The chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities released a statement urging Congress to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

Responding to Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City said the bill draws public attention to “the shameful reality that the United States is one of only seven nations worldwide that allows the barbaric practice of late-term abortion, when a child likely feels pain and might even live outside the womb with appropriate medical assistance.”

Archbishop Naumann said abortions performed after the middle point of pregnancy not only kill a child, but also “pose serious physical dangers to women.”

The vast majority of Americans strongly support a ban on late-term abortions, the archbishop noted, which is one more reason Congress should waste no time in passing the bill.

“I also pray that consideration of this bill moves our country closer to recognizing all unborn babies as legal persons worthy of our love and respect,” he said.

The fact remains that while a sizable majority of Americans — including Democrats — favor restrictions on abortions, Democrat party leadership has entrenched itself in a radical pro-abortion stance.

A Marist poll conducted in January 2019 found that Americans overwhelmingly favor greater restrictions on abortion than are currently in place, with a full three quarters (75 percent) saying that if abortion is going to be allowed at all, it should be restricted to within the first trimester.

Even among registered Democrats, 60 percent said abortion should be limited to — at most — the first three months of pregnancy, which indicates that Democrat leadership is significantly more favorable to abortion on demand than the rank and file.

Democrat party leadership has swung further and further in favor of abortion on demand and in April 2017 Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Tom Perez closed the door to pro-life democrats, vowing to support and fund only candidates who back abortion rights.

“Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”

“At a time when women’s rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country,” he added, “we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice.”

The result has been that the Democrat party is now effectively pro-abortion, while the GOP has tilted pro-life.

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