FETAL PAIN PREVENTION ACT

Sponsors:  Sen. Meier / A. Seminerio

Bill # S.2314 / # A.4549

NYSRTL supports this bill.  The accumulated scientific evidence now establishes clearly that a baby of twenty weeks gestation can feel pain.  If there is reason to believe that an unborn child to be aborted is twenty weeks or older, a physician is required to provide the mother, both orally and in writing, information about fetal pain and the opportunity to have anesthesia administered to her child.  The bill requires the information to be "objective, nonjudgmental and designed to convey accurate scientific information." The information would include facts regarding (a) the development of the fetal nervous system, (b) fetal responsiveness to adverse stimuli, and (c) a description of the actual steps in the abortion procedure.

Professor Robert White testified before the House Constitution Subcommittee that, "the fetus, within this time frame of gestation, 20 weeks and beyond, is fully capable of experiencing pain... Without question, all of this is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subject to such a surgical procedure."  Professor Paul Ranalli, a neurologist at the University of Toronto, has pointed out that two types of stress hormones normally released by an adult subjected to pain are released in massive amounts by an unborn child subjected to a needle puncture to draw a blood sample. This was established by a researcher working on 19-week-old fetuses (N. Fisk, London), and by another working on 16-week-old fetuses (J. Partch, Kiel).  The unborn child physically withdraws from the source of pain, and its vital signs reflect agitation.  Dr. Ranalli has stated that a 20-30 week-old fetus actually feels more pain than an adult, because the pain system is fully developed, but the higher level pain-modifying system has just barely begun to develop.

The performance of an abortion on a 20-week-old baby clearly inflicts terrible physical suffering before ending in death. This bill does not even require the use of anesthesia, but only that the mother be given the scientific facts and the choice to prevent her baby from needless additional suffering during the course of an abortion. The unjustifiable infliction of suffering on any animal life other than unborn human life is defined as "cruelty to animals" and made criminal under long-standing New York State law.  It is unspeakable that unborn human beings are not given equal protection.