"Unborn Child Pain"

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, whom I had the pleasure of joining for lunch and a bible study once upon a time (another story, another time), has introduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act:

The legislation would not ban any procedures. Instead, it would require doctors to tell women considering abortions who are 20 weeks pregnant or more that “there is substantial evidence” the fetus will feel pain. The doctor would then have to offer the woman anesthesia for the fetus as part of the abortion.

The legislation says the doctor can tell the woman what he or she thinks about the likelihood of the fetus feeling pain or about anesthesia risks. The woman would have to sign a form saying whether she accepted the anesthesia.

“This is the No. 1 issue with the pro-life community,” said Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, the sponsor of the legislation in the Senate. “It's my hope that … once a woman would know her child is going to experience extraordinary pain in this dismemberment that she would say, ‘I don't want do this to this child.'”

On one or two occasions, I've written about how strange it is to me that these people claim to be "pro-life," yet only seem to care about life before birth, not after. This has never made sense to me.

I was having this discussion with someone the other day that pointed out one of the reasons for this: it all has to do with baptism. Apparently, according to Christian theology, a child cannot go to heaven until it's been baptized. Abortion prevents a baby from being baptized. Therefore, you're robbing a soul the chance to return to heaven. Once baptized, who really cares about their life while they're here on earth; earth is just a temporary stop on the way to an eternity in heaven.

Don't know if that's correct or not, but if so, it's an interesting insight into Christianist thought.