Crosstalk: October 3, 2017

Tomorrow, the U.S. Congress will be voting on legislation called the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (HR-36) that's designed to reduce the number of abortions.

Joining Jim to discuss this legislation was Brad Mattes. Brad is the president and CEO of Life Issue Institute headquartered in Cincinnati. Their mission is that of assuring through eduction, equal protection under the law for all living humans from the beginning of their biological life at fertilization until natural death.

Brad began by noting that the 60 million abortion figure (pre-born killed since 1973) is the population of several states in our nation today...and they've just vanished. While the numbers are dropping, we're still killing close to 3,000 per day. Who among those aborted would be those who may have found cures for diseases or might have come up with great inventions. God had a purpose as well as blessings for each of those lives and man has cut that short.

HR-36 prohibits any abortion after 20 weeks (5 months) of pregnancy because the baby can feel the excruciating pain of the procedure. However, Brad made it clear that babies feel pain before 20 weeks and there's a wider body of scientific evidence that proves it. In fact, a handful of states have passed similar legislation and the pro-aborts have yet to challenge it in the courts, as Brad feels they may be afraid of what the results might be.

Why not stop all abortions? Brad admitted they just don't have the support in Congress but he does feel the support does exist in the House. Polling consistently shows that Americans support ending abortion after 5 months.

HR-36 will save at least 18,000 babies per year. Along with that is the anguish of an abortion that is often felt by the women and the men as well as the circle of family and friends around them. Later on as the woman goes through pregnancy there's increased chance of complications including sterility and even death, so Brad believes it's important to take this first step so that we can begin to pull back the reigns of abortion on demand.

Jim noted that it's been reported by at least one pro-life source that spoke with President Trump that he's in favor of signing HR-36 into law. This was part of what he promised to do as a candidate running for president.

As this program moved along, Jim had Brad comment on the following:

--How do we prevent the problem of legislation passing the House but then getting bottled up in the Senate, even with the Republican majority? Should we abandon the filibuster?
--On December 12th, Republican Roy Moore will face off against Doug Jones for the Senate seat of Jeff Sessions. Jones has been quoted as saying that he's for the
right to life once the child is born. Before that, he supports abortion up to the day of birth.
--Anti-life efforts in Illinois, Oregon, Kentucky and Indiana and pro-life legislation in Texas.
--The Maryland Coalition for Life announced that as of last week the Germantown Reproductive Health Services and Prince George's Health Services permanently closed.
--A Planned Parenthood abortion chain in Delaware is planning on offering pre-natal services for unborn babies that won't be aborted.
--Is the FBI about to launch a probe against Planned Parenthood?