NC Legislators Have a Responsibility to Protect Innocent Life | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This post, by Brooke Medina, was originally published in Civitas's online edition.

    North Carolinians from every city and town should be applauding this list of individuals. They joined 234 other House legislators in passing H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act. This seemingly routine act of carrying out their legislative responsibilities has the potential to save scores of children, should this bill pass the Senate.

    Opposite of my praise for these representatives is my disappointment in three others. Missing from this list is my own representative, David Price, as well as Rep. George Butterfield and Rep. Alma Adams. Their rejection of this bill is absolutely shameful. Why?

    The life issue is not something any of us can afford to get wrong. To deny the personhood of the victims of the American Holocaust is incomprehensible. From the point of conception, these children deserve to be given their just due: a chance at life.

    Representatives who opposed this legislation have proven their willingness, despite a preponderance of evidence, to be either: a) science deniers or b) indifferent to the plight of unborn children. If they are science deniers, they have essentially chosen to reject an opportunity to pass a bill that has been crafted with a heavy reliance upon empirical evidence that children at least twenty weeks gestation have the ability to experience pain in the same way that adults do.

    Essentially, if you or I are capable of feeling dismemberment or chemical burns, the science shows that these children are, too. What in the world would motivate legislators such as Price, Butterfield, and Adams to reject such basic human rights to these children?

    After all, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act should be a bill that every legislator on Capitol Hill can agree upon, because it protects the intentional crushing, dismemberment, or lethal injection of an extremely vulnerable population within our nation's borders.

    Unfortunately even at the state level unborn children face life-endangering threats from legislators. Take H.B. 563, for example. This bill, sponsored by Representatives Susan Fisher, Carla Cunningham and Graig Meyer, sought to extend abortion access past the twenty-week gestational age, ensuring the victims of abortions in NC experienced an unspeakably painful death. Thankfully, this cruel piece of legislation did not pass, although it highlights the importance of vigilance at every level of government.

    Representatives Price, Butterfield, and Adams will have to speak for themselves as to why they voted against legislation that would stop children-scientifically-proven to feel pain-from being subjected to dismemberment, lethal injection, or crushing. After learning of their 100 percent voting record from Planned Parenthood, I can draw a few conclusions as to why.

    If these legislators refuse to place people - including unborn babies-above the ideologically-driven agenda spawned by Planned Parenthood founder and eugenicist Margaret Sanger, then I suggest we find men and women better committed to defending life.