By Dave Andrusko
Last Thursday the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on H.R. 3803, the "District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act." What the bill would accomplish can be described almost clinically: it would ban abortions on pain-capable unborn children, beginning at 20 weeks fertilization age (22 weeks LMP) in the District of Columbia.
But what it would mean in reality - in flesh and blood - cannot be genuinely appreciated unless you take the time to read prepared testimony and/or to watch the video of the oral testimony of three physicians.
In Parts two, three, and four, I will highlight portions of the testimony of Anthony Levatino, M.D., Colleen Malloy, M.D., and Byron Calhoun, M.D., respectively.
But by way of introduction, it's important to understand that much of the limited media coverage was an exercise in diversion - the same "let's quibble over the witness list" - intended (as always) to take the discussion down a rabbit trail, in the process ignoring what really happens to a baby who is pain-capable when aborted.
The Washington Post, helpful as always, ran "An interview with a late term abortion provider." Abortionist Willie Parker is sanctified early, a great guy who only got in the abortion trade eight years ago "largely out of what he says was concern for women's needs going unmet. Parker is primarily based in Washington and Philadelphia, but also travels monthly to see patients in Alabama."
You can read the interview conducted by the Post's Sarah Kliff, [here], so let's address just a couple of points in what is unintentionally an amazingly revealing interview.
Asked about the six states that already have enacted the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, Parker tells us, "It's a gambit around public opinion... I think it's a very calculated strategy that fails to take into account the complexity of these cases."
"Gambit"? Please. These laws, like the proposed District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, are as straightforward as it gets....
