[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 72 (Thursday, May 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3497-H3498]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               ABORTION EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL TO UNBORN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, abortion is excruciatingly 
painful to unborn children. It hurts. It hurts the children.
  In expert testimony provided to the Northern District of the U.S. 
District Court in California on April 15, during the partial birth 
abortion trials, Dr. Sunny Anand, Director of the Pain Neurobiology 
Laboratory at Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute, 
explained, ``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 further describes before the court that the ``highest 
density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development 
occurs in utero,'' while still in the womb, ``from 20 to 30 weeks 
gestation. During this period, the epidermis is still very thin, 
leaving nerve fibers closer to the surface of the skin than in older 
neonates and adults.''
  He went on to explain that the pain inhibitory mechanisms, in other 
words fibers which dampen and modulate the experience of pain, do not 
begin to develop until 32 to 34 weeks of gestation. Thus, Dr. Anand 
concludes, a fetus 20 to 32 weeks of gestation would experience a much 
more intense pain than older infants or children or adults when these 
groups are subjected to similar types of injury.
  Dr. Anand points out on the question of fetal consciousness that more 
than 3 decades of research show that preterm infants are actively 
perceiving, learning and organizing information, and are constantly 
striving to regulate themselves, their environment and their 
experiences. All preterm infants actively approach and favor 
experiences that are developmentally supporting and actively avoiding 
experiences that are disruptive.
  So, today, Mr. Speaker, Senator Brownback and I have introduced 
legislation. In the House it is H.R. 4420, the Unborn Child Pain 
Awareness Act. This bipartisan piece of legislation, which now has over 
two dozen House sponsors and 22 Senate sponsors, would require that 
those performing abortions at or beyond 20 weeks gestation provide the 
mother with certain information regarding the capacity of the unborn 
child to experience pain during the abortion and offer the mother the 
option of having pain-reducing drugs administered directly to the 
unborn child to reduce the baby's pain.
  Mr. Speaker, before an abortion involving a pain-capable child 
begins, the abortionist would have to provide the woman with an oral 
statement at this stage of development of the unborn child, saying that 
the child has physical structures to feel pain and that the abortion 
would likely cause pain to the unborn child.

                              {time}  2000

  The bill ensures that the mother has the option of choosing to have 
anesthesia administered directly to the unborn child if she so desires 
in order to

[[Page H3498]]

reduce or to eliminate and mitigate that pain.
  Mr. Speaker, the recent partial-birth abortion trials have shattered, 
hopefully forever, the myth, the big lie, that somehow the unborn child 
does not feel pain during an abortion. The pro-abortion lobby has 
spread that. Finally, that myth has been shattered. Even the American 
Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Speaker, the ACLU, has conceded that unborn 
children feel pain during an abortion. In a February motion to exclude 
evidence regarding fetal pain in the partial-birth abortion ban trials, 
the ACLU went so far as to argue that testimony on fetal pain in 
relation to partial-birth abortion was irrelevant because they said the 
dilation-and-evacuation method of abortion, involving dismemberment, is 
more painful than a partial-birth abortion.
  So the question, Mr. Speaker, is clearly not whether or not unborn 
children feel pain during the commission of this act of violence, 
perfectly legal, a D&E, as they call it, method of abortion, but how 
much do the children feel. There is growing evidence, Mr. Speaker, to 
suggest that children feel a frightening amount of pain during these 
abortion procedures. I agree with the ACLU when they make that 
statement as they did before the court.
  Let me just remind my colleagues, the D&E method of abortion as used 
in most second-trimester abortions involves the abortionist grasping 
the unborn child's body parts, various parts, arms, legs, torso with a 
long-toothed clamp. The fetal body parts are then torn off the body and 
pulled out of the mother piecemeal. It is an act of dismemberment. It 
is a despicable act. It is a violent act. It is an act of violence.
  It takes about 30 minutes for this act of violence, again perfectly 
legal, allowed by Roe v. Wade, to occur. During those 30 minutes, this 
child suffers immensely. I would remind my colleagues that Congress 
requires that pain be mitigated when livestock are slaughtered, not so 
when an unborn child is slaughtered. I would ask Members to take a 
good, strong look at this legislation and hopefully cosponsor it and 
get this bill to the floor so that we can vote on it.
  Let me just finally say to my colleagues, there was a Zogby poll 
recently on the question, do you support laws requiring that women who 
are 20 weeks or more along in their pregnancy be given information 
about fetal pain before having an abortion? Seventy-seven percent of 
the people said yes. Only 16 percent disagreed. We should not be 
killing these children, Mr. Speaker, but they should at least not have 
to suffer such excruciating pain. I urge passage as soon as possible of 
this legislation.

                          ____________________