noted then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had done

“perhaps more than any other American for handicapped children, by pioneering surgical techniques to help them, by speaking out on the value of their lives, and by working with them in the context of loving families. You will not find his former patients advocating the so-called ‘quality-of-life’ ethic.”

He added poignantly:

“I know that when the true issue of infanticide is placed before the American people, with all the facts openly aired, we will have no trouble deciding that a mentally or physically handicapped baby has the same intrinsic worth and right to life as the rest of us. As the New Jersey Supreme Court said two decades ago, in a decision upholding the sanctity of human life, ‘a child need not be perfect to have a worthwhile life.’”

Mrs. Tobias notes that President Reagan quoted from the famous English writer, Malcolm Muggeridge, who went right to the heart of the matter:

“Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.” Reagan added, “The sanctity of innocent human life is a principle that Congress should proclaim at every opportunity.’

As she brings her week-long series to an end, Mrs. Tobias reminds us of something that can easily get lost: President Reagan’s essay was the first time a sitting president had written at length on the abortion issue. “His words have been a source of inspiration to millions of Americans who have worked so diligently to see that a respect for human life is restored to our nation,” she adds.

Mrs. Tobias concludes

“All human life is valuable. We cannot say that one is more valuable than another. Either we all matter or none of us do. As we work to turn the tide of abortion on demand and the Culture of Death that is so pervasive in our society, will you please join us?”

Be sure to listen to Pro-Life Perspective and be sure to pass that URL along using your social networks.

Rep. Trent Franks

While there was very insufficient media attention paid to the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, it is also nonetheless true that because of what was learned about his “House of Horrors” the subject of late abortions is more visible than at any time since the struggle to pass the ban on partial-birth abortions.

That trial, which ended with Gosnell convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, along with allegations (according to the New York Times) that another Houston-area abortionist “had delivered live babies during third-trimester abortions and killed them after they emerged” set the stage today for a panel of the House Judiciary Committee to hold its first hearing on a nationwide Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. H.R. 1797 would protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain by generally prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks.

I watched much of a live-stream of the hearing at http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/113th/hear_05232013.html. The testimony was nothing short of riveting. The heart-felt comments of pro-life Representatives Trent Franks (R-Az.), who chairs the subcommittee, Steve King (R-Iowa), Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the full House Judiciary Committee, and Louie Gohmert (R-Tx.) made you proud. (Rep. Goodlatte’s full statement appears at the end of this story.)

As NRLC explained in a media advisory sent out yesterday.

In the form introduced on April 26, H.R. 1797 would have applied the policy solely to the District of Columbia, but on May 17 Rep. Franks announced that he would amend the bill in committee to apply nationwide, a plan immediately strongly endorsed by NRLC. “National Right to Life strongly concurs in Congressman Franks’ decision that the time is ripe to seek protection for pain-capable unborn children nationwide,” said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson. “Because of publicity surrounding the trial of Kermit Gosnell and subsequent revelations about other abortionists, many Americans are becoming aware for the first time that abortions are frequently performed late in pregnancy on babies who are capable of being born alive, and on babies who will experience great pain while being killed.”

In his opening statement Rep. Franks made the case that just as no one sees the tragedies of children killed in a tornado or murdered in senseless school or theatre shooting as partisan issues, “Likewise protecting pain-capable unborn babies is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue,” Franks said at the hearing. “It is rather a test of our basic humanity.”

The opening witness was Anthony Levatino, MD. He explained how during his residency and first five years in private practice he’d performed first and second trimester abortions before later becoming pro-life. In the late 1970s, he testified, “saline infusion or, occasionally, prostaglandin instillation techniques” were used in second-trimester abortions.

But “These procedures were difficult, expensive and necessitated that patients go through labor to abort their pre-born children,” he said. “By 1980, at the time I entered private practice first in Florida and then in upstate New York, those of us in the abortion industry were looking for a more efficient method of second trimester abortion. The Suction D&E procedure offered clear advantages over older installation methods. The procedure was much quicker and never ran the risk of a live birth.”

He then went on to explain what that entails and it is enough to make the strongest stomach churn. (That section of his prepared testimony can be read at “Excerpts from the Testimony of Anthony Levatino, MD, before the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice U.S. House of Representatives.”)

There were three other witnesses, including Maureen L. Condic, Ph.D. University of Utah, School of Medicine, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy. Among other topics Prof. Condic walked the subcommittee members through a series of steps beginning with “What is Pain?”;“How do we know if others are experiencing pain?”; “Scientific data regarding fetal brain development and pain perception”; “What brain structures are necessary for a fetus to feel pain?”; “What we observe about fetal pain”; and “Our own experience; Why fetal pain matters.”

Her conclusion:

In light of the scientific facts, the observations of medical professionals, our own experience of pain, and our indirect experience of others’ pain, we must conclude that there is indeed a “compelling governmental interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that they are capable of feeling pain.” And this unambiguously requires a 20 week fetus to be protected from pain, as proposed under H.R. 1797.

Near the end of the hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, in explaining why this bill is so important, Franks quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Protecting pain-capable unborn children from abortion is something that matters and we cannot be silent about it.

We will have much more about the hearing in Friday’s edition of NRL News Today.

The Statement of Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice Hearing on H.R. 1797, the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

Chairman Goodlatte: Since the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, medical knowledge regarding the development of unborn babies and their capacities at various stages of growth has advanced dramatically. Even the New York Times has reported on the latest research on unborn pain, focusing in particular on the research of Dr. Sunny Anand, an Oxford-trained neonatal pediatrician who has held appointments at Harvard Medical School and other distinguished institutions.

According to the New York Times: Twenty-five years ago … [d]octors were convinced that newborns’ nervous systems were too immature to sense pain … Anand resolved to find out if this was true. In a series of clinical trials, he demonstrated that operations performed under minimal or no anesthesia produced a “massive stress response” in newborn babies, releasing a flood of fight-or-flight hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Potent anesthesia, he found, could significantly reduce this reaction … But Anand was not through with making observations. [He] noticed that even the most premature babies grimaced when pricked by a needle … New evidence, however, has persuaded him that fetuses can feel pain by 20 weeks gestation … and possibly earlier.

As Dr. Anand would later testify: “If the fetus is beyond 20 weeks of gestation, I would assume that there will be pain caused to the fetus. And I believe it will be severe and excruciating pain.”

Congress has the power to acknowledge these developments by enacting H.R. 1797 and prohibiting abortions after the point at which scientific evidence shows the unborn can feel pain, with limited exceptions.

The terrifying facts uncovered during the course of the trial of late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, and successive reports of similar atrocities committed across the country, remind us how an atmosphere of insensitivity can lead to horrific brutality. The grand jury report in the Gosnell case itself contains references to a neonatal expert who reported that the cutting of the spinal cords of babies intended to be late-term aborted would cause them, and I quote, “a tremendous amount of pain.” These facts justify expanding the application of this bill nationwide, and I fully support Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Franks’ intention to do so.

Indeed, the Polling Company recently found that 64% of Americans would support a law such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Only 30% would oppose it. And supporters include 47% of those who identified themselves as “pro-choice” in the poll.

In the 2007 case of Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court made clear that — and I quote — “The government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman,” and that Congress may show such respect for the unborn through “specific regulation because it implicates additional ethical and moral concerns that justify a special prohibition.”

Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in the Carhart case, also wrote that the government has “an interest in forbidding medical procedures which, in the [government’s] reasonable determination, might cause the medical profession or society as a whole to become insensitive, even disdainful, to life, including life in the human fetus … even life which cannot survive without the assistance of others.”

As the New York Times story concluded, throughout history “a presumed insensitivity to pain has been used to exclude some from humanity’s privileges and protections … Over time, the charmed circle of those considered alive to pain, and therefore fully human, has widened to include members of other religions and races, the poor, the criminal, the mentally ill — and, thanks to the work of Sunny Anand and others, the very young.”

The Gosnell trial reminds us that when newborn babies are cut with scissors, they whimper and cry, and flinch from pain. But it takes only a moment’s thought to realize that wherever babies are cut, they whimper and cry, and flinch from pain. Delivered or not, babies are babies, and they can feel pain at 20 weeks. It is time to welcome young children who can feel pain into the human family. And this bill, at last, will do just that.

I congratulate Chairman Franks on this vital legislation, and look forward to hearing from all our witnesses today.