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Last week, the US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and the Borne Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.  In many states in the U.S. abortion is essentially unrestricted until birth.  The proposed legislation has been put forward by pro-life legislators in order to protect babies whose nervous systems have developed to the point that they can experience pain (estimated at 20 weeks gestation) as well as babies who have survived abortions and been born alive.

These proposed acts are clearly exceedingly moderate and reasonable.  Declaring that, at the very least, children who can feel pain should not be violently terminated and that children who have been BORN ALIVE should not be left to cry themselves to death should not be, from any perspective, controversial.

Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor

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However, members of the abortion lobby will not support these commonsense measures that will protect babies and women from the violence of late term abortion.  In fact, one pro-abortion doctors testifying before the Judiciary Committee on these late term abortions stated that it was acceptable to deny immediate medical care to babies born alive following botched abortions.

Dr. Diana Green Foster stated during the hearing, "I can imagine situations where the doctors and nurses have decided that there is not a point in medical intervention and by whisking the baby away you’ve take away a woman’s chance to hold her child and say goodbye."

This is a particularly disturbing stance for abortion advocates to take.  While abortion is always wrong, it becomes even more indefensible when the baby is developed enough to feel the excruciating pain of the procedure or has been born and simply left to die.
It was particularly notable that testifying at the same hearing was Melissa Ohden who survived an abortion and was born alive.  Melissa has gone on to found the Abortion Survivors Network.

Her work in the network is testament to the fact that there are other people in the world- people's friends and neighbors, valuable members of society- who survived abortion. The fact that people would argue that these people should have been left to die is appalling and that they do so in the name of rights is even more so. 

Gianna Jessen, who was born after a failed saline infusion abortion, has pointed out the true hypocrisy to the pro-abortion argument, "If abortion is merely about women's rights then where were mine?".  Gianna has also pointed out, “There was not a radical feminist, standing up and yelling about how my rights had been violated that day.  In fact my life was being snuffed out in the name of women's rights.”

The arguments of the pro-abortion lobby against these proposed acts are simply indefensible.  It is entirely tragic that opening the door to abortion in the United States has led to a point where pro-lifers are forced to argue against the killing of children who have already been born. 

It is to be hoped that these pieces of legislation pass and America can hold back the tide of abortion and return to a place where all children are welcomed.  This tragic state of affairs should also reinforce in the Irish public the desperate need to guard against abortion and promote and build a culture of life.