20-week abortion ban expected to pass WI Assembly, become law soon after

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that the Wisconsin State Assembly is expected to both consider and pass the state’s 20-week abortion ban today.

The legislation would punish abortionists who perform abortions after 20 weeks with as much as 3 ½ years in prison and a $10,000 fine, making an exception only for abortions done to save the mother’s life.

As Live Action News has previously reported, the bill was passed by the state Senate early last month, and Governor Scott Walker has already said he will sign it into law.

If the bill is enacted, the Journal notes that Wisconsin will become the fifteenth state to prohibit abortion after 20 weeks. Wisconsin’s pro-abortion lobby is likely to challenge the law in court, as they did in the past with the state’s abortionist admitting privileges requirement.

The push to ban abortion at 20 weeks is based largely on preborn babies’ ability to feel pain by then. Though a controversial assertion abortion defenders vehemently deny, fetal pain at 20 weeks is supported by mainstream medical authorities such as the New England Journal of Medicine, which says that pain sensory receptors spread to “all cutaneous [skin] and mucous surfaces” by 18 weeks, and Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy, which says that “pain transmission from a peripheral [pain] receptor to the cortex is possible” by 14 weeks.