Pro-Abortion Group Says 20 Week Ban "Criminalize Women"

Pro-abortion group UltraViolet responded to the passage of a bill that would put a national ban on most abortions after the 20 week gestation period by labeling the measure “inhumane.”

The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which contains exemptions in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is threatened, finally passed the House this week after a long delay, prompting outrage from pro-choice organizations who responded with familiar vitriol.

Despite the fact that the legislation is likely to be killed in the Senate anyway, liberal activist group UltraViolet claimed the legislation would “criminalize women’s reproductive choices.”

“Plain and simple – when politicians introduce inhumane bans on abortions, they are tying the hands of physicians who want to help couples going through heartbreaking situations like serious fetal anomalies,” said co-founder Shaunna Thomas.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, asserted the bill was part of a stealth move to “ban abortion completely,” a claim backed up by zero evidence.

Meanwhile, Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, was offended that politicians would even dare vote on such a bill during ‘Women’s Health Week,’ calling such behavior “appalling.”

Responding to the criticism, Congressman Sean Duffy remarked, “If you stand with the defenseless, with the voiceless, you have to stand with little babies. Don’t talk to me about cruelty in our bill — when you look at little babies being dismembered, feeling excruciating pain, if we can’t stand to defend these children, what do we stand for in this institution?”

Characterizing the bill as “inhumane” makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The only thing that’s “inhumane” is killing a life form that by 20 weeks weighs 10 ounces and measures around 10 inches, the length of a banana.

Ultrasound images show that babies at 20 weeks are so sensitive to touch that they react to a single human hair being drawn across their palm by making a fist.

“At 20 weeks, the fetal brain has the full complement of brain cells present in adulthood, ready and waiting to receive pain signals from the body, and their electrical activity can be recorded by standard electroencephalography (EEG),” according to Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist at the University of Toronto.

Robert J. White, M.D., PhD., professor of neurosurgery at Case Western University concurs, remarking that an unborn baby at 20 weeks gestation “is fully capable of experiencing pain. … Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.”

Most women start to feel a baby moving at around the 20 week mark. Ultrasound scanning has also proven that babies start making finger movements at around 15 weeks and are yawning by around 18 weeks. They also start to suck their thumb at around this time.

Babies more than double in size between 15 and 20 weeks inside the womb, while the nervous system is rapidly maturing as the nerves connect the brain to the rest of the body. Soft cartilage also hardens into bone while sensory perceptions which designate areas of the brain for smell, taste, hearing, vision and touch also quickly develop during this time period.

Parents are even advised to read aloud or sing at the 20 week mark because the baby is sometimes able to hear. New studies also show that premature babies born at 22 weeks can survive outside the womb.

There can be little debate about the fact that by 20 weeks, a baby is a functioning, feeling human life form and not just a “collection of cells” as abortion advocates sometimes characterize a fetus.

Pro-choice groups are also misrepresenting reality when they claim that most Americans would oppose the passage of this bill. In reality, a Washington Post poll found that 64 percent of Americans support restricting abortion beyond 20 weeks. Women and younger people are also more likely to support the ban.

In terms of Roe v Wade, which legalized abortion in the first three months of a pregnancy, polls have remained fairly steady over the last 40 years, with the most recent finding that 63 per cent oppose overturning the Supreme Court decision, while 29 per cent would like to see it reversed.

As we have previously illustrated, some college students even support killing newborns up to five years old.

In 2013, numerous residents in San Diego signed a similar petition composed by Mark Dice which advocated making post-birth abortions legal under Obamacare.

In another video also shot in 2013, reporter Dan Joseph convinced numerous students at George Mason University (GMU) to sign a petition demanding lawmakers legalize “fourth trimester” abortions, in other words killing babies that had already been born.

In 2013, the University of Melbourne’s Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva wrote a paper arguing that “after-birth abortion (killing a newborn baby) should be permissible, including in cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

The notion of infanticide was also implicitly backed by MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, who said that newborn infants don’t count as being considered “alive”