Bill Donohue comments on tomorrow’s House vote on abortion:
To intentionally submit innocent children to deadly pain is morally unconscionable, yet there will be many elected officials tomorrow who will vote against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The bill would bar most, but not all, abortions beginning at 20 weeks of fetal age, or 22 weeks of pregnancy. There is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at this age, hence the need to protect them from unnecessary trauma.
A year-and-a-half ago, a Washington Post-ABC poll found that 56 percent of the public was in favor of unrestricted abortions up to 20 weeks, but not after that period; 27 percent would allow them up to 24 weeks. A Quinnipiac University survey conducted two months ago found 60 percent who favored banning almost all abortions after 20 weeks. In short, while most of the public is conflicted about abortion, most men and women draw the line when it comes to allowing the unborn child to feel pain. This legislation, then, is simply affirming what most Americans want to see inscribed in law.
Faith in Public Life, which is greased by George Soros (he is a rabid pro-abortion donor), is now seeking to hijack tomorrow’s March for Life by contending that immigration reform should be seen as the moral equivalent of abortion. This same group, which rejects every legislative effort to restrict abortions, cannot marshal anywhere near the same number of protesters, so it wants to piggy-back off of the success of pro-life Catholics.
It is striking that 31 Catholic university presidents signed a letter by Faith in Public Life making the immigration-abortion analogy. It will be published tomorrow in Politico. Even if we concede that immigration reform is a legitimate pro-life issue, this does not justify efforts to dilute the overriding significance of abortion, an act so morally outrageous that it is properly regarded by the Catholic Church as “intrinsically evil.”
