Utah Abortion Law Requires Painkillers Be Given to Unborn Before Death

Pro-abortion rights supporters have a "die-in" outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Friday, Jan. 22, 2016, during the March for Life 2016, the annual rally held on the anniversary of 1973 'Roe v. Wade' U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Ours is a culture of death. This is most apparent as approximately 3,000 unborn lives are sacrificed daily on the altar of “choice” by way of abortion.

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Although Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, many state legislatures have, in recent months, done their part to advance the pro-life cause. Governors in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky have reduced Planned Parenthood funding, or banned abortions based on race, gender, or disability. Those at the state level have led the charge when members of Congress have not.

On Tuesday, a new law addressing late-term abortions in the state of Utah went into effect. It’s unlike any other type of legislation, and highlights the horrific reality of abortion like never before. As reported by the L.A. Times:

The law…requires doctors to provide anesthesia or painkillers to women seeking an abortion 20 weeks or more into a pregnancy. The pain medication is for the fetus.

Under the law, doctors are required to provide pain medication to “alleviate organic pain to the unborn child.”

The law also requires doctors to notify women that medical evidence shows a 20-week fetus may feel pain during an abortion.

We are all aware that unborn life is active, developing, and reacts to its surroundings in very human ways. (Example: this baby, at 32 weeks gestation, grimacing and covering its face when its mother smokes.) This is because, despite location, stage of development, and refusal by the Left to assign personhood, the unborn life is a person.

The bill is clearly controversial among the pro-abort “medical” community. Leah Torres, a pro-abort OB/GYN says the bill “criminalizes” doctors. Others say the additional anesthesia or painkillers, meant for the baby, can harm the woman. Lost in all of this is the fact that Utah abortionists are quite literally executing unborn life because it is unwanted. What the bill essentially does is not much different than if medicine designed to relieve suffering had been administered to a truckload of Jews before they were sent to the gas chamber. Take away the victim’s physical pain, and discarding a life becomes easy, right?

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This law applies to late-term abortions alone. Currently, 12 states ban abortions after 20 weeks gestation, the time when unborn babies are believed to feel pain. I would have preferred that Utah legislators pushed for an outright ban on late-term abortions. Instead, this law seems intent on soothing feelings of regret by attempting to eliminate pain before legal homicide can take place.

While some argue over when/if an unborn child feels pain, I have always been of the mindset that abortion is wrong regardless of what others think that answer might be. Destruction of an innocent life isn’t only wrong if the destroyed was in anguish before the end. The pro-life climate in Utah doesn’t seem to have improved much with this law. Instead of seeking to ban certain procedures, it feels like a cheap attempt to satisfy both sides in the ongoing abortion debate. It does no saving of lives.

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