Chris Smith: “most, perhaps everybody in this House today, has had to deal at one time or another with the emotional agony of a loved…”

“most, perhaps everybody in this House today, has had to deal at one time or another with the emotional agony of a loved one dying from severe illness, an accident, or perhaps even an act of violence. One of the questions we often ask is, Did they suffer? How much pain did they endure? Did we do everything we can to alleviate their pain? Today, we can no longer deny, trivialize or gloss over the significant and ever-expanding body of knowledge that shows that an unborn child suffers real pain, excruciating pain, when he or she is dismembered, as in a D&E abortion, or jabbed with scissors as in a partial-birth abortion, or poisoned by an abortionist. Not only is abortion violence against children, but we now know that the abortion act itself is painful to the baby as well. As the gentleman from Georgia pointed out a moment ago, Dr. Sunny Anand, an expert on pain for the unborn and the neonates, has pointed out that human fetuses possess the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and there is a whole growing body of evidence that clearly demonstrates that. Meanwhile, approximately 18,000 unborn children at 20 weeks or beyond, are destroyed without even the basic decency of pain relief.”