News

Washington, March 29, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Federal district courts in New York, Nebraska, and California commenced separate trials today on legal challenges to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, a bill signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 5, 2003.  The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) led the coalition that resulted in enactment of this federal law after an eight-year fight.

The three trials will examine several medical issues related to the partial-birth abortion procedure.  The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act contains a number of congressional findings including a finding that the vast majority of infants undergoing partial-birth abortion experience intense pain.  This particular finding contained in the law states, “The vast majority of babies killed during partial-birth abortions are alive until the end of the procedure.  It is a medical fact, however, that unborn infants at this stage can feel pain when subjected to painful stimuli and that their perception of this pain is even more intense than that of newborn infants and older children when subjected to the same stimuli.  Thus, during a partial-birth abortion procedure, the child will fully experience the pain associated with piercing his or her skull and sucking out his or her brain.”  Pro-abortion organizations who are challenging the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in the three courts today attempted to exclude expert testimony on fetal pain from the trials but at least two of the judges have ruled that it is relevant.  See the extensive resources on the topic from the NRLC website:  https://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/index.html