News

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma, April 6, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill that will ban abortion after 20 weeks gestation, an age at which many experts say the unborn child can feel pain.

Called the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” HB 1888 passed the Senate in a 38-8 vote on Tuesday.  The bill will now return to the House for a final vote before being sent to the governor.

Senator Clark Jolley, the Senate author, said an unborn child feels pain at about 16 weeks and reacts to stimuli by 20 weeks.  “Surely, we shouldn’t rip someone’s limbs apart while terminating the pregnancy,” said Jolley, according to the Tulsa World newspaper.

“The bill before you says we are not going to torture children in utero by saying we are not going to allow abortion after 20 weeks unless the mother’s life is in danger,” Jolley added.

HB 1888 allows abortion post 20-weeks fertilization only if there are substantial risks to the life of the mother or risk of her irreversible physical impairment.

However, the law also specifies that an abortionist ending a pregnancy after 20 weeks gestation must actually try to induce delivery and deliver the unborn baby in a way that gives the child the best opportunity to survive outside the womb. If he cannot do this, the abortionist must certify that delivery would “pose a greater risk either of the death of the pregnant woman or of the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function” than abortion. Reasons to abort cannot include “psychological or emotional conditions of the woman.”

Opponents to the bill claim that abortions are not performed in Oklahoma after 17 weeks.  They are accusing Republicans of using the bill to buy votes.

Last year, Nebraska became the first U.S. State to approve an abortion ban based on fetal pain. The bill went into effect in October 2010 without any legal challenge from abortion advocates, despite public objections that the ban infringed on the constitutional “right” to abortion established by the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

Legislatures in at least nine more states are considering similar legislation: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oregon.