Today the House of Representatives will vote on the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, sponsored by reproductive health advocates' good buddy - Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ).  This is the act that would require women seeking abortions be offered anesthesia for fetuses of 20 weeks or more and told that there is substantial evidence of fetal pain at that stage.  Rev. Haffner discusses this latest attempt to mandate bad information and Marcy Bloom examines the science and politics behind this issue.  And that's exactly what's going on - politics.

This is just another example of abortion counseling requirements that are medically inaccurate.  Fetal pain legislation is a common tactic used by abortion opponents to try to force women to continue their pregnancies.  In fact, five states already include counseling materials on fetal pain, despite credible scientific evidence that fetal pain is unlikely before the third trimester.  (And third trimester abortions are illegal - in fact, so called "late-term" abortions occur in the second trimester and "partial-birth" is not even a real medical term... but now we're getting off-topic.)

This bill puts politics in the doctor's office, without regard to sound science - so why isn't this bigger news?