By Carol Tobias, President, National Right to Life Committee
Editor’s note. The following remarks were delivered this morning at a press conference with U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), and other bill sponsors and pro-life leaders to formally introduce the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in the Senate.
Good morning! I am Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, the national federation of state right-to-life organizations. I am proud to stand here today with Senator Graham to offer our strong support for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
It is common to read in articles about this legislation that unborn children do not have the capacity to experience pain at 20 weeks fetal age. Those kinds of claims ignore the facts.
There is a large body of evidence that includes testimony from such experts on fetal pain as Professors Kanwaljeet “Sunny” Anand and Colleen Malloy.
In a 10-page report submitted to a federal court and accepted as expert testimony, Prof. Anand wrote, “It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children.”
Dr. Anand does not wish to be drawn into the abortion debate but his testimony stands.
Dr. Malloy, of Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, has testified before committees in both the House and Senate. She stated, “There is ample biologic, physiologic, hormonal, and behavioral evidence for fetal and neonatal pain. … Many authors have substantiated that pain receptors are present and linked by no later than 20 weeks post fertilization.”
Advocates of abortion try to deny that unborn children killed in late abortions feel pain, but they are the ones dabbling in “junk science.” Now is the time to end the cruel pain of late abortions on helpless babies.
Thank you.