So far in 2015, there have been overwhelming votes in state legislatures to: 1) ban abortions when an unborn baby is developed enough to feel pain; and 2) ban dismemberment abortions.
It’s tragic the Supreme Court won’t let us pass laws that protect the lives of every unborn baby. But that’s the reality in 2015. So we’re passing laws that will save lives now as we keep working hard to change the outlook of the Supreme Court.
Last week, the West Virginia Senate passed by a vote of 29-5 the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a bill that bans elective abortions when an unborn baby reaches the stage that a preponderance of evidence demonstrates she can feel pain. West Virginia’s House previously voted 87-12 for the bill!
This bill, created by National Right to Life to save babies we believe the Supreme Court will allow us to protect, has now passed in the legislature in 12 states; tragically, Democratic governors in two states – West Virginia last year and Minnesota in 2011 – vetoed the bill, allowing pain-capable little babies to still suffer horribly and be killed by abortion in those states.
Last year, the West Virginia legislature ran out of time to override the governor’s veto before the legislative session ended. But this year, with new leadership in the state Senate, they’ve passed the bill early enough in the session to bring up an override vote and West Virginia is soon expected to be the 11th state to enact this life-saving bill!
Several other states are considering similar protection for the unborn. South Carolina’s House has already passed the bill by an overwhelming vote of 80-27, and Right to Lifers there are working to win in the Senate. Other states are taking up the bill, as well.
While those important fights for unborn lives are occurring, at least three states are advancing another breakthrough law: the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Ban.
Dismemberment abortions are a brutal method in which an abortionist uses a forceps or similar instrument to clasp an unborn baby in the womb and then kill him by twisting and tearing off limbs and other body parts until the baby bleeds to death. Bills now advancing in Oklahoma, where it overwhelmingly passed the House 84-2, and in Kansas, where it passed the Senate, 31-9, would ban this barbarity. The bill has also been introduced in Missouri, where it is expected to get strong support.
We want more states to take up these breakthrough pro-life laws! Please share this email about these laws with your friends, family, and associates of all kinds. Even people who think of themselves as “pro-choice” find these horrible abortions that dismember or inflict pain to be repulsive.
Every citizen needs to know this is happening in America in 2015.
It’s also very important to talk with your elected officials and ask them to support legislation that will actually protect unborn babies right now – that is, bills we believe the courts will uphold – and ban abortions when the baby is developed enough to feel pain, and ban dismemberment abortions.
Finally, several national groups are the driving force behind the education and lobbying to pass these laws. In addition to passing laws, it is important to develop the badly needed process of educating millions of Americans that such abortions are occurring, and that unborn babies are not a “blob of cells” as abortion advocates try to deceive us into believing.
The public needs us to share the truth with them: that these are well-developed babies with arms and legs, heads and torsos, that an abortionist callously tears off until the baby dies, his or her remains discarded like so much garbage.
We must stop this carnage. The pro-abortion group NARAL held several poorly attended “Stop The Bans” events across the country last week to protest our Pain-Capable and Dismemberment Abortion bans. We’ve got them on the run! Help us pass more of these humane laws.
[Carol Tobias, National Right to Life President ]