Lindsey Graham: My Bill Protecting Pain-Capable Babies Puts Us in Line ‘with the Science’

Graham
Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday introduced his bill protecting pain-capable babies in the womb, describing it as a means to push back against the radical left’s desire to allow a woman to abort her child even up until the moment of birth.

Flanked by a group of pro-life advocates, Graham offered his reasoning for the proposed legislation, which would create a federal standard. He displayed charts showing babies at the 15-week period as he explained that if one is to operate on a baby at that time to save his or her life — which occasionally happens —  “the standard practice in medicine is to provide anesthesia.”

“Now why would you do that? You provide anesthesia because the science tells us that the 15-week period the nerve endings of the baby are pretty well developed, and the child feels pain,” he said, explaining that it is absurd that a medical professional has to provide anesthesia at that point in the pregnancy to operate to keep the baby from feeling pain, yet there is no standard for freely killing a pain-capable child at the same point.

“…[S]hould we as a nation be aborting babies that can feel excruciating pain from an abortion?” he said, laying out his case for something to be done at the federal level. Such a proposal, he said, should say that after 15 weeks, there should be no abortion on demand except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.

If America adopted such a bill, the country would actually “be in the mainstream of most everybody else in the world,” Graham continued, adding that he chose 15 weeks because “the science tells us that the nerve endings are developed to the point that the unborn child feels pain.”

While states have the ability to create their own standards following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Graham said lawmakers in Washington have the  ability “to speak on this issue if we choose.”

“I have chosen to speak,” he said, also noting that his bill follows his Democrat colleagues pushing their own radical abortion legislation.

“They chose a bill that allows late-term abortion virtually up to the point of birth,” he explained.

“They chose a bill that would not put us in the mainstream of the world, but put us in a group of seven nations that allow abortion on demand pretty much up to the point of birth like North Korea, or Iran and a few others,” he added, explaining that his bill is a “counter to their proposal.”

The left’s bill, he added, is “extreme in every fashion.”

“And we should be talking about legislation for the nation as a whole. It would put us in line with the science in the civilized world,” Graham added:

A May Fox poll found that most Americans believe abortion should be either “mostly” or “always” illegal, and they also support banning abortion after 15 weeks, as Graham proposes.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.