How Can It Be Right to Kill 20-Week-Old Babies in the Womb?

It is almost unimaginable that 46 senators would vote against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. But that’s just what happened yesterday, with three Republicans joining 43 Democrats to cast their truly vile vote.

We’re talking about outlawing abortions for babies 20 weeks old or more, and even then, with exceptions for abortions deemed necessary “to save the life of the pregnant woman, or … when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.”

How could 46 senators (including all but three Democrats) vote against this humane act?

Abortion is evil enough, even in the early stages of a pregnancy. But aborting a baby 20 weeks or older is an act of savagery, and to vote against passing the Pain-Capable bill is an act of moral perversion.

For some years now, the Democratic Party has distinguished itself as the party of death, with its abortion plank getting more and more radical with each election. As pro-life leader Marjorie Dannenfelser pointed out in Time magazine in 2016, the Democrat position has been on a steep and steady decline for the last two decades.

In 1996, “the DNC adopted a platform that characterized abortion as a ‘difficult issue’ and because of that, ‘we respect the individual conscience of each American.’ It called for making abortion ‘less necessary’ and ‘more rare.'”

In contrast, as noted on Lifesite News, “The Democratic Party’s 2016 platform pledges to ‘stand up’ for Planned Parenthood, fund abortion nationwide and around the world, vows to ‘overturn’ state and federal restrictions on abortion, proposes cracking down on pro-life sidewalk counselors and affirms abortion as ‘core’ to people’s ‘health and well-being.'”

In keeping with this platform of death, 43 out of 46 Democrats voted against the Pain-Capable bill, to their lasting shame and reproach. (That shame and reproach is shared by the three Republicans who joined them.)

But what makes this whole story all the more ironic is that the one leading the way in slamming the Senate is none other than Donald Trump, the man who has become the staunchest, most outspoken pro-life president in our history. Three years ago, who would have believed this?

This was the statement he issued on the official White House site:

Recently, when I addressed the 45th annual March for Life, I called on the Senate to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, important legislation that would protect our most vulnerable. It is disappointing that despite support from a bipartisan majority of U.S. Senators, this bill was blocked from further consideration. Scientific studies have demonstrated that babies in the womb feel pain at twenty weeks. The vote by the Senate rejects scientific fact and puts the United States out of the mainstream in the family of nations, in which only 7 out of 198 nations, including China and North Korea, allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. We must defend those who cannot defend themselves. I urge the Senate to reconsider its decision and pass legislation that will celebrate, cherish and protect life.

Kudos to you, Mr. President.

In 2015, Newsweek reported on a major study published by the New England Journal of Medicine that indicated that, “Premature babies born at 22 weeks are more likely to survive outside the womb than previously thought.”

Last November, CNN ran a story about the daughter of Courtney Stensrud and her husband, born at just 21 weeks and four days but 3 years old at the time of the article. She is described as “fun-loving” and “spunky” and even attending preschool.

In the words of her mom, “If you didn’t know that she was so preemie, you would think she’s a normal 3-year-old. In her school; she is keeping up with all the other 3-year-olds. She loves playing with other kids. She loves everything I think a normal 3-year-old likes. She loves her baby dolls, she loves books and she loves make-believe. She loves anything and everything her (older) brother is doing.”

Her survival and health are truly miraculous, but they also stand as a reminder of just how developed a 21-week-old baby is in the womb.

Take a moment and look at the picture of this precious little girl at three weeks old, wearing her parents’ wedding rings on her tiny arm. Then think of the 46 senators who voted to continue killing babies like this in the womb. What possible justification could they have for their vote?

And how can it be, that after 45 years of pushing back against Roe v. Wade and with such a committed pro-life movement in America, we are one of just 7 countries that allows abortions for babies of this age? How can it be?

The painful answer is that the majority of Americans are still asleep in the light, still failing to take seriously the horror of abortion, still looking to far too few to change our culture and our laws.

May God have mercy on America, and may He help us to repent before it’s too late.