By Deanna Wallace, Louisiana Right to Life
BATON ROUGE – State Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Bossier), introduced HB 1081, The Louisiana Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Act, Tuesday April 5, which would protect unborn babies by ending the brutal practice of dismemberment abortion in Louisiana. A dismemberment abortion, also known as a D&E, is a second trimester abortion method where the abortionist uses large forceps to seize and tear body parts from a live, unborn child.
Johnson, who is also a constitutional law attorney, said the following about his decision to introduce HB 1081: “Louisiana has a long history of protecting the most vulnerable members of our society – unborn children. HB 1081 will continue in that tradition by protecting these little ones from the barbaric practice of being torn apart in the womb by an abortionist’s forceps.”
Louisiana Right to Life Legislative Director Deanna Wallace added: “Dismemberment abortion is a violent procedure, and there is ample Supreme Court precedent for banning such a procedure.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his discussion of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban, bluntly stated that in a dismemberment abortion, the unborn child ‘dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb.’ We know that dismemberment abortions are happening in Louisiana abortion clinics on a regular basis, and we applaud Rep. Mike Johnson’s efforts to end this inhumane procedure.”
According to statistics from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, more than 1,000 unborn children are aborted using this procedure each year in our state.
Currently, West Virginia, Kansas, and Oklahoma have passed similar legislation into law. Today, the Mississippi Legislature passed its version of the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Act.
