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OKLAHOMA CITY, March 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A bill outlawing the killing of unborn children after they are old enough to feel pain has been sent to the Oklahoma Senate after receiving broad bipartisan support in a House of Representatives vote Wednesday.

Only two House members voted against the measure, which restricts legal abortion to before 20 weeks gestation, when research has determined that the nerves of unborn children are certainly developed enough to feel the pain of being killed.

House Bill 1888, the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” passed in a 94-2 vote without debate. The measure allows abortions in cases of risk to the life of the mother or risk of her irreversible physical impairment.

Abortionists performing the procedure after the threshold and without adequate reason would be subject to felony prosecution.

“The science is there. Whether you’re pro-life or pro-abortion, we should all agree that gratuitous suffering by an unborn child is incompatible with our society,” said state Republican Rep. Pam Peterson, the bill’s sponsor.

Last year, Nebraska became the first state in the country to approve a fetal pain bill. The bill went into effect last October without any legal challenge from pro-abortion groups, despite prior objections that it unconstitutionally limited the “right” to abortion established by the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

Legislatures in nine more states are considering similar legislation: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oregon, according to the Guttmacher Institute as cited by Reuters.