Babies Not Only Die But Suffer Excruciating Pain During Dismemberment Abortion

Legislation
National Right to Life

Editor’s note. These are excerpts from the remarks of Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) delivered today during House debate on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Overwhelming majorities of Americans—some 60%-64% according to pollsters—support legal protection for pain-capable unborn children.

Today we know that unborn babies not only die but suffer excruciating pain during dismemberment abortion—a cruelty that rips arms and legs off a helpless child.

A former abortionist, Dr. Anthony Levatino, testified before Congress that he had performed 1,200 abortions—over 100 late-term abortions up to 24 weeks.

Dr. Levatino described what the abortionist actually does to the helpless child. 

“Imagine if you can that you are a pro-choice obstetrician/gynecologist like I was.” Using a Sopher 13” clamp with rows of ridges or teeth, “grasp anything you can” inside the womb.

“Once you’ve grasped something inside, squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard—really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg about six inches long. Reach in again and grasp anything you can…and out pops an arm.” He noted that “a second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure.” He said, “Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart and lungs.”

Madame Speaker, even U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy gets it. In his dissent to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2000 Stenberg v. Carhart decision, Justice Kennedy observed that in D&E dismemberment abortions, 

“The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off.” Justice Kennedy added in the Court’s 2007 opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart that D&E abortions are “laden with the power to devalue human life…”

Even if pain wasn’t present, dismembering a child is violence against children and inhumane. But these babies actually suffer.

Dr. Robert White, professor of neurosurgery at Case Western Reserve University, said an unborn child at 20 weeks gestation “is fully capable of experiencing pain…without question, (abortion) is a dreadfully painful experience…”

National Right to Life continues


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