It starts out, “There is a valid Federal Government interest in preventing or reducing the infliction of pain on sentient creatures. Examples of this are laws governing the use of laboratory animals and requiring pain-free methods of slaughtering livestock …” And then the bill actually cites a bunch of current federal laws dictating how lab animals and food animals must be treated. What motive can have congressional sponsors have, in insisting that the human fetus (after the end of the fifth month) be afforded considerations parallel to those provided to rabbits and lambs, other than sheer misogyny? NARAL must be blind not to see this.

Then, the bill would require that the abortion provider offer the woman a brochure which says, “There is a significant body of evidence that unborn children at 20 weeks after fertilization have the physical structures necessary to experience pain. There is substantial evidence that at least by this point, unborn children draw away from surgical instruments in a manner which in an infant or an adult would be interpreted as a response to pain…You may request that anesthesia or other pain-reducing drug or drugs are administered directly to the pain-capable unborn child if you so desire.”

Well. I suppose they got the “substantial evidence” part from reading the Brit article, the writings of Prof. Anand, and much, much more of the same sort of stuff. But can’t they see, as most of the posters on this thread so clearly see, that pregnant women are incapable of evaluating this sort of confusing information? If, if not entirely incapable, at least not equipped to evaluate such claims with the dispassionate perspective that the posters themselves bring to the task.

No, these women need to be shielded from such possibly distressing information. Oh, sure, the bill says, “a pregnant woman may waive receipt of the brochure” And, that “Nothing … may be construed to impede an abortion provider or the abortion provider’s agent from offering their own evaluation on the capacity of the unborn child to experience pain, the advisability of administering pain-reducing drugs to the unborn child, or any other matter…” But really! If you can’t trust an abortionist to voluntarily give a woman all of the pertinent information on what is involved in an abortion, who can you trust?

‘Course, they only want the little bugger alive so’s they can stick a frigging rifle in its hand so’s it can blow away a few of dem dar terrahists!

Yup, that’s the ‘Quiverfull’ argument.

angie @ 34

If the fundies want to work on something worthwhile, let them tackle this instead of messing with our freedoms.

(CNN) — An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.

American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH…..ers.index/

But, let’s remember…
For these people, “pro-life” only means one cares about the fetus up until birth…
Then the baby needs to take personal responsibility for keeping himself/herself alive.

Can I get an “Amen” here?

‘Course, they only want the little bugger alive so’s they can stick a frigging rifle in its hand so’s it can blow away a few of dem dar terrahists! If I see another SUV with a pro-life bumper sticker sitting next to a “Support GWB” car magnet, I’m gonna projectile hurl. Hopefully on the SUV, if my aim’s good.

I just want to say thanks for giving us all a great place to share ideas and for your patience when we’re less than tolerable.

:-)

Hahahahaa

This is warning #1, and we didn’t invent the rule today, it is longstanding so please respect it.