[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13931]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    STOPPING PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTIONS

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, this week we are debating a bill to ban 
partial-birth abortion. We will hear a lot of perspectives in this 
debate, but I think there is one perspective we may not hear, and that 
is the baby's perspective.
  I have an article from the Journal of the American Medical 
Association that might help us understand just what the baby goes 
through during a partial-birth abortion. The article is written by Dr. 
Sprang and Dr. Neerhof of Northwestern University Medical School.
  They say in their article, ``The centers necessary for pain 
perception develop early in the second trimester.''
  Mr. Speaker, most partial-birth abortions happen in the second and 
third trimesters. Dr. Sprang and Dr. Neerhof say the vast majority of 
partial-birth abortions are performed on near-viable babies. They say, 
``When infants of similar gestational ages are delivered, pain 
management is an important part of the care rendered to them in the 
intensive care nursery. But in a partial-birth abortion, pain 
management is not provided for the fetus, who is literally within 
inches of being delivered.''
  Mr. Speaker, killing children by painfully stabbing them in the back 
of the head and sucking out their brains is wrong. It is up to us to 
stop it.

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