[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 12 (Monday, January 22, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S842-S843]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BROWNBACK (for himself, Mr. Alexander, Mr. Bunning, Mr. 
        Burr, Mr. Chambliss, Mr. Coburn, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Coleman, Mr. 
        Cornyn, Mr. DeMint, Mrs. Dole, Mr. Ensign, Mr. Enzi, Mr. 
        Graham, Mr. Grassley, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Inhofe, Mr. 
        Isakson, Mr. Kyl, Mr. Lott, Mr. Martinez, Mr. McConnell, Mr. 
        Roberts, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Thune, Mr. Vitter, and Mr. 
        Voinovich):
  S. 356. A bill to ensure that women seeking an abortion are fully 
informed regarding the pain experienced by their unborn child; to the 
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Unborn 
Child Pain Awareness Act. I am joined by 27 original cosponsors.
  After carefully reviewing the medical and ethical arguments that 
underpin this Act, I am convinced that my colleagues will agree that 
this legislation is pro-woman, pro-child, and pro-information.
  The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is about empowering women with 
information and treating them as adults who are able to participate 
fully in the medical decision-making process. 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, this act would require abortion providers to 
present women seeking an abortion twenty or more weeks after 
fertilization with scientific information about what is known regarding 
the pain capacity 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. This is strictly an informed consent bill.
  I don't believe that anyone in this chamber thinks that any patient 
should ever be denied her right to all the information that is 
available on a surgery she or her child is about to undergo simply 
because the patient is pregnant. Providing a woman with medical and 
scientific information on the development of her unborn child and the 
pain the child will experience during an abortion will equip her to 
make an informed decision about how or if to proceed. Pregnant women 
must be treated as intelligent, mature human beings who are capable of 
understanding this information and making difficult choices.
  Due to amazing advances in medical technology, we have known for some 
time now that unborn children can and do respond to pain and to human 
touch in general. This is evidenced by anatomical, functional, 
physiological and behavioral indicators that are correlated with pain 
in children and adults.
  In light of this knowledge, when a child undergoes prenatal surgery 
in order to alleviate certain types of congenital hernias which can 
affect the child's liver and lungs or to correct prenatal heart 
failure, both the child and the mother are offered anesthesia as a 
matter of course. Certainly everyone would agree that, at the very 
least, abortion is a surgical procedure performed on the fetus. Why 
should the medical community be required to offer anesthesia to one 20-
week-old unborn baby undergoing any other type of prenatal surgery, but 
not require it for another 20-week-old unborn baby who is undergoing 
the life-terminating surgery of an abortion? Are both babies not at the 
same stage of development with the same capacity for pain?
  Of course, this new scientific knowledge that unborn babies can 
experience pain is not news to most women. Any mother can tell you her 
unborn child can feel and respond to stimuli from outside the womb. 
Sometimes a voice or a sharp movement by the mother 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 many fond memories of feeling my own children kick and 
move around inside my wife's womb. It was obvious to both of us that 
our children were very much alive.
  In the proposed legislation, we have settled on a 20-week benchmark 
because there is strong medical and scientific knowledge that unborn 
children feel and experience pain by 20 weeks after fertilization.
  Many scientists and anesthesiologists believe that unborn children 
actually feel pain weeks earlier, but we chose the 20 week benchmark as 
a point on which the most scientists and doctors can agree.
  We do know that unborn children at 20 weeks' gestation 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.
  The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act offers us a rare chance to 
transcend the traditional political boundaries on the abortion issue. 
It is a matter of human decency, access to information for women, and 
patients' rights.
  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.
  In fact, according to a Wirthlin Worldwide poll conducted after the 
2004 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.''
  During the 2006 elections, candidates from both sides of the aisle 
promised to support bipartisan solutions dealing with abortion, such as 
promoting adoption and passing parental notification requirements for 
minors seeking abortions.
  Adoption and parental notification for minors are indeed issues on 
which I hope we can work together. Perhaps we

[[Page S843]]

can begin with this measure. The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act would 
provide a wonderful opportunity for us to affirm that the 110th 
Congress is pro-woman, pro-child, and pro-patient access to 
information.
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