New pro-life legislation has the NARAL Pro-Choice America up in arms.
A new bill making its way through the Mississippi legislature would limit abortions to no later than 15 weeks, making it one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States.
{mosads}Currently, abortion laws in 20 states have restrictions that prohibit “partial-birth” abortions, but the passage of this bill would signify significant progress for the pro-life movement, which has been pushing for stronger pro-life policies nationwide.
Recently, the proposed Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives before it was narrowly blocked by Senate democrats in the eleventh hour. Similar bans on pain-capable abortions are being advanced in states such as New Jersey and have been upheld in Georgia.
It stands to reason — support for time-limited abortion is growing in popularity among Americans.
A recent Marist poll shows that two-thirds of Americans actually support a 20-week ban on abortion, acknowledging scientific evidence that a fetus at that stage can actually feel pain. Embyology studies show that the nervous system develops at 6 weeks old in a fetus, and sensory receptors for pain begin as early as just ten weeks — weeks before the timeline in the Mississippi bill.
Perhaps even more interesting about the Marist poll is that more than half of democrats agree with the time-limited ban on abortion, as do more than half of the respondents who describe themselves as “pro-choice.”
This latest public opinion research may have NARAL spooked. However, that won’t keep them from putting up a fight.
According to Reuters the deputy policy director at Pro-Choice America, Leslie McGorman, said that abortion rights groups “likely would mount a court challenge if the Mississippi measure became law, and anti-abortion organizations then could use the case to test the limits of abortion all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Abortion advocates suggest that the Mississippi bill may be unconstitutional due to its time limitations. However, the landmark Roe v. Wade states that a woman has a right to an abortion until “fetal viability” which, with the advent of modern medicine, may happen earlier nowadays in a woman’s pregnancy.
Even in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justices acknowledged that “viability may occur at 23 or 24 weeks, or sometimes even earlier, in light of medical advances.”
For now, House Bill 1510 in Mississippi was passed this week by the State Senate and if the House agrees with recent changes made by the Senate, the bill will head to republican Governor Phil Bryant’s desk next. The governor said he will sign the bill.
NARAL said that this bill brings Mississippi women, “one dangerous step closer to losing their constitutional right to access abortion,” according to Adrienne Kimmell who is the vice president of communications and strategic research for the national nonprofit NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Gov. Bryant took to Twitter this week, stating he wants “Mississippi to be the safest place in America for an unborn child. House Bill 1510 will help us achieve that goal.”
Opponents ought not be surprised about his support.
After all, to be truly pro-life means that one believes life begins at conception. The Right to Life organization described it in this way, “The life of a baby begins long before he or she is born…. Worldwide, millions of unborn babies are killed each year. In the United States over 40 million unborn babies have been killed in the 40 years since abortion was legalized and more than 1.2 million are killed each year.”
Even the Department of Health and Human Services declared that life begins at conception.
Therefore, a 15-week limit to protect the child should make perfect sense to those who believe in life over death, and peace over pain.
Jen Kerns has served as a GOP strategist and writer for the U.S. presidential debates for FOX News. She previously served as communications director and spokeswoman for the California Republican Party, the Colorado Recalls over gun control, and the Prop. 8 battle over marriage which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.