To the editor:

I commend the Kansas Legislature and Gov. Brownback for crafting and signing into law a bill tightening restrictions on abortions after 21 weeks based on the assertion that a preborn child can feel pain.

With the medical technology we have today, allowing us to see inside the womb, we know just four weeks after conception that the brain, spinal cord and nervous system have already been established. By week eight, the heart is pumping blood through the circulatory system, muscles start to operate in conjunction with the nervous system, the child responds to touch. Everything is now present that will be found in a fully developed adult.

By week 20, fingerprints are evident, the child can now squint, swallow, urinate, turn her head. The ears are functioning and can hear outside the womb. The palm will make a tight fist when stroked, and the fingers will curve around an object placed in the hand. It is evident that babies in the womb can feel, so how can it be asserted that they do not feel pain while they are being aborted, especially during the partial birth abortion that is performed during the last few months of pregnancy?

Where else in this world can a human child be legally destroyed except in the mother’s womb where, ironically, it should be the safest?

Thank you, Gov. Brownback and the Kansas Legislature, for what you are doing to change the law of the land to protect our preborn children.