What is disgraceful is that we have a "leader" with ginormous moral turpitude living in the White house. (See the The Family Research Council report below which also rips Planned Parenthood.) Meanwhile, CBN News offers the following coverage: "Pain Capable Bill Passes First Legislative Hurdle"
WASHINGTON -- A bill to protect unborn babies older than 20 weeks has passed its first hurdle.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act Wednesday evening, 242 to 184. Almost every Republican voted for it and almost every Democrat against it.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, trumpeted the act as being quite consequential.
"H.R. 36 is the most pro-life legislation ever to come before this body," the top Republican said of the bill.
During heated debate before the vote, Democrats and Republicans took up familiar positions.
Many Democrats said they had to protect America's women and those women's right to make their own medical decisions. Republicans said they had to protect the most unprotected of classes: America's unborn children.
"We have no higher obligation than to speak out for those who can't speak for themselves, to defend the defenseless," Boehner stated on the House floor. "And that's what this bill does."
Bill sponsor Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said, "We have given these little babies less legal protection from unnecessary cruelty than the protection we have given farm animals under the Federal Humane Slaughter Act."
Democrats avoided talking about the babies, but concentrated on women who get abortions.
"Now I remember the days of back alley abortions," Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said. "Many women died and more were permanently injured before Roe vs. Wade. With this egregious bill, Republicans have once again decided to take us back there."
A Democrat who's a doctor said he and his pregnant patients -- not Congress -- must decide what's best for those pregnant women.
"That is sacred to the oath that I swore when I became a doctor," Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., said. "This bill will make it criminal for me to do my job as a doctor."
Bera added, "This is a bad bill -- massive government overreach. Vote against this bill. Let us do our job as doctors."
But a Republican who was also in medicine put the emphasis back on the babies.
"I practiced OB anesthesia for over 20 years," Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said. "I was always amazed that in the labor and delivery suite, we would deliver 21-week post-fertilization babies, and down the corridor, you would abort them."
Some Republicans have fretted taking up legislation banning any kind of abortions that might offend women and young voters. But other Republicans insist the public, including women and young voters, are on their side in voting for this particular ban.
"There was a recent poll that 57 percent of Millennials support this legislation," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said. "And they echo the voice of America. Sixty percent of Americans -- Democrats, Republican, Independents -- support the Pain-Capable Act."
House Democrats still blasted the bill.
"We must defeat this unconstitutional bill and continue to afford women their constitutional right enjoyed by every man without question to make decisions about their healthcare in the privacy of their doctors' offices," Rep. Gerald Nadler, D-N.Y., said.
And Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., maligned House Republicans, saying, "After four decades of settled law, some of my colleagues still refuse to cede women their constitutional right and the autonomy and human dignity that goes with being allowed to make your own decisions about your own body."
Republicans insisted passing this bill and saving these unborn babies is the essence of Congress' work.
"We have a moral obligation in this country to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," said Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah. "It is time that we do our job."
"It's time for the members of the United States Congress to open our eyes and our souls and remember that protecting those who cannot protect themselves is why we are all here," Franks said.
Still, passage in the U.S. House where pro-life Republicans dominate will be the easiest hurdle for this abortion ban becoming law. It now faces an uncertain future in the Senate, but an almost certain veto at the hands of President Barack Obama.
The White House has labeled it "an assault on a woman's right to choose."
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*** Here's the Family Research Council report:
Not everyone was celebrating yesterday's historical pro-life victory in the House of Representatives. Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards and President Obama wasted no time blasting the House's decision to end the intense pain babies feel from abortion after the five-month mark. Cecile Richards aired her disgust that Americans would rise up and want to stop the shedding of innocent blood.
"A 20 wk ban would hurt women," Richards tweeted. As experts in hurting women, Planned Parenthood should know better. The organization -- and in fact, the entire movement -- is indifferent to the agony their industry causes to the unborn and women. It's that aggressive insensitivity that continues to repel Americans from their cause. "Put simply," Richards argued, this bill "lacks compassion & it lacks respect."
The only thing that lacks respect in this debate is the organization that covers-up rape and abuse, encourages sex trafficking, teaches girls how to hide bruises from abusive men, targets black children for extinction, and leaves women bleeding on their tables without help. Is that how Planned Parenthood defines "compassion?" Tearing babies apart when they can feel it? Leaving women with deep emotional scars and a lifetime of guilt? Richards is right: This is a "dangerous bill." Dangerous to her bottom line. Dangerous to her industry's slipping grip on society. But to the rest of the country who stands on the side of humanity, of life, this a vote that -- as Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said emotionally -- "we will all remember the rest of our lives."
So will the tens of thousands of future Americans saved by the courageous work of this Congress. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who made a rare floor speech in support of the legislation, teared up when he talked. H.R. 36, he said, "is the most pro-life legislation ever to come before this body. It reflects the will of the American people."
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, reflected anything but. Proving what rigid hard-liners the Left has become, only four Democrats (Reps. Henry Cuellar, Texas; Jim Langavin, R.I.; Dan Lipinski, Ill.; and Collin Peterson, Minn.) sided with 70% of the country in stopping the barbaric practice of late-term abortion. The other 180 voted to keep America in the company of the brutal dictatorships of North Korea and China -- two of the only seven countries that allow abortions after five months.
As for the President, the same man who fought to legalize the killing of babies who survived their own abortion, the mere idea that our country would end the torture of these children is "disgraceful." That's what White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called the bill yesterday -- to the shock and dismay of millions of Americans.
"It shouldn't be such a hard vote," Rep. Franks lamented, "because in spite of all of the political noise, protecting little unborn pain-capable babies is not a Republican issue -- and it's not a Democratic issue. It's a test of our basic humanity and who we are as a human family. It is time that the members of the United States Congress to open our hearts and our souls and remember that protecting those who cannot protect themselves is why we are all here! That's why we're here!"
** -- LifeSite News reports that President Obama has vowed to veto the bill should it reach his desk.