28-3,104.

Legislative findings.

The Legislature makes the following findings:

(1) At least by twenty weeks after fertilization there is substantial evidence that an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain;

(2) There is substantial evidence that, by twenty weeks after fertilization, unborn children seek to evade certain stimuli in a manner which in an infant or an adult would be interpreted as a response to pain;

(3) Anesthesia is routinely administered to unborn children who have developed twenty weeks or more past fertilization who undergo prenatal surgery;

(4) Even before twenty weeks after fertilization, unborn children have been observed to exhibit hormonal stress responses to painful stimuli. Such responses were reduced when pain medication was administered directly to such unborn children; and

(5) It is the purpose of the State of Nebraska to assert a compelling state interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that they are capable of feeling pain.