The following comes from a May 13 story on LifeSiteNews.com.

On the one-year anniversary of Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s conviction of murdering newborn babies, Republican senators and pro-life experts pushed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow a vote on a national ban on abortion after 20 weeks.

 

Late-term abortion causes physical pain to unborn babies, increases the risks of harming women, and allies the United States with international pariahs like North Korea, they said in a press conference today to support the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1670).

The bill, introduced by Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona, passed the House of Representatives last summer. Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced the bill in the Democrat-controlled Senate last November, where it has stalled ever since.

Graham offered Reid a compromise: bring both his bill and Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s Women’s Health Protection Act, which would radically expand abortion-on-demand, before senators.

“Senator Blumenthal has a bill that’s really a top priority of the pro-choice community, so let’s have a vote on both,” he said. “I think the topic’s worthy of debate. … He said every senator needs to be on the record. I agree with that.”

Pro-life experts said abortions after 20 weeks cause unborn babies excruciating pain.

“I am standing here today to share with you what embryology textbooks and peer-reviewed scientific studies have unequivocally proven: babies at 20 weeks post-fertilization can perceive and experience pain. This is a matter of biology, not a matter of belief or wishful thinking,” said Arina Grossu, director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council.

“Between 20 and 30 weeks post-fertilization, an unborn child has more pain receptors per square inch of skin than at any other time in his or her life, with only a very thin layer of skin for protection, leaving nerve fibers closer to the surface. Mechanisms that inhibit or moderate the experience of pain do not begin to develop until 32 to 34 weeks post-fertilization.”

….Today, Reid again dismissed the bill. “As we know [Graham has] got a difficult primary down there and he keeps moving further to the Right,” he said. “That’s what this is all about.” Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA, joined in a scathing speech on the floor Tuesday afternoon, saying that the bill “is not going anywhere here in the Senate, and they know it is a cheap political ploy….”

To read the entire story, click here.