by Sarah Zagorski | LifeNews.com | 1/23/15 10:57 AM

On March 3^rd, The Drop Box Heart comes to U.S. theaters and shares the story of Jong-rak Lee, a pastor who decided to make it his mission to save abandoned babies left on the streets of Seoul, South Korea.

His idea was to create a “Drop Box” where abandoned babies could be dropped off rather than left on the street to die. The Drop Box is equipped with lights and a heater and reads in Korean, “Please don’t throw away unwanted or disabled babies, or babies of single mothers. Please bring them here instead.”

The director of the film, Brian Ivie, was first moved by Pastor Lee’s work after reading an article about him in the LA Times. Then he decided to visit him and create a film about his baby box. Ivie said that Pastor Lee was creating a bunker for babies and defending it with his own life. Pastor Lee said, “I can’t be here and not do anything about it, so we installed the baby box with God’s heart.” Then he said to God, “I will die for these babies.”

As LifeNews previously reported, after seeing the testimonies of this orphanage up close, Brian Ivie’s life was changed.

He said, “These kids are not mistakes. They are important. I became a Christian while making this movie. When I started to make it and I saw all these kids come through the drop box – it was like a flash from heaven, just like these kids with disabilities had crooked bodies, I have a crooked soul. And God loves me still.When it comes to this sanctity of life issue, we must realize that that faith in God is the only refuge for people who are deemed unnecessary. This world is so much about self-reliance, self-worth, and self-esteem. It’s a total illusion that we can be self-sufficient. Christ is the only thing that enables us.”

Since the Drop box was installed in 2009, as many as 18 babies a month have arrived, and the same number of children currently live in his home, which doubles as an orphanage. He and his wife have even adopted ten of their own—the maximum number local Korean authorities will allow.

Take a few minutes and watch the inspiration trailer for the movie below. The film will be showing for three nights only— March 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th.

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 1/22/15 2:17 PM

The House today approved legislation that will put in place a complete ban on taxpayer funding of abortions that ensures abortions are not directly funded in any federal governmental program or department.

The legislation combines several policies that must be enacted every year in Congressional battles and puts them into law where they will not be in jeopardy of being overturned every time Congress changes hands from pro-life lawmakers to those who support abortions.

The House voted 242-179 for the bill with 239 Republicans and three Democrats voting to ban taxpayer funding of abortions under HR7 while 178 Democrats and one Republican voted against it. [ROLL CALL at end of story.]

Congressman Tom price said during the debate: “This legislation prohibits taxpayer funding of elective abortions, no matter where in the federal system that might occur. This is a position supported by the majority of Americans in a bipartisan manner. We have a responsibility, through our government, to protect the most vulnerable among us, not the least of whom are the unborn. This bill is an important step in the right direction.”

The bill has been around a few years but has only been approved in the House thanks to a pro-abortion Senate. The House voted 227-188 for the bill in 2014 and, on May 4, 2011, the House passed HR 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, on a 251-175 vote with Republicans voting 235-0 for the bill and Democrats voting 175-16 against it.

Now that Republicans have taken over the Senate from pro-abortion Democrats, the bill is finally expected to receive a vote in the upper chamber.

Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is the lead sponsor of the bill, spoke on the House floor during debate and said it would help hold President Barack Obama accountable by ensuring no taxpayer funds are used to pay for abortions.

A majority of Americans object to the use of taxpayer money for funding abortion, according to numerous polls — including a survey CNN conducted in early April showing Americans oppose public funding of abortion by a margin of 61% to 35%.

The bill will also mitigate concerns about abortion funding in the various loopholes in the Obamacare national health care bill that various pro-life organizations warned about during debate on the law. The legislation did not contain language banning funding of abortions in its provisions and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act would fix that problem.

The National Right to Life Committee sent a letter to House members urging support for the legislation that explains how the bill will help:

At the time Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, an array of long-established laws, including the Hyde Amendment, had created a nearly uniform policy that federal programs did not pay for abortion or subsidize health plans that included coverage of abortion, with narrow exceptions. Regrettably, provisions of the 2010 Obamacare health law ruptured that longstanding policy. Among other objectionable provisions, the Obamacare law authorized massive federal subsidies to assist many millions of Americans to purchase private health plans that will cover abortion on demand.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that between 2015 and 2024, $726 billion will flow from the federal Treasury in direct subsidies for Obamacare health plans. In September, 2014, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report that confirmed that elective abortion coverage is widespread in federally subsidized plans on the Obamacare exchanges. In the 27 states (plus D.C.) that did not have laws in effect that restrict abortion coverage, over one thousand exchange plans covered abortion, the report found. (See “GAO report confirms elective abortion coverage widespread in Obamacare exchange plans,” http://www.nrlc.org/communications/releases/2014/release091614/)

Some defenders of the Obamacare law originally insisted that this was not really “federal funding” of abortion because a “separate payment” would be required to cover the costs of the abortion coverage. NRLC and other pro-life groups dismissed this as a mere bookkeeping gimmick that sharply departed from the principles of the Hyde Amendment. This discussion of the significance of the “separate payment” has been rendered rather academic, since it has become evident that the Obama Administration is ignoring the two-payment requirement anyway.

During 2013, in the same ignore-the-law mode, the Obama Administration interpreted a provision of Obamacare to authorize the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to collect health care premiums from members of Congress and their staffs, along with subsidies from the legislative branch bureaucracy, for purchase of private health insurance plans that cover elective abortions. The OPM (under instructions from the White House) has gone forward with this plan despite a longstanding law (the Smith Amendment, after sponsor Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ) that explicitly prohibits OPM from spending one penny on administrative expenses connected with the purchase of any federal employee health plan that includes any coverage of abortion (except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest). The Smith Amendment is the law that continues to prohibit inclusion of abortion coverage in the health plans of over 8 million federal employees and dependents. Yet, according to research conducted by the office of Congressman Smith, of 70 plans now available to members of Congress and congressional staff, 59 cover elective abortions.

H.R. 7 would codify the principles of the Hyde Amendment on a permanent, government-wide basis, with respect both to longstanding federal health programs (Medicaid, SCHIP, FEHB, etc.) and to the new programs created by the Obamacare law. Under H.R. 7, for plan years beginning after December 31, 2015, exchange-participating health plans that cover abortion would not be eligible for the federal subsidies. Until then, the bill will revise Obamacare language to eliminate secrecy about abortion coverage, allowing consumers to be fully informed about abortion coverage and the surcharges for such coverage on plans sold on the exchanges.

Among the longstanding provisions to be codified by H.R. 7 is the “D.C. Hyde Amendment,” which is the prohibition on the use of government funds to pay for abortion in the Federal District (except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest), which for decades (with brief interruptions) has been part of the annual appropriations bill that covers the District. Most of the objections to this policy misconstrue or misrepresent the constitutional status of the District of Columbia. Under the Constitution, the District is exclusively a federal jurisdiction. Article I says that Congress alone exercises “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” over the Federal District. “Non-federal funds” are a fiction, because under current federal law, all government funds in the Federal District are governed by the federal appropriations bills.

A Member’s vote on H.R. 7 will essentially define his or her position, for or against federal funding of abortion, for the foreseeable future.

Pro-life groups including Americans United for Life, the Susan B. Anthony List, Liberty Counsel and Family Research Council also support the legislation.

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 1/21/15 4:23 PM

The United States marks 42 years of legalized abortion in all fifty states at any time for any reason throughout pregnancy on January 22nd, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Since that time, there have been approximately 57,762,169 abortions that have destroyed the lives of unborn children.

How is that number calculated?

A few years ago, in the document, “Abortion Statistics: United States Data and Trends,” National Right to Life Committee education director Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon issued an estimate of the number of abortions tabulated annually by the Centers for Disease Control and the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute up to that point.

Guttmacher receives numbers directly from abortion centers themselves and is the prime source for more current figures because the Centers for Disease Control has never tabulated accurate numbers of abortions. The CDC provides some help in tabulating abortion figures, but it relies on figures from state health departments, some of which rely on voluntary reporting — and it hasn’t had data from some states such as California and New Hampshire for more than a decade.

“Because of these different methods of data collection, GI has consistently obtained higher counts than the CDC. CDC researchers have admitted it probably undercounts the total number of abortions because reporting laws vary from state to state and some abortionists probably do not report or under-report the abortions they perform,” O’Bannon says.

Then, last year, O’Bannon calculated there had been over 56.6 million abortions — using Guttmacher estimates to determine the approximate number of abortions for 2013.

“Thus the 56 million+ figure comes from the mathematical application of the assumption that the Guttmacher numbers will roughly reflect the same declining percentage in the number of abortions that the CDC found,” he said at the time.

Since then, Guttmacher released a new report showing 1.1 million abortions in 2011 and showing abortions declining to historic lows. That report came early in 2014 and the CDC issued a report late last year. The CDC showed that from 2010 to 2011, the total number and rate of reported abortions decreased 5% and the abortion ratio decreased 4%, and from 2002 to 2011.

Because neither agency has abortion figures since 2011, abortions for years after that must be estimated based on old data. Because Guttmacher has the more accurate abortion records of the two, their figure of 1.1 million abortions is the most reliable per year. Adding that to last year’s total yields 57,762,169 — a number that may admittedly be adjusted slightly downwards assuming the trend of fewer abortions continues after the last reported totals from 2011.

O’Bannon previously had some excellent insights into the abortion totals:

The long term trend is fewer abortions, and the number is down significantly from 1990 when the country saw 1.6 million abortions a year. As one measure of the impact your work has had, if the number of abortions had remained at 1.6 million, more than seven MILLION more babies would have died.

The publication of data from the CDC last November is good reason to believe there is a new major downward trend. We obviously can’t know in advance whether the numbers Guttmacher will publish later this year will show the same drop off.

Despite the seeming precision, this is not an exact number. No such number is possible. There will always be missed abortions, missed abortionists. Adjustments, however careful, will always be imprecise. But given the data we have, we feel it is reasonable to assume that we have now seen at least 57 million lives lost since Roe.

Of course, we all know that we are talking about more than just numbers or statistics. The blood of more than 57 million aborted babies represents an enormous stain on our national conscience and a heavy burden on our hearts.

But these numbers also show us that our efforts have not been in vain. As noted above, if our nation had continued at the rate of 1.6 million abortions a year we saw in 1990, our cumulative total would have been approaching 64 million by now.

That would translate into approximately 7 million more babies alive today than would have otherwise been the case. That is the equivalent to the number of abortions performed over a span of six to seven years–living human beings alive today because of you!

Of course the Movement has a long way to go to return full legal protection to unborn children. But never underestimate the importance of what you, grassroots pro-life America, are doing.

Penny Y. Nance| Lifesite News| Tue Jan 20, 2015 - 10:45 am EST

This Thursday, January 22, will be an historic day in Congress.  As hundreds of thousands of Americans converge on our nation’s capital to mark the 42 years since Roe v. Wade, the House will vote on a crucial pro-life bill that restricts abortions on babies after five months gestation and protects women’s health. That bill is the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, H.R. 36, and it is important to the future of both the unborn and women alike. 

A mere two years ago, Americans were horrified by the actions of murderer Kermit Gosnell.  His trial spotlighted the barbaric act of a late-term abortion and its effect on both babies and their mothers. Nonetheless, here we are, continuing to discuss the value of the unborn. Now is the time to affect change; "We the People" must never allow something this horrendous to happen again. 

It was stated in the Gosnell Grand Jury report that he “regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors.”  In addition, he  “overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths.”

At five months’ gestation, a mother can feel her baby’s movements, hear the baby’s heartbeat, and feel the life growing inside of her.  Amazingly, in just 20 weeks this little baby already has fingernails, its own unique fingerprints, eyebrows and eyelashes.  The baby can suck its thumb, recognize its mother’s voice and will actually startle with loud noises.  There is also significant medical evidence that the baby is capable of feeling excruciating pain at 20-weeks gestation; doctors have testified before Congress that they have seen babies on the sonogram flinch and move away from sharp objects to avoid the pain during surgical procedures.

The untold story is that women and girls are facing substandard abortion practices that carry the increased risk of death and serious complications. Not only does this legislation protect babies who are five months in the womb and can feel unbearable pain, it also protects women, who are then at an increasingly greater risk to the harmful effects of having a late-term abortion. Women need to be both educated on and protected from abuses by the abortion industry.

The gruesome Gosnell Grand Jury Report further revealed that babies in their third-term are often “big and too hard to get out so Gosnell’s approach, whenever possible, was to force full labor and delivery of premature infants on ill-informed women.”  His problem, according to the report was by inducing labor, live babies were born and his “simple solution” was to kill them.

According to a report issued by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, for an abortion performed on a woman during her 12th or 13th week of pregnancy, the likelihood of a complication is between 3-6 percent.   When the woman is well into her second trimester, the complication rate increases to 50 percent, and possibly higher.

The United States sees itself as a beacon for freedom.  It is extremely disappointing that in a country that prides itself on being the leader of the free world, we have to fight tooth-and-nail to protect our unborn babies from cruel and brutal abortions.   The United States is one of only seven nations that allows elective abortions after 20-weeks gestation.  The other six nations are Canada, China, Netherlands, North Korea, Singapore and Vietnam.  According to an article in the Daily Caller written in February 2014, this puts the United States within the top four percent of the most permissive countries on abortion policies.

The majority of Americans overwhelmingly agree that abortions at five months gestation when the baby feels pain should be restricted. According to The Polling Company’s nationwide poll in March 2013, 64 percent of Americans believe abortions should not be allowed if the baby can feel pain. Recent polls by Quinnipiac, National Journal, Huffington Post, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post/ABC News all revealed: A majority of Americans support limiting abortion after 20 weeks. Sixty percent of women think abortion after 20 weeks should be illegal.

You cannot argue with the facts. America is now more pro-life than ever, and our legislation must start mirroring the will of “We the People.” There is no perfect legislation.  Some believe this bill is too restrictive regarding exceptions and other believe there should be no exceptions.  However, now is the time to come together as HR 36 is a thoughtful first step in righting a grievous wrong of the past 42 years.

Penny Young Nance is President and CEO of Concerned Women for America.

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 1/19/15 5:49 PM

New information has surfaced today of a Florida-based abortion practitioner who recently lost his medical license. He is responsible for killing babies in abortions and injuring women — and for one horrible botched abortion case that left a baby born alive in a toilet struggling to survive.

A few years ago, abortion “doctor” Zvi Harry Perper was arrested and charged with enriching himself by illegally writing and selling prescriptions for powerful painkillers. He was eventually jailed for his crimes.

Now, following a lengthy bureaucratic process, a pro-life blogger indicates Perper has finally lost his medical license.

Back in July the Florida Medical Board issued an emergency suspension of abortionist Zvi Harry Perper’s medical license. According to the Florida Medical Board website, the Emergency Suspension Order was filed 7/23/14.

But a Voluntary Relinquishment Pending Board Action was filed September 10, 2014. The order was not on pro-life radars, because, this particular “doctor” was sitting in prison when the emergency suspension was issued.

Perper is one of 17 people who was snared in a sting operation authorities conducted that netted 17 people on charges of engaging in an illegal drug racket, but his association with abortion was not lost on pro-life blogger Jill Stanek, who wrote about him in connection to an infamous abortion case years ago.

“In 2005 he was the abortionist on call when beautiful Baby Rowan was tragically aborted alive in James Pendergraft’s Orlando late-term abortion mill,” she said. “Finally, [there is] some semblance of justice.”

Perper is the abortion practitioner who began the abortion procedure in a case that result in the suspension of the medical license of another abortion practitioner, James Pendergraft. The latter was fined $10,000 and had his licensed revoked for one year over an illegal late-term abortion he did in 2005.

In 2005, a woman filed a lawsuit against one of Pendergraft’s abortion facilities saying it refused to call emergency personnel to help her or her baby, born on the second day of a two-day abortion procedure. The pro-life law firm Liberty Counsel filed complaints with the Florida Department of Health and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and alleged that staff at the abortion facility, including Perper, refused to help Angele or her baby, born on the second day of a two-day abortion procedure.

Angele had chosen the “labor and delivery process” for her abortion as opposed to partial-birth abortion or dismemberment. She thought it would be less harmful for her unborn baby. The woman, who is in her 30s, had asked what would happen if the baby were born alive.

“I wanted it to be as humane and painless as possible for my son,” Angele told WorldNetDaily. “They told me they would guide a needle directly into his heart and it would put him to sleep, and he wouldn’t feel anything.”

Following her initial visit to the abortion facility, she could feel the baby still moving within her. The next day she took pills meant to induce labor.

“I waited outside, cramping and crying, for the clinic to open. My contractions were close. I had been having them for hours. I knocked repeatedly at the door,” Angele told WorldNetDaily.

After she obtained access to the abortion facility, she delivered her son.

“In one agonizing push, I felt and heard something come out. Then immediately another push. I was weak. I just held my head in my hands for a moment. Then I decided to stand up. I looked. There was my baby, the whitish cord and what I thought surely must be the placenta,” Angele said.

Angele added, “I started sobbing and lay down (on) the floor. I stared and stared at my son. I was horrified that I had just had him in a commode.”

Angele then screamed for help for her son, whom she called Rowan. When an abortion facility employee finally arrived, she refused to call 911 for the baby, who was still moving. Angele ended up calling a friend, asking her to call an ambulance. But Rowan died before help arrived.

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 1/16/15 12:20 PM

Members of Congress next week have an opportunity to right a travesty of injustice. Every day in the United States, babies are silently screaming in late-term abortions that deprive them of their right to life.

As Congressman Trent Franks told LifeNews.com recently, “More than 18,000 ‘very late term’ abortions are performed every year on perfectly healthy unborn babies in America. These are innocent and defenseless children who can not only feel pain, but who can survive outside of the womb in most cases, and who are torturously killed without even basic anesthesia.”

“Many of them cry and scream as they die, but because it is amniotic fluid going over their vocal cords instead of air, we don’t hear them,” he said.

Not all babies scream silently during abortions. The cries of some babies are hear loud and clear.

A former employee at the abortion clinic Kermit Gosnell ran in Philadelphia described how she heard a baby scream during a live-birth abortion. Abortion clinic employee Sherry West described an incident which “really freaked (her) out” and related to the jury how she heard a child scream who was born alive following an abortion.

West remembered how she referred to the dead children killed in these gruesome abortion procedures as “specimens” so she could avoid the mental trauma associated with knowing how they died.  As local media reported:

Sherry West, of Bear, said she was loyal to Gosnell – who is now facing multiple counts of murder for allegedly killing children after they were delivered alive at his clinic – but said the incident “really freaked me out.”

When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore pressed the 53-year-old West for specifics about the incident, West struggled to answer, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.

“I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” West testified, telling a judge and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury that the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell’s clinic.

West said she saw the child, whose face and features were not yet completely formed, lying on a glass tray on a shelf and she told a co-worker to call Gosnell about it and fled the room.

Congress has an opportunity next week to hear the screams of aborted babies and take action. Republicans in the House of Representatives will hold a vote on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade late this month on a marquee bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy because unborn children feel intense pain in abortions.

Top Republicans and leading pro-life groups have been promoting the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that bans abortions from after 20-weeks of pregnancy up to the day of birth.

SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must Ban Abortions Because Babies Feel Intense Pain

A national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger.   Only 30% said they would oppose such a law.

A November 2014 poll from Quinnipiac found that 60 percent of Americans support legislation limiting abortions after 20 weeks, including 56 percent of Independents and 46 percent of Democrats.

During the hearing on the last bill, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.

Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.

The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy. The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it.

He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”

He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen  were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.

“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote.

“Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.

With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand has provided further research to substantiate their work.

One leading expert in the field of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand at the University of Tennessee, stated in his expert report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, “It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children.”

“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified. She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 1/14/15 2:02 PM

The state of Kansas has been a haven for late-term abortions for decades and pro-life advocates there are unveiling new legislation that would help put an end to some of them.

In a move that it tells LifeNews.com will transform the landscape of abortion policy in the United States, National Right to Life announced a major new component of the right to life movement’s 2015 legislative agenda with today’s introduction in Kansas of the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act. The pro-life group says the wave of pro-life victories in the 2014 election helped set the stage for this first-of-its-kind legislation, which would protect unborn children from the brutality of dismemberment abortion.

“Dismemberment abortion kills a baby by tearing her apart limb from limb,” said National Right to Life Director of State Legislation Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D. “Before the first trimester ends, the unborn child has a beating heart, brain waves, and every organ system in place. Dismemberment abortions occur after the baby has reached these milestones.”

Sponsored by state Sen. Garrett Love (R-Montezuma), the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act is the top state legislative priority for National Right to Life’s affiliate, Kansans for Life (KFL).

In announcing the bill at a press conference in Topeka, KFL Legislative Director Kathy Ostrowski observed, “With the discussion about, and passage of this bill, the public will see that dismemberment abortions brutally – and unacceptably – rip apart small human beings who have all of their internal organs and who have perfectly formed fingers and toes.”

D&E dismemberment abortions are as brutal as the partial-birth abortion method, which is now illegal in the United States and which was upheld in the Supreme Court.

But would such an abortion ban be constitutional given the Roe v. Wade decision? The group points to the high court’s ruling in the partial-birth abortion case as grounds for banning dismemberment abortions too.

In his dissent to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2000 Stenberg v. Carhart decision, Justice Kennedy observed that in D&E dismemberment abortions, “The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off.” Justice Kennedy added in the Court’s 2007 opinion, Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the ban on partial-birth abortion, that D&E abortions are “laden with the power to devalue human life…”

“When abortion textbooks describe in cold, explicit detail exactly how to kill a human being by ripping off arms and legs piece by piece, civilized members of society have no choice but to stand up and demand a change,” added Spaulding Balch. “When you think it can’t be uglier, the abortion industry continues to shock with violent methods of abortion.”