Posted on 07/11/2013 12:06:26 PM PDT by Morgana
A Texas state Senate committee has taken the next step in the process of getting a ban on late-term abortions in place in Texas. The panel approved the House-backed bill to stop abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Following the debate and vote, abortion activists at the committee hearing disrupted the committee by breaking into a protest song.
A collection of tweets describes some of the debate, the protest song, and national support the bill received today from former presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
The bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks and hold abortion clinics accountable by making them meet basic health and safety standards that have closed facilities in other states that are unable to comply. The bill also requires all abortion clinics to meet the same health and safety regulations as an ambulatory surgical center, requires a doctor providing abortions to secure admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and lastly, requires a doctor to personally administer the abortion-inducing drugs to the patient.
The last attempt to pass the bill was halted in the state Senate with a pro-abortion filibuster but state Sen. Wendy Davis says she will not filibuster the bill a second time. Today, she told CNN she thinks the bill will ultimately pass and be signed into law by pro-life Gov. Rick Perry.
“It will be very difficult because unfortunately the voices that have been here crying out against this bill are not going to be heard,” Davis told CNN in a brief interview. “But I don’t think it’s the end. It’s the beginning of a battle line.”
“That’s probably the case,” Davis said about not being able to filibuster the bill a second time.
This week saw a death threat issued to the Texas Lt. Governor and abortion activists screaming “F— the Church.”
Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a call for a special session of the Texas legislature to pass the bill that a pro-abortion mob prevented the legislature from passing last week.“I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas. Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state,” Perry said.
“Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just. We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do.”
A recent national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger. Only 30% said they would oppose such a law. Polling from Texas also shows support for the legislation.
The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy.
The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it. He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”
He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.
“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote. “Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.
With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center has provided further research to substantiate their work.
“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.
Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”
“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified.
She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”
This week, a pro-abortion activist had to be removed from a hearing and another read a disgusting poem to legislators equating her vagina to a gun.
The protesters at the Texas capitol have exploited children by making them hold signs supporting their protest against a ban on late-term abortions. Today the Internet is abuzz with shock and disgust over another sign, along with a video showing abortion activists chanting Hail Satan.
Meanwhile, a little girl is shown in a picture along with pro-abortion protestors holding a sign saying, “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d f— a senator.”
One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
That’s my state!!!
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/senate-will-take-up-abortion-bill-friday/nYm6b/
Senate will take up abortion bill Friday
The Texas Senate will debate and vote on a bill to heighten abortion regulations Friday in a
session set to begin at 2 p.m.
It will be the final step for House Bill 2, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said the Senate
will pass the measure Friday, sending it to Gov. Rick Perry for his signature, though a
Saturday vote is possible if senators engage in prolonged debate.
On Thursday, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 6-3, along party lines,
to approve the bill and send it to the Senate floor. As senators on the committee voted,
about 10 spectators filed out of the room while singing the refrain from Twisted Sister’s
“We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
end snips
mine to and I will be down there on Friday to support!
I just got back from Wisconsin where I was visiting my mother for a week. They just passed the same bill, or at least a lot like it. As soon as they did, Planned Parenthood got a judge to put a stay on it so it is in legal limbo there - for now. I fully expect PP to do something similar here in Texas.
20 weeks is more than halfway through the typical 9 month pregnancy.
The only reason abortion isn’t murder is because it’s legal killing.
>> This week saw a death threat issued to the Texas Lt. Governor and abortion activists screaming “F— the Church.”
With or without the Catholic Church, killing nascent human life is still a depraved violation against humanity.
Just like all the babies killed by abortion - their cries remain unheard by people like Davis.
I view this with mixed emotions... The people most likely to get abortions are Liberals... The fewer (Liberals), the better...
This is even more enforced in my mind when I see a cart full of high dollar groceries being pushed by a grossly obese female,talking on a cell phone, followed by several stair-stepped income increaser’s that will probably never learn to read cursive...
Where were the abortions when we needed them?
I am currently pregnant with baby #3, actually at 20 weeks. I had an ultrasound last week and the baby is fully formed, heart beating, moving around, organs intact. We saw his brain, his stomach, his heart. I cannot think of a single reason why someone would abort at 20 weeks of after. I cannot imagine any medical personnel providing this option, knowing the state of the baby at that point. There has to be something very wrong with the mother/doctor if aborting at 20 weeks seems okay to them.
Twenty weeks is more than enough time to decide whether or not to murder a tiny, helpless, unborn baby for the sake of convenience. Why should a tiny person’s life be extinguished in agony just because their parent failed to use contraception and now chooses fetal violence causing death, in order to avoid bearing the pain of childbirth, the burden of raising a little one and the social stigma (if there is any of that left in today’s society)?
Way to go Texas, for the improvement!
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