OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2006

Date: Dec. 6, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Abortion


UNBORN CHILD PAIN AWARENESS ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - December 06, 2006)

Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, which purports to provide women important information related to their health, but instead will substitute ideology for scientific evidence.

The House of Representatives is again legislating morals and is poking its nose where it doesn't belong.

This bill will require that family planning providers inform a patient seeking a legal abortion after 20 weeks that there is ``substantial evidence'' that a fetus may feel pain during an abortion procedure.

These women would be required to read and sign a form drafted by Congress, which states that ``there is substantial evidence'' that the abortion will cause pain to the fetus and they will be offered medications intended to reduce pain administered directly to the fetus.

There is an ongoing debate in the scientific community on this issue. Many scientists believe that there is too little information on the effectiveness of medications administered directly to a fetus.

In fact, a federal court found in 2004, ``the issue of a fetus feeling pain is unsettled in the scientific community ..... there is no consensus of medical opinion on this issue,'' and ``much of the debate is based upon speculation and inference.''

Proponents of this bill are claiming compassion for the unborn and using biased ``scientific'' information to prove their misguided ideology.

What would be compassionate is for this body to consider legislation such as the Prevention First Act, which would help to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.

This is what we should be considering.

In reality, the goal of the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is not one based on compassion.

The goal is to undermine a woman's right to choose and to make what is a difficult decision for many women, increasingly more difficult.

I urge all my colleagues to vote against this measure.

http://thomas.loc.gov/

arrow_upward