As we enter into the last few days of the 106th Legislature, almost nothing can be said for progress. The Legislature has killed property tax relief, the consumption tax, and even student discipline in our schools. The only hope remaining is LB 814, a bill to outlaw dismemberment abortions. So, today I would like to speak to the reasons why this bill is good for Nebraska.

Let me begin by saying that it is beyond me how anyone can defend a method of abortion which tears a baby apart limb by limb until the baby is dead and the body is extracted from the uterus. That is what dismemberment abortion does: It tears the baby apart limb by limb inside the mother’s womb. Dismemberment abortion is such a brutal, painful and grotesque procedure that society would never allow it to be performed on a dog, yet for purely political reasons, we allow it to be done to human beings.

We usually refer to the anti-abortion movement as the pro-life movement and we refer to the other side of the debate as the pro-choice movement. However, ‘pro-choice’ is nothing more than an overly generous euphemism designed to hide the truth about what an abortion does to a baby, especially dismemberment abortion. Because the baby’s choice is never considered in the decision to have an abortion, ‘pro-choice’ is an inaccurate term to describe an abortion. Consequently, a more accurate term for the movement would be the pro-death movement, because that is what it really is.

Oftentimes the argument is made on the floor of the Legislature by proponents of abortion that pro-life legislation that outlaws abortion constitutes government overreach and that a woman should have the right to decide for herself what to do with her own body. But these kinds of arguments overlook the fact that governments oftentimes tell women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. For instance, governments oftentimes legislate against prostitution, human cloning, and paid surrogate motherhood. Here in Nebraska we have such laws on the books. Because each of these three examples relate specifically to what women can and cannot do with their own bodies, the argument that governments should not pass legislation against abortion because it violates a woman’s right to choose for herself what to do with her own body fails.

I believe in the sanctity of life and I believe that human life begins at conception. I believe that every unborn baby is both a human being as well as a unique creation by God. Therefore, there is no difference between the value of a baby’s life before he or she is born or he or after she is born, before his or her viability in the womb or after his or her viability in the womb, before his or her first heartbeat or after his or her first heartbeat.

Today we know that an unborn baby can feel pain much earlier than previously thought. It used to be thought that pain could not be felt until the 24th week of gestation; however, Stuart W.G. Derbyshire and John C. Bockmann published an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics in January of this year suggesting that pain may be felt as early as the 12th week of gestation. Consequently, dismemberment abortion represents the most inhumane way to end a pregnancy known to man.

For these reasons and many more, dismemberment abortion has become a scourge on American society which absolutely must be ended. The sooner we pass LB 814, the better.