Let's Get This Done

Bill to Stop Abortion After Unborn Child Can Feel Pain Passes

Ken Klukowski
Breitbart News

WASHINGTON, DC—The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday (October 3) passed H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act—which now goes to the Senate–and President Donald Trump promises to sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

Medical science has confirmed in recent years that an unborn child consciously feels physical pain by the twentieth week of pregnancy. This has led pro-life leaders to call for consensus by ending abortions after that point, arguing that even pro-abortion Americans should agree to find common ground in prohibiting a practice when a sentient life form can actually feel the agony of being torn apart.

In response, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), a Christian pro-life champion in Congress, introduced H.R. 36, which would make illegal this late-term abortion practice that many people find gruesome, if not abhorrent and barbaric.  As Franks said at the press conference introducing his bill, “For God’s sake, ladies and gentlemen, this cannot be who we are in America.”

The day before the final vote, on October 2, President Trump’s White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy which said his administration “strongly supports” the bill and applauds the House’s efforts to pass it.

The bill, if enacted into law, would help to facilitate the culture of life to which our Nation aspires,” the statement reads. “The United States is currently out of the mainstream in the family of nations, in which only seven out of 198 nations allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

“America’s children deserve the stronger protections that H.R. 36 would advance,” the statement concludes.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives agreed, voting 237 to 189 to prohibit abortion after the twentieth week of the unborn child’s life. The bill now goes to the Senate.  “The primary and overarching purpose of American government is to protect the innocent among us,” Franks said in an statement exclusively obtained by Breitbart News as the bill passed the House.

Franks continued:

The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a bill that finds overwhelming support from all humane Americans. Very late term abortions are an extreme and barbaric practice. The United States is only one of seven countries on earth, including North Korea and China, which allow elective abortions after 20 weeks. For little babies to feel the crushing agony of the abortionist’s tools as they undergo “dismemberment abortion” in the land of the free and the home of the brave is a disgrace that defies human expression. Subjecting innocent babies, from the beginning of their six month of pregnancy and later, to this kind of insidious torture does not reflect the true character of America.

“President Trump has signaled his strong support for this bill to protect thousands of innocent pain-capable, human babies from tortuous and agonizing death,” Franks added. “It now falls upon Mitch McConnell and the U.S. Senate to pass it for his signature.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has taken a heavy beating from the Republican base, especially in recent months. Three congressional members who spoke with Breitbart News on condition of anonymity said that pushing this bill through the Senate would help Republican leadership in the Senate get right with their base.

“It is time that America recognizes and responds to the cries and humanity of these helpless little pain-capable babies and the inhumanity of what is being done to them,” said Franks.  A poll from Quinnipiac found that 68 percent of women support legislation prohibiting abortion if the child can feel pain.