Gov. Dave Heineman signed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act last month, making Nebraska the first to ban abortions after 20 weeks.

LB 1103 asserts that pre-born children experience pain during an abortion.

Mary Spaulding Balch, state legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said research has shown that at 20 weeks, pre-borns have all the receptors necessary to feel pain.

“Doctors who do routine surgery on unborn children now use anesthesia to make sure those unborn children do not feel pain,” she said.

She expects the law will be challenged, and may even make it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. “It will be the first time that the U.S. Supreme Court has been presented with the question of whether or not a state has a compelling interest in protecting the pain-capable unborn child,” she said.

Julie Schmidt-Albin, director of Nebraska Right to Life, says the law will also prevent a late-term abortionist from making good on an ominous promise.

 “Leroy Carhart made no bones about the fact, when George Tiller was killed last summer, that he wanted to make Omaha the late-term abortion capital of the Midwest.”

The law goes into effect Oct. 15, 2010.
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