Rep. Walter Jones, Rep. David Rouzer, Rep. Robert Pittenger, Rep. Virginia Foxx, Rep. Mark Walker, Rep. Mark Meadows, Rep. Richard Hudson, Rep. Ted Budd, Rep. Patrick McHenry, and Rep. George Holding
North Carolinians from every city and town should be applauding this list of individuals. They joined 234 other House legislators in passing H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act. This seemingly routine act of carrying out their legislative responsibilities has the potential to save scores of children, should this bill pass the Senate.
Opposite of my praise for these representatives is my disappointment in three others. Missing from this list is my own representative, David Price, as well as Rep. George Butterfield and Rep. Alma Adams. Their rejection of this bill is absolutely shameful. Why?
The life issue is not something any of us can afford to get wrong. To deny the personhood of the victims of the American Holocaust is incomprehensible. From the point of conception, these children deserve to be given their just due: a chance at life.
Representatives who opposed this legislation have proven their willingness, despite a preponderance of evidence, to be either: a) science deniers or b) indifferent to the plight of unborn children. If they are science deniers, they have essentially chosen to reject an opportunity to pass a bill that has been crafted with a heavy reliance upon empirical evidence that children at least twenty weeks gestation have the ability to experience pain in the same way that adults do.
Essentially, if you or I are capable of feeling dismemberment or chemical burns, the science shows that these children are, too. What in the world would motivate legislators such as Price, Butterfield, and Adams to reject such basic human rights to these children?
After all, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act should be a bill that every legislator on Capitol Hill can agree upon, because it protects the intentional crushing, dismemberment, or lethal injection of an extremely vulnerable population within our nation’s borders.
Unfortunately even at the state level unborn children face life-endangering threats from legislators. Take H.B. 563, for example. This bill, sponsored by Representatives Susan Fisher, Carla Cunningham and Graig Meyer, sought to extend abortion access past the twenty-week gestational age, ensuring the victims of abortions in NC experienced an unspeakably painful death. Thankfully, this cruel piece of legislation did not pass, although it highlights the importance of vigilance at every level of government.
Representatives Price, Butterfield, and Adams will have to speak for themselves as to why they voted against legislation that would stop children—scientifically-proven to feel pain—from being subjected to dismemberment, lethal injection, or crushing. After learning of their 100 percent voting record from Planned Parenthood, I can draw a few conclusions as to why.
If these legislators refuse to place people – including unborn babies—above the ideologically-driven agenda spawned by Planned Parenthood founder and eugenicist Margaret Sanger, then I suggest we find men and women better committed to defending life.
I wonder how Brooke users the term ‘science-deniers’ when the entire GOP denies science on so many other issues, ‘despite a preponderance of evidence.’
The opposition to HR 36 is laid out here:
https://www.adolescenthealth.org/Advocacy/Advocacy-Activities/2017-Activity/Opposition-to-HR-36.aspx
Brooke says nothing about the strong opposition points made.
Scott, the chief complaint (physical endangerment of the mother’s life) your link mentions is addressed in H.R. 36:
“(B) EXCEPTIONS.—Subparagraph (A) does not apply if—
“(i) in reasonable medical judgment, the abortion is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, but not including psychological or emotional conditions;
“(ii) the pregnancy is the result of rape against an adult woman, and at least 48 hours prior to the abortion—
“(I) she has obtained counseling for the rape; or
“(II) she has obtained medical treatment for the rape or an injury related to the rape; or
“(iii) the pregnancy is a result of rape against a minor or incest against a minor, and the rape or incest has been reported at any time prior to the abortion to either—
“(I) a government agency legally authorized to act on reports of child abuse; or
“(II) a law enforcement agency.
H.R. 36 ignores the health issues and real life situations that women can face in pregnancy. Every woman faces her own unique circumstances, challenges, and potential complications. She needs to be able to make decisions based on her physician’s medical advice and what is right for her and her family.
H.R. 36 delays rape survivors access to abortion care by requiring adult survivors to receive counseling or medical treatment at least 48 hours prior to getting an abortion. Minors would be required to report their rape to law enforcement before being allowed an abortion. These requirements create medically unjustified delays for needed medical care. Women’s health care providers are appropriately trained and able to counsel patients in all medical circumstances. No one should be required to attend extra appointments and jump through unnecessary hoops before she is able to access needed care.
Further, the bill includes medically inappropriate and unnecessary requirements dictating how providers should deliver medical care. Reproductive health care providers, based on their extensive training and informed by professional practice guidelines, should determine the best course of care with their patients, not with politicians in mind. The bill also requires physicians to report any abortion performed after twenty weeks and the location of the abortion, but only shields the patient’s identity, not the providers’. This information, if made public, would place providers in jeopardy of significant harm.
H.R. 36 would force a doctor to deny an abortion to a woman who has determined that terminating a pregnancy is the right decision for her, including women carrying a pregnancy with severe and lethal anomalies that may not be diagnosed until after 20 weeks in pregnancy and to women with serious medical conditions brought on or exacerbated by pregnancy. It contains no exception to preserve the health of a woman. Instead, it includes a vague life endangerment exception which exposes doctors to the threat of criminal and civil prosecution, limiting their options for care that is often needed in complex, urgent medical situations. H.R. 36’s mandates and restrictions on how physicians should care for their patients are based on inaccurate and unscientific claims.
Brooke fails to address an issue fully…what’s new? Narrow and shallow at best, ignorant at worst.
Scott and George,
I appreciate your comments (even if George’s was intended to belittle), but I think both of you have missed the overarching question: when is it morally permissible to rip a child, fully capable of feeling pain, limb from limb? If we cannot come to the same obvious conclusion, then there is nothing I could ever write that would convince you to afford children the same rights and privileges you both enjoy as American men.
Well Brooke, why don’t you answer for those who walk arm and arm with you on this issue who state that it is at conception that the child should be protected.
Please get back to us on the science involved in those people’s minds.
And do spend a moment analyzing and responding to the multiple objections posed to HR 36 that you never even go near.
Every single one of those claims against H.R. 36 is based upon the premise that innocent human life is disposable should the right conditions be met. I will not provide answers that satisfy you on that front, because I don’t believe there is a justifiable reason to tear a baby limb from limb within their mother’s womb and you seem to feel otherwise. The youngest baby to survive outside of the womb was just thirteen days older than the twenty week mark in this bill. Are you really okay with sentencing a child that close to viability to a brutal and torturous death in the name of “women’s choice?”
I am one of those individuals that believes life should be defended from the point of conception onward (para. 3: “From the point of conception, these children deserve to be given their just due: a chance at life.”). I base my defense of life from the point of conception on a belief in the inherent dignity of each human being, regardless of gestation (or age, disability, gender). I don’t rely solely upon science to inform that belief, and we should be glad I don’t! If science were the sole arbiter of which lives were worthy of protection, all weak, disabled, mentally ill, or otherwise would be sentenced to death. We saw how that worked out in the German concentration camps.
You have moved from questioning H.R. 36 to another discussion that this bill does not seek to address.
Well Brooke, I respect your personal beliefs, and I also respect the personal beliefs of others who disagree with you. So I conclude that the Government should not interfere in the lives of people. Liberty I think it is called. Imagine that?
Your use of Planned Parenthood is political. Your use of Margaret Sanger is political. And you use science for political purposes, than deny science should be used. Very contradictory wouldn’t you say?
Lastly, you jump right over the many objections to HR 36 that have nothing to do with the ‘premise of innocent life’ and all to do with the burdensome laws that work against those seeking to use their constitutional rights. The Courts have said so! (now is the que to bash the Courts as liberal, then say nothing of all the Court decisions you like that liberals abhor).
Scott,
Sometimes there is an ocean of difference between liberty and license. I would posit that abortion would fall under the latter, but not the former. Our government has granted abortionists a license to abort, but is it consistent with the essence of liberty? No. Liberty recognizes the autonomy of each individual to make decisions for themselves (a caveat would be young children that are to be protected and taught how to make safe choices and eventually entrusted with the responsibilities of liberty as they reach adulthood) and accept the consequences of those decisions – whether good or bad. To deny a human the right to be born is to take from them the core right their humanity affords them: life.
I did not deny science should ever be used when making legislative decisions (my blog post above clearly states otherwise). However, I do acknowledge the limits of science to inform inherently moral decisions. Our lives are not reducible to scientific analysis, alone, but we can employ empirical evidence to inform certain quantitative realities of life.
When it comes to the first and second objections to H.R. 36 (that it ignores health issues and real-life situations, to include rape) the answer is, “No, it doesn’t.” There is clear language in the bill that provides legal protection for a mother and abortionist should her physical body be endangered at that point in her pregnancy. The term “real-life situations” has been kept separate from “health issues” and I can only guess that the reason is that the bill’s opponents wish to make an exception for late-term abortions in cases of rape or incest. My response to that is a question: “Does an innocent child conceived in rape deserve to be murdered?”
Regarding the third objection to H.R. 36, if the physical endangerment requirement has been met, they will not be prosecuted, per Sec. 3(B).
Finally, concerning the fourth objection to H.R. 36, I will repeat a similar question to the one asked above: “Does an innocent child deserve to be murdered because they have a physical or mental disorder/ailment?” Down-Syndrome, for example, has been virtually eradicated in Iceland. How? Because almost every single one of these children have been selectively aborted. To abort children because of potential disorders or ailments is called eugenics and completely inexcusable in a nation that purports to honor the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Thank you for taking the time to comment and engage in this post, Scott.
Brooke fails to address two crucial points:
1) HR 36 is doa in the US Senate
2) The Courts have refused to accept the burdens placed on Women choosing to use their Constitutional Rights.
Brooke’s article, like HR 36 is a political stunt.
The law as it ought and the law as it is are oftentimes two different things. Neither #1 nor #2 negates the reality that it is empirically proven a child at least twenty weeks gestation can feel pain and to abort said child would cause horrific and unspeakable suffering to him or her. You have moved away from attacking my points on their merits because there is no credible argument to justify this practice.
Civtas is a political stunt … pure and simple. If not ______________ (fill in the blank).
The question of abortion comes down to choice. Both the mother AND father must be involved in a decision BEFORE an abortion happens. Also, there needs to be an actual, enforced, limit on how far along the pregnancy is that abortion can happen. It’s time libs stopped whining about Republicans denying ‘science’ and start realizing they are cherry picking actual science. Libs want us to believe man-made global climate change hysteria is real, yet they deny the actual science of killing babies. Why? How could this be? How is it that libs want us to believe their made up stuff, their schemes, their lies, when they continue to deny facts, truth? First, libs default response to anything they disagree with is to whine. Second, schemes are what keep libs in power. Truth proves the lie of everything lib. Facts are counter to everything lib.
Finally, babies don’t vote. Illegal aliens do vote. And libs are doing everything they can, creating every scheme possible, to allow even more illegal aliens to vote. Cuz it gives power, and new voters, to libs. If it weren’t for libs wanting to concentrate power in their hands, regardless of how low they have to go, libs wouldn’t have anything to stand on. Check out every scheme created by libs – the result is more power, more control, in their hands. True for abortion – their base is rabid with desire to ignore facts and kill more babies. Libs want absolutely NO restriction on abortion; they want to abort just because. True for health insurance – obamacancer was purposely created to fail so libs could step in with their holy grail of Single Payer (aka socialized medicine). Under socialized medicine, not only will abortions be unlimited, unrestricted, but libs will get gov’t to pay for every one! This is their utopia.
And there’s not a single lib that can deny this. Oh, they will. But they will have no truth or fact on their side. They’ll just name-call, obfuscate, deflect. And whine! Libs HATE truth and attempt to get it shut down at every opportunity.
Censoring … brought to you by NCCivitas! About that the claim of “appreciating” comments…. Now you know why many of us don’t take Civitas seriously and appear to be “belittling.”
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Wow! Where was policy last month?
Restoration of Individual Liberty
We Conservatives must find ways to restore fundamental tenets of individual liberty. Optimism can be restored in the American people by such actions much like Ronald Reagan’s successful restoration of our national confidence, optimism and positive outlook.
In my 83 years of studying politics I have avidly supported the GOP principles of Individual Liberty / responsibility, minimum interference of government in our personal lives, and the separation of church and state as mandated by our Constitution.
Influential leaders in Congress have weakened the GOP by imposing their personal beliefs as the law of the land, in contradistinction with GOP fundamental tenet of |Individual Liberty. Glaring examples: GOP’s opposition to a pregnant woman’s abortion decision and requiring government intervention in end of life personal/family decisions. At the same time the GOP hypocritically claims to support personal freedoms.
This hypocrisy must be remedied for the GOP to survive as an unyielding supporter of constitutional freedom from government intervention in our personal lives.
Government protection of the fetus must begin at the point of birth and cutting the cord that separates from its incubating mother to constitutional protection as a citizen. Up to that separation her fetus is under her protection. Further, end of life decisions must be made according to the individual’s wishes, not government edict.
The GOP has been diminished by such inconsistencies fostered by powerful members of Congress forcing their personal beliefs on citizens of various beliefs. Our Constitution mandates protection of Individual liberty for everyone.
David,
I can appreciate your articulate position on this matter, especially as it pertains to the importance of liberty. However, I disagree with your application of individual liberty when it comes to abortion and state-sanctioned assisted suicide (although that is another topic, which this article does not address).
When looking at abortion from an individual liberty perspective the argument for or against the practice must hinge upon the recognition of two individual lives, the mother AND the child.
Even if the child is within the womb, if we do not acknowledge his or her humanity, not to mention their ability to feel pain in the same manner that you and I can, we are not honoring the intent laid out by our Founders as it relates to individual liberty.
Abortionists currently have a state-sanctioned license to abort in the United States, but that does not mean they are respecting natural law or the spirit of individual liberty.