Nebraska legislature approves fetal pain bill, heads to governor’s desk
UPDATE, 4/13, 11:35a: Ok, the fetal pain really did pass today. I’m told Gov. Dave Heineman will sign it into law this afternoon. Hello, Supreme Court, good-bye Carhart?
The Christian Post reported April 10:
[T]he… law… [will] make NE the first state with a law that directly challenges Roe v. Wade…
Notably, LB1103 could be a serious threat to NE’s infamous abortionist, LeRoy Carhart, who is one of the few in the country who perform late-term abortions. Carhart reportedly aborts fetuses up to 22 weeks electively, and even older if there are medical reasons. The exclusion of the mental health exception is considered by many as a direct response to Cahart as it would prevent him from using such an excuse to perform late-term abortions.
If passed, the fetal pain bill could force Carhart to relocate his business to another….
UPDATE, 4/10, 12:25p: Just learned that OR’s original press release was incorrect. The fetal pain bill (LB 1103) passed on 2nd reading yesterday and should get its 3rd reading and final approval April 12. It would at that point head to the governor’s desk for his signature.
4/9, 11:21a:Exciting news. Operation Rescue is reporting:
Today, the NE legislature gave
finalsecond approval on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks gestation, when pre-born babies are known to feel pain. This bill, which is expected to be signed into law, would severely hamper the late-term abortion business of LeRoy Carhart, and could force him to relocate his late-term abortion business to another state, or close it altogether….
LifeSiteNews.com reported April 8:
Julie Schmit-Albin, Executive Director of NE Right to Life… expressed confidence that Gov. Dave Heineman would sign LB 1103 into law, saying “He has stated his support for this legislation.”
I wrote in a previous WND.com column and post that National Right to Life is hoping this bill, if enacted into law, will trigger a US Supreme Court ruling.
ABCNews.com posted a lengthy article about court prospects for this fetal pain law on April 6:
… The legislation has drawn national attention from groups such as the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sees it as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade…. If the legislation passes, NE will be the first state to ban abortions based on the controversial notion that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. State law now has a post-viability ban on abortion but defines viability on a case-by-case basis….
The NE bill is more worrisome because of its direct attack on Roe, according to the CRR….
While some medical experts testified at the NE hearings that a fetus is able to feel pain at 20 weeks, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement saying it knows of “no legitimate scientific information that supports the statement that a fetus experiences pain.”
“This particular NE bill is not subtle at all,” Nancy Northup, the group’s president, said. “It would require turning over 2 pillars of Roe in that states cannot establish a line of viability and the bill too narrowly defines an exception for women’s health.“…
Anti-abortion supporters have been emboldened in their challenges to aspects of Roe since the Supreme Court upheld in 2007 a ban on an abortion procedure known by its critics as “partial-birth abortion”….
The case… alarmed the abortion rights community because the court had struck down a similar ban 7 years before.
The difference was the composition of the court…..
Kathryn Kolbert… a veteran of the abortion wars… is particularly worried that Justice Anthony Kennedy… might be slipping to the conservative side of the issue.
“Kennedy was with us on Casey, but O’Connor’s presence on the court was central to Kennedy, Kolbert said. “He has shifted since O’Connor left the bench.” She pointed to language Kennedy wrote in the Gonzales decision that she believes suggests that women are somehow incapable of understanding the magnitude of the decision: “Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision,” Kennedy wrote, “which some women come to regret.”
Some Conservatives Are Optimistic
Kolbert said, “I don’t think O’Connor would have let him get away with that. It feeds into a stereotype that women are too emotional, they don’t know what they are doing.”
[Photo via JournalStar.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
If everyone believes Justice Kennedy is swinging back to the pro-life position, why are we presenting him with a case that will regulate abortion? So he can uphold the idea that some abortions are more justified than others? Send him a measure that “attacks the very foundations of Roe,” i.e. the unborn are not persons, as a matter of state constitutional law.
I think I do support the legislation. Makes sense.
Excellent Anne.
Your empathy toward the unborn over 20 weeks gestational age is commendable.
Here is an interesting question though. If we care enough about the fetuses (L. babies) such that we intuitively know that it would be wrong to intentionally inflict pain upon them; if we would classify such abuse to be on par with say torturing a cat, perhaps even worse;
Why don’t we care enough about the fetuses to let them live?
While some medical experts testified at the NE hearings that a fetus is able to feel pain at 20 weeks, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement saying it knows of “no legitimate scientific information that supports the statement that a fetus experiences pain.”
Are you freaking kidding me? Have these ob/gyns never worked with premies or been in a NICU? Their statement is clearly more about politics than about science. Disgusting.
Northup appears to be confused. Fetal pain ? viability. She should be arguing (if she insists on arguing at all) that this limits abortion before “viability” and thus under Roe and Casey is unconstitutional.
Why is National Right to Life confident SCOTUS is ready for this legislation and yet they oppose Personhood because SCOTUS is not balanced in favor of pro-life?
NRTL is whacked.
Cranky Catholic, it all comes down to Kennedy. His opinion in the PBA cases shows that he is willing to accept the constitutionality of restrictions, but he did not take that opportunity to overturn Roe. As things currently stand, we have to craft legislation that will get his vote, and personhood probably doesn’t.
If this is allowed to stand, then the federal government has failed the women of Nebraska. The fact that there are still states trying to circumvent the constitutional rights of women is as disgusting and immoral as gerrymandering and segregation.
Cranky Catholic opined:
Why is National Right to Life confident SCOTUS is ready for this legislation and yet they oppose Personhood because SCOTUS is not balanced in favor of pro-life?
An abortion ban for fetal pain is a different sort of challenge from a full-on declaration of unborn personhood. Roe introduced this idea of a sliding scale, whereby the unborn child gains more rights as he/she develops within the womb. Doe made that sliding scale basically meaningless by carving out a huge loophole for “health,” but the concept remained. Then Casey set a threshold at viability, because the Court believed that viability was the only non-arbitrary dividing line that made sense. An abortion ban for fetal pain challenges the Court’s decision by introducing new evidence. The new evidence is that unborn children at a certain stage of development can feel pain.
The goal is to move the line a bit further back. Of course, pro-lifers would rather see all abortions stopped and full personhood for all human beings from conception through natural death. However, the Court isn’t there yet. We’ll have to shift the Court a little further before a complete reversal of Roe, Doe, and Casey will be possible. Meanwhile, we can limit the damage by proposing incremental measures that will weaken abortion’s stranglehold on our country.
I would dearly love to see a complete ban on all abortions. But the Courts (and the country, to be honest) aren’t ready for it. So we’ll kill the Monster with a thousand small cuts instead of one decisive strike. It’s not as dramatic, but it’s much more likely to be successful.
Jay Watts from Life Training Institute has a good commentary on the Nebraska bill:
http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2010/04/fetal-pain-bill-in-nebraska-jay-watts.html
And do you know what would happen if Roe v. Wade was overturned? Millions of people–judges, prosecutors, lawyers, professors, doctors, nurses, teachers, and regular Americans would stand together, arm-in-arm, in defiance of such a civil rights violation and would, if necessary, break the law to continue servicing women’s reproductive health needs. Prosecutors would refuse to charge, and juries would refuse to convict doctors for providing abortions. I’d do anything and everything I could, legal or not, for the cause of women’s rights, even at my own risk. All you’d do by overturning Roe v. Wade is prove that the spirit of civil disobedience is alive and well in America.
To Anne,
One question (and it’s a little off-topic; my apologies to Jill) So, I guess when I stop paying taxes that support women’s right to kill their womb babies, then I will also be proving that the spirit of civil disobedience is alive and well in America. I’m glad I have your blessing, Anne!
What if SCOTUS has been pushed as far right as it will ever get? I want to see this crystal, magic ball NRTL has at their HQ revealing that SCOTUS can be moved further.
Anne,
Millions?? You speak for so many.
Are you in the abortion business?
Right on, Cranky Catholic! I have believed that NRLC has been “whacked” for the longest time. Personhood now and forever!!!
Anne added:
If this is allowed to stand, then the federal government has failed the women of Nebraska.
Not to burst your bubble … but the change won’t be limited to one state. If the Nebraska law is allowed to stand, then other states will undoubtedly follow Nebraska’s lead….
Anne continued:
The fact that there are still states trying to circumvent the constitutional rights of women is as disgusting and immoral as gerrymandering and segregation.
Interesting logic. Even condemned serial killers are allowed a painless death. Meanwhile, a late-term fetus can be torn limb from limb simply because he/she is in the wrong place at the wrong time. (It’s called a dilation & extraction abortion.) Now science is telling us that the late-term fetus is capable of feeling pain, which being dismembered would certainly cause. And you think it’s immoral to try to prohibit such suffering?
I think it’s interesting that segregation is one of your examples of immoral and disgusting behavior. I agree with you. Any form of racism — especially racism that is codified into law — is immoral and disgusting. Why is that?
Racism is immoral and disgusting because it makes unjust distinctions between people based on an arbitrary standard. Racists truly believe that some human beings deserve more (or less) rights than other human beings simply because of their race. Such a belief is immoral and disgusting.
But what about abortion? The unborn face a lethal form of discrimination which is (like racism) based on an arbitrary standard. Unborn human beings are different from born human beings in four basic areas:
* Size
* Level of development
* Environment (inside the womb vs. outside the womb)
* Dependency
An unborn child (or a born child) doesn’t have any more control over any of these differences than he/she has over race or gender. More importantly, why do any of these differences make someone less human than someone else? Isn’t the unborn child also a victim of injustice, just like someone who is persecuted for his/her race?
Racism is immoral and disgusting. For the same reason, abortion is also immoral and disgusting.
Kennedy, a federalist, would have a very difficult time trying to justify overturning a state constitutional amendment recognizing legal personhood. It would force his hand to recognizing a state’s expansive police powers and state constitutional rights, i.e. Pruneyard Shopping Center vs. Robins, 1980.
Kennedy just three years prior to PP vs. Casey, 1992, called for Roe to be overturned. In that case, Kennedy was persuaded in the 11th hour to form a “centrist” coalition with Justices O’Connor and Souter, both have since retired from the court. Justice Stevens is retiring, one less voice to persuade Kennedy.
Kennedy dissented in Carhart vs. Stenberg, 2000. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Gonzalez vs. Carhart, 2007.
Then there is this issue that Justice Kennedy voting with the pro-abort justices would mean Justice Ginsburg would be able to write an opinion based on, what she has long advocated as, an “equal protection analysis” departing from the “substantive due process” analysis. It is much more likely that Justice Kennedy would instead finally be persuaded by his four fellow Catholic justices, Scalia, Roberts, Alito, and especially Thomas (who it is said has been relentless in his pursuit of Kennedy), to vote in favor of finally returning the issue to the states. In that case, personhood measures already in place would take immediate effect.
Finally, how many pro-life supporters do so on the basis that they are opposed to late-term procedures alone? Wouldn’t upholding a ban on late-term abortion finally end the matter in their minds?
Another federalist death or retirement on the court would be replaced by a rabid pro-abort, Obama appointee. This is our best shot in a generation.
Time to swing for the fences people.
Cranky Catholic contributed:
What if SCOTUS has been pushed as far right as it will ever get? I want to see this crystal, magic ball NRTL has at their HQ revealing that SCOTUS can be moved further.
I’m not sure that I see your point. I hope that the Court can be pushed further toward Life, and I believe that my hope is grounded in some good evidence. I don’t know whether or not NRTL agrees with me, and I won’t try to speak for them. But the point is moot anyway.
Here’s the relevant point: The Court is not yet ready to support a complete abortion ban. Whether or not the Court will ever be ready is an interesting discussion, but not relevant to the Nebraska bill. To paraphrase a former SecDef, you go to trial with the Court you have, not the Court you want to have.
The Court we have is not ready to support a complete abortion ban, so we have to limit the damage in any way that we can.
“And do you know what would happen if Roe v. Wade was overturned? Millions of people–judges, prosecutors, lawyers, professors, doctors, nurses, teachers, and regular Americans would stand together, arm-in-arm, in defiance of such a civil rights violation and would, if necessary, break the law to continue servicing women’s reproductive health needs.”
Wrongo. Overturning Roe v. Wade would return the question of legalizing abortion to a state issue; it wouldn’t automatically make abortion illegal all over the entire country. Do your legal research before you start melodramatically casting yourself as the pro-abortion Patrick Henry, please.
I’ve been following the progress of Josie Duggar on the show 19 Kids and Counting. She was born at 25 weeks by emergency c-section. She was and is obviously a PERSON, and can feel pain (She survived a bowel perforation at 8 days after birth). Babies this age were being ABORTED in Kansas by Tiller! And they are aborted by Carhart, too!
You don’t think these babies feel pain? You think a baby is “dead” until birth? You think the brain and heart and everything else just magically appears seconds before birth?
This is wonderful news about the passage and I am proud of my legislature!
Babies older than 20 weeks are often in the NICU unit of a hospital and they are very delicate and have to be handled very carefully due to their state of development. You can BET they feel pain!
I’m wondering what provision would be made in this bill for exceptional circumstances, such as when continuing a pregnancy would mean loss of the mother’s life?
I’m discussing this with a pro-choicer and would appreciate some insights. The person seems to believe that the fetal pain bill would mean that endangered mothers would be forced to continue their pregnancies, even if it meant sacrificing their lives.
I would tend to think that allowance would be made for exceptional circumstances, rather than a black and white ban that would endanger mothers.
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perhaps if the woman was far enough along, an emergency c-section could be done, Alternative Health, such as was done with Michelle Duggar and her pregnancy and her health being in danger. She was 25 weeks with Josie and a c-section was done to save BOTH lives.
A certified physician (NOT an abortionist) would have to actually confirm the woman’s life was TRULY in danger (I mean TRULY in danger) and that it wasn’t something like wanting her figure back or something selfish.
I’m so glad to hear that she opted for this, over killing her child.
I get so fed up with hearing the rape argument. Two wrongs do not make a right. If a woman has been raped, why perpetrate the violence by making the unborn child pay with its life? Especially since there are people who would give almost anything to adopt a child.
Babies older than 20 weeks are often in the NICU unit of a hospital and they are very delicate and have to be handled very carefully due to their state of development. You can BET they feel pain!
Posted by: LizFromNebraska at April 10, 2010 11:30 AM
Absolutely. We have to do what is called “cluster care”. We take vital signs PRIOR to doing anything else, change the diaper, administer meds, feed and do anything else all at once so that we can, as quickly as possible, put the baby back in the isolette because their nerve endings are so raw that it is very hard on them to be handled at all.
I’ll hire Carhart at the clinic I am planning in an undisclosed location at the moment.