With
less than 30 minutes before the midnight deadline, the Alabama
legislature sent the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to
Gov. Robert Bentley’s desk for his signature.
“Modern medical science furnishes us with compelling
evidence that unborn children recoil from painful stimuli, that their
stress hormones increase when they are subjected to any painful stimuli,
and that they require anesthesia for fetal surgery,” says Mary
Spaulding Balch, J.D., director of state legislation for the National
Right to Life Committee.
“Therefore, the states have a compelling
interest in protecting unborn children who are capable of feeling pain
from abortion. We strongly encourage Governor Bentley to make Alabama
the fifth state to recognize this obligation by signing the Pain-Capable
Unborn Child Protection Act into law.”
The Alabama House, led by Representative Rich, passed the
Pain-Capable Unborn Protection bill with a vote of 69-19. The Alabama’s
Senate, led by Senator Beason, passed the bill by a vote of 26-5.
As drafted by National Right to Life’s state legislation
department, the model Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act protects
from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain except
when the mother “has a condition which so complicates her medical
condition as to necessitate the abortion of her pregnancy to avert death
or to avert serious risk of substantial or irreversible physical
impairment of a major bodily function or … it is necessary to preserve
the life of an unborn child.”
“We commend Representative Kerry Rich and Senator Scott
Beason for their actions in protecting unborn children and helping their
mothers through enactment of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection
Act,” says Cheryl Ciamarra, Alabama Citizens for Life’s representative
to the Board of Directors of the National Right to Life Committee. “We
ask Governor Bentley to sign this bill into law so that Alabama becomes a
state which protects from abortion unborn child who are capable of
feeling pain.”
