Posted on 01/16/2016 7:00:26 PM PST by Morgana
Members of Congress next week have an opportunity to right a travesty of injustice. Every day in the United States, babies are silently screaming in late-term abortions that deprive them of their right to life.
As Congressman Trent Franks told LifeNews.com recently, “More than 18,000 ‘very late term’ abortions are performed every year on perfectly healthy unborn babies in America. These are innocent and defenseless children who can not only feel pain, but who can survive outside of the womb in most cases, and who are torturously killed without even basic anesthesia.â€
“Many of them cry and scream as they die, but because it is amniotic fluid going over their vocal cords instead of air, we don’t hear them,†he said.
ultrasound4d28Not all babies scream silently during abortions. The cries of some babies are hear loud and clear.
A former employee at the abortion clinic Kermit Gosnell ran in Philadelphia described how she heard a baby scream during a live-birth abortion. Abortion clinic employee Sherry West described an incident which “really freaked (her) out†and related to the jury how she heard a child scream who was born alive following an abortion.
West remembered how she referred to the dead children killed in these gruesome abortion procedures as “specimens†so she could avoid the mental trauma associated with knowing how they died. As local media reported:
Sherry West, of Bear, said she was loyal to Gosnell – who is now facing multiple counts of murder for allegedly killing children after they were delivered alive at his clinic – but said the incident “really freaked me out.â€
When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore pressed the 53-year-old West for specifics about the incident, West struggled to answer, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.
“I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,†West testified, telling a judge and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury that the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell’s clinic.
West said she saw the child, whose face and features were not yet completely formed, lying on a glass tray on a shelf and she told a co-worker to call Gosnell about it and fled the room.
Congress has an opportunity next week to hear the screams of aborted babies and take action. Republicans in the House of Representatives will hold a vote on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade late this month on a marquee bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy because unborn children feel intense pain in abortions.
Top Republicans and leading pro-life groups have been promoting the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that bans abortions from after 20-weeks of pregnancy up to the day of birth.
A national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger. Only 30% said they would oppose such a law.
A November 2014 poll from Quinnipiac found that 60 percent of Americans support legislation limiting abortions after 20 weeks, including 56 percent of Independents and 46 percent of Democrats.
During the hearing on the last bill, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.
Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.
The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy. The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it.
He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier†and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.â€
He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.
“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,†they wrote.
“Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,†they continued.
With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand has provided further research to substantiate their work.
One leading expert in the field of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand at the University of Tennessee, stated in his expert report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, “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.â€
“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,†explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.
Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.â€
“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,†Dr. Malloy testified. She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.â€
Please Lord. When will this nightmare end?
I keep asking that too.
When I was in grad school for anesthesia in 2004, we had a lecture from a pediatric anesthesiologist who included in her slide presentation that EEG (brain waves) are present at 9 weeks of gestation and pain pathways from the spinal cord to brain are intact. After that I always considered this 20 weeks stuff to be bullcrap. Even Dr Nathanson’s video “the silent scream” from the early 80s showed a 12 week “fetus” screaming during an abortion. This ban after 20 weeks is I guess a start but really, it’s based on a falsehood and just lets some in the pro life movement pat themselves on the back.
Take every victory we can get. It means the people are slowly waking up.
I can’t begin to imagine. The mere thought of this makes me tear up.
I won’t even try to read this, but this is the American people in action.
bump
This is a very unpleasant article. But it is, of course, a story that must be told. Thanks for posting this, and keep it up.
My die-hard ‘pro-choice’ friends would be VERY happy with a ban after the first trimester - with the exceptions of the life of the mother and severe birth defects.
(I also brought up sterilizing women who requested a third abortion and got a hearty, “hear, hear!” on that. One ‘mistake’... all right. Two ‘mistakes’... ummmm...? When you hit your third ‘mistake’ you’re now doing it on purpose and you don’t deserve to breed.)
When rape came up, I said, “Well, if she doesn’t get an abortion by the 12th week LPM, then she’s made up her mind to allow the baby to live. Why does rape even have to come into the discussion?” Agreed!
(We also agreed that minor children need to be investigated - we can’t cover up for rapists - and cases of accused rape where the remains may be needed for evidence. But again - that’s all 1st trimester stuff.)
Most LIBERALS hate late-term abortions just as much as we do.
Most human beings don’t want it.
We need to stop being the all-or-nothing party and realize that the leftist regressives win because they take baby steps. They just push a little - get a win - then push some more.
Pro-life people are *just* as guilty as the leftists for our current situation because they don’t focus on winning the small battles with a larger objective in mind.
Nope. If you suggest, “let’s start with late-term abortions and put all of our muscle there until it’s done - then work on the second trimester, and so on...” you’re now a liberal, baby-killing, horrible human being.
AND I’M SICK AND TIRED OF IT.
NO MORE THIRD TRIMESTER ABORTIONS. Focus, people! We’ve GOT to start EFFECTIVELY pushing back. Can we PLEASE focus on ONE battle at a time and actually make a difference?
I’m so freaking tired of losing to this regressive BS because MY group is too stubborn to use tactics.
The child feels pain.
BTTT
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