[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 26, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S512-S514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    UNBORN CHILD PAIN AWARENESS ACT

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, these are difficult times but they are 
also times of opportunity. We will face on Sunday, with the vote in 
Iraq, difficulty, but also a time of opportunity for people to know 
democracy and freedom who have never known it before. Freedom, however, 
always comes at a price. We are paying for this opportunity for freedom 
with loss of life from our own country. Yet democracy and freedom is 
something for which we have fought for over 200 years.
  I rise today to speak about something else we need to fight for. I 
speak of one of the most difficult debates we have had to discuss in 
this country: it is the debate on the issue of life and the moment that 
life begins. I am introducing today, with over 30 cosponsors, a bill 
that speaks to this critical issue. It is S. 51, the Unborn Child Pain 
Awareness Act. It has 31 cosponsors. This legislation, I believe, is 
strongly pro-woman, pro-child and pro-life, and

[[Page S513]]

it will help in the creation of a culture of life in America.
  The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is about empowering women with 
information. It is also about respecting and treating the unborn child 
more humanely. This legislation is, at heart, an informed consent bill, 
which would do two simple things:
  First, it would require abortion providers to present medical, 
scientific information to a woman, who is seeking a late-term abortion, 
about what is known regarding the development of the unborn child 
inside of her womb.
  Second, should the woman desire to continue with the abortion after 
being presented with this information, the legislation calls for her to 
be given the opportunity to choose anesthesia for the unborn child in 
order to lessen its pain.
  No abortion procedures would be prohibited by the Unborn Child Pain 
Awareness Act. It is an informed consent bill.
  I do not believe that anyone in this esteemed chamber thinks that 
women should not be fully informed. I believe, along with a majority of 
Americans, according to all the polls of which I am aware, that women 
have the right to know what their unborn child experiences during an 
abortion. Most Americans believe that women are capable of processing 
information, even when faced with a crisis pregnancy.
  In fact, according to a Wirthlin Worldwide poll conducted after the 
November election, 75 percent of respondents favored:

     laws requiring that women who are 20 weeks or more along in 
     their pregnancies be given information about fetal pain 
     before having an abortion.

  After being presented with the medical and scientific information on 
the development of the unborn child 20 weeks after fertilization, the 
woman is more aware of the pain experienced by the child during an 
abortion procedure, and more equipped--at the very least--to make an 
informed decision. It is simply not fair for a pregnant mother to be 
uninformed.
  In the proposed legislation, we have settled on a 20-week benchmark 
because there is a strong medical and scientific knowledge that unborn 
children feel and experience pain by 20 weeks after fertilization.
  Looking over the data--and I am certainly not a doctor--but it seems 
reasonable to me that unborn children actually feel pain weeks earlier, 
but we chose the 20-week benchmark as a point on which more scientists 
and doctors can agree. At some point, perhaps Dr. Coburn--a new member 
who is a physician who has delivered thousands, of babies, one of this 
bill's cosponsors--might further enlighten us on this subject based on 
his extensive experience.
  How do we know that unborn children can feel pain? We know that 
unborn children can--and do--feel pain thanks to great advances in 
medical technology. Unborn children, experience pain as evidenced by 
anatomical, functional, physiological and behavioral indicators that 
are correlated with pain in children and adults. We have Dr. Sonny 
Anand's Expert Report for the Partial-Birth Abortion trials, that were 
made part of the Federal Court record.
  Of course--though perhaps less scientific--any mother can tell you 
her unborn child can feel. The little unborn child most certainly feels 
and responds to stimuli from outside the womb. Sometimes a voice will 
cause the unborn child to stir. And usually, at some point in the late 
second trimester, even the father can feel and see the unborn child's 
movements. And if you push the unborn child's limb, the limb may push 
back. I have happy memories of this with my wife and our children.
  All along, women have been able to feel the child inside of them, but 
now, science is telling us exactly what the child inside of his or her 
mother can feel. We now know that unborn children can not only feel, 
but that their ability to experience pain is heightened. The highest 
density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development 
occurs in utero from 20 to 30 weeks gestation.

  Think about the pain that unborn children can experience, and then 
think about some commonly used abortion procedures. Of course, we have 
heard about Partial-Birth Abortion, but also consider the D&E abortion.
  During this procedure, commonly performed after 20 weeks when there 
is medical evidence that the child can experience severe pain, and we 
have a chart of this that I will show, the child is torn apart limb 
from limb. Think about how that must feel to a young human. We would 
not allow an animal to be treated this way. Yet, the creature we are 
talking about is a young, unborn child.
  Women certainly have a right to be given the facts about the baby 
growing inside of them. Armed with these facts, women then have the 
opportunity to make a more informed decision.
  Should the woman continue with the late-term abortion, she ought to 
have the option of anesthetizing the unborn child before it undergoes a 
painful termination of its young life.
  This should not be a Republican or a Democratic issue. This should be 
a human issue.
  The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act offers us a rare chance to 
transcend the traditional political boundaries. It is a matter of human 
decency.
  It is my hope that this bill will offer us a chance to work across 
political divides to forge new understandings in this Chamber.
  I think that we can all support giving women more information when 
they are making life-altering decisions.
  A recent Los Angeles Times--December 23, 2004--article offers a 
glimmer of hope in this regard. The article notes that:

       [Democrats] are looking at ways to soften the hard line 
     [support for abortion-rights], such as promoting adoption and 
     embracing parental notification requirements for minors and 
     bans on late-term abortions.

  Adoption and parental notification for minors are issues, on which I 
hope we can work together. Perhaps we can begin with this measure: The 
Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is not a ban on late-term abortions, 
but it is a measure that would provide a wonderful opportunity for us 
to work together on an issue that is pro-woman, pro-child, and pro-
life. It is creating a culture of life.

  I want to take a few of the minutes I have to describe a procedure 
that takes place on a post-20-weeks-of-age gestation child, described 
here on this chart. There may be people who may not want to look at 
this. I would offer that they not, if they choose not to, but I think 
it is important they have this information.
  We are talking about a D&E procedure at 23 weeks performed on an 
unborn child. It is important to note that the legislation that I have 
introduced today does not ban this procedure or limit it in any way; 
this legislation simply says that a woman needs to be informed about 
the pain the child in her womb would experience if she undergoes that 
procedure, and be given the option to offer the child in the womb 
anesthesia in the procedure of the child being pulled out of the womb, 
as you can see in this diagram.
  I want to get some expert testimony that was provided at the partial-
birth abortion trials.
  This was information submitted by Dr. Sonny Annand at the trial about 
the nature of the pain the child experiences.
  I held hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee about in utero 
surgery. The surgeon talked about having to chase the child around in 
the womb somewhat to give it its shot to anesthetize the child because 
the child didn't want the needle to go into its buttock. He described 
how the child was constantly moving around to avoid the needle. That 
made perfect sense to me, having children who do not like to get shots. 
I don't like shots. And the child would move around.
  But it also heightened my awareness--that if you go through this 
abortion procedure, what does the child feel at that point in time? It 
doesn't want to get a shot in its rear end. What does it feel when it 
goes through a procedure like this?
  This was reported by the Associated Press at the trials last year, 
April 4, 2004. Dr. Sonny Annand said:

       Abortion would cause severe and excruciating pain to 20-
     week-old fetuses.

  There is now scientific information about the increase in the heart 
rate of the child when a procedure like this is taking place, the 
increase in the physiological trauma that indicates somebody going 
through excruciating pain. And while you can't hear the child in

[[Page S514]]

the womb--it can't scream--it has a silent scream, nonetheless it is 
showing all the time the physiological nature of going through 
excruciating pain.
  I have another chart to put up here to illustrate this point as well. 
This is from the same physician. Dr. Annand says:

       The fetuses show increased heart rate, blood flow and 
     hormone level in response to pain.

  This is how you and I, adults, respond to pain, although the 
difference for us is we have less pain receptors per square inch, and 
we also have developed a part of the brain that holds down or 
suppresses pain. So actually we feel less pain because of the way our 
brain is further developed. But the child feels more pain.
  This issue is something I think most of us would probably choose to 
ignore, if we could, and say ``let's just not talk about it.'' But when 
this is going on and you know about it, how can you ignore it? It would 
be like us saying, about some of the tragedies in our history, I just 
do not want to know about it. Just do not tell me about it. I would 
rather be ignorant. Yet today we cannot deny the scientific 
information.
  Here is a picture of a child in the womb. I do not know the age of 
this child. But can you deny the humanity of this child?
  I have a coin given to me yesterday from a Croatian, a gentleman from 
Croatia that I want to show you has the same picture of this unborn 
child imprinted on this coin minted in Croatia. They just ask basically 
on the coin, as you can in the picture, how can you deny the humanity 
of this child? If that is the case--and if you dismember this child in 
a late-term abortion, how can you deny the humanity of this child and 
the pain it experiences? We know physiologically because of the 
scientific advances taking place what this child experiences. How can 
you ignore scientific evidence and say it is simply not taking place, 
or I just do not want to see it, which was unfortunately typically done 
too often in our past. But the facts seem too horrific for us to look 
at. We have seen recently in places around the world the horrific 
suffering. Many times we just want to say: Don't show it to me. I don't 
really want to see it. Yet it can't be denied. It must be confronted. 
The sooner it is talked about, the sooner it will be addressed.
  Let us have a lively debate. If people don't believe the child is 
experiencing pain, come forward with the scientific information. It 
would be counter to all common experience of women in pregnancy at that 
20-week stage or later. It would be counter to all the current 
scientific information. Bring it forward. Let us have a lively debate 
about this. This bill does not ban any abortion procedure. It simply is 
an informed consent bill that women deserve to know about.
  It is my hope that once a woman receives this information she would 
decide to go ahead with the pregnancy and have the child. If she looks 
at her situation and believes it is just too difficult to continue to 
care for the child, she could put the child up for adoption. There are 
millions of families who would love to provide a loving home for a 
child. No matter what the difficult circumstance, they would love to 
adopt; but perhaps she would choose to make her child go through this 
procedure. What if she decided to go through the procedure, and then 
later found out through scientific evidence that she put her child 
through this pain and had to live with that in her life. We have women 
coming forward now in the Silent No More Campaign--women who have had 
abortions who have for years afterwards--decades afterwards--struggled 
with the thought of having an abortion. They say: My goodness. How 
could I do that to my own child in the womb? They are saying women 
deserve better. They have struggled with this for years and are now 
coming out with it; receiving the sympathy which they deserve for 
having gone through something at a very difficult time in their lives.
  This bill will be introduced in both Chambers today. It is an 
important piece of legislation. It is one which I hope we can move 
forward with aggressively. If there is evidence on the other side, I 
would welcome it coming forward. Let us have this debate, but let us 
not ignore it any longer.
  Thank you, very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority side has 40 seconds remaining.
  The Senator from Virginia is recognized.

                          ____________________