WASHINGTON – With fewer than 30 minutes remaining before a midnight deadline, the Alabama legislature last night sent the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to Governor Robert Bentley’s desk for his signature.
The Alabama House, led by Representative Kerry Rich, passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Protection bill with a vote of 69-19. The Alabama’s Senate, led by Senator Scott Beason, passed the bill by a vote of 26-5.
Alabama Citizens For Life Board Director to The National Right to Life Comittee in Washington D.C.
“Modern medical science furnishes us with compelling evidence that unborn children recoil from painful stimuli, that their stress hormones increase when they are subjected to any painful stimuli, and that they require anesthesia for fetal surgery,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). “Therefore, the states have a compelling interest in protecting unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion. We strongly encourage Governor Bentley to make Alabama the fifth state to recognize this obligation by signing the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act into law.”
As drafted by National Right to Life’s Department of State Legislation, the model Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act protects from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain except when the mother “has a condition which so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion of her pregnancy to avert death or to avert serious risk of substantial or irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function or…it is necessary to preserve the life of an unborn child.”
Further documentation and links to the scientific studies can be found at: www.doctorsonfetalpain.com.
“We commend Representative Kerry Rich and Senator Scott Beason for their actions in protecting unborn children and helping their mothers through enactment of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” added Cheryl Ciamarra, Alabama Citizens for Life’s representative to the Board of Directors of the National Right to Life Committee. “We ask Governor Bentley to sign this bill into law so that Alabama becomes a state which protects from abortion unborn child who are capable of feeling pain.”
“To God be all honor and praise and Glory” said Ciamarra, who took the lead on the measure which was supported by many grassroots citizens across the states. “Much prayer was being offered throughout the building all during the day.”
She explained that “A kind woman who works in the cafeteria across the street asked me at lunch if we had passed the ‘baby pain protection bill.’ She told me she was praying for it.”