The emotion of the woman in this video may be difficult to watch, but then again, the Utah Legislature never asked her (or anyone who actually has any experience with late-term abortions) what might be the deal with abortions after 20 weeks. The Utah Legislature especially didn't ask any medical professionals, because why let science get in the way of an extreme and purely political agenda? ThinkProgress, emphasis added:
Informed by anti-abortion state lawmakers rather than by medical experts, the “Protecting Unborn Children Amendment” requires physicians to administer an anesthetic to any women seeking an abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later, to “eliminate or alleviate organic pain to the unborn child.” Like many anti-abortion laws on the state level, Utah’s law rests on the unscientific belief that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks of gestation.
Most states that introduce “fetal pain” legislation try to ban abortions entirely after 20 weeks — and at least 12 have been successful. Utah is the first to pass a anesthesia-related bill instead of outright prohibiting the practice. But according to physicians, it may as well be a ban.
“You’re asking me to invent a procedure that doesn’t have any research to back it up,” said Dr. Leah Torres, an OB-GYN who works at one of Utah’s two licensed abortion clinics, in an interview with the New York Times. “You want me to experiment on my patients.”
It's past time for this issue to expire. One out of three women in the US have abortions, abortion rates are dropping due to Obamacare's contraception mandate, and the Republican Party is about to lose another Presidential election in part because they are so out of touch with real people when it comes to things like sexual health.
And as the woman in the video above notes, late-term pregnancy termination is nearly always a wanted baby who cannot survive. It's a tragedy that is complicated by political interference from jerks like the Utah legislature. At the same forum, a doctor weighs in:
It is ONLY because abortion is the one reliable cash register the GOP can turn to in times when nothing else works, that stupid, harmful bills like this get passed. And the only way to stop them is to vote Republicans out of office, every. single. time.
