In the 2005 Russian miniseries The Master and Margarita, Aphranius, who is really the devil disguised as the head of the Roman secret police, reports to Pontius Pilate about the crucifixion of Jesus. Aphranius notes that Jesus had refused to drink the drugged wine given to the condemned to dull their pain just before being nailed to their crosses. Pilate’s response: “Madman! To die of sunburn! Why refuse what is offered by law?”

Although the Romans had no qualms about subjecting capital criminals to the brutally excruciating pain of the cross, they normally permitted the condemned a draught of a narcotic-laced drink that might minimally assuage their suffering. The Gospels report the custom: Both Matthew 27:33 and Mark 15:23 speak of Jesus being offered “wine mixed with gall” (or myrrh), which he declined. Hard-nosed and uncompromising, the Romans still allowed this drop of mercy: giving anesthesia before being killed.

Too bad that same level of mercy is unavailable in Montana.

In its last session, the Montana Legislature passed a bill sponsored by state Rep. Albert Olszewski, R-Kalispell, that would have required administering anesthesia to an unborn child prior to performing any abortion after 20 weeks (i.e., the fifth month of pregnancy). Just think of it: America has reached the point where we have to debate whether to ease the pain of a five-month-old unborn child before killing him.

Yet 43 members of the Montana House of Representatives voted “No” on H.B. 479. And, on April 30, Gov. Steve Bullock, a Catholic, vetoed it.

At five months of pregnancy, an unborn child has every bodily system he will ever have (including the nervous system). His heart has been beating for 17 weeks. His brain has emitted measurable waves for 12. He has fingers and toes. He sleeps and can grasp with his hand. He can move and be felt moving by his mother. He has a skeleton, so abortion procedures at this stage of pregnancy involve dissecting the unborn child and removing him, piece by piece, from the womb.

But the abortion establishment is already busy denying that the unborn child can feel pain. They are impugning the science behind fetal pain.

Back in Montana, Olszewski’s bill had already been watered down before passage to make the decision for anesthetization subject to the pregnant woman’s choice. In other words, whether or not the pain of the unborn would be tempered depended completely on whether the mother agreed. So every woman could, in fact, bypass the law. In the end, the bill only created a state default policy in favor of palliating the pain.

But that was still too much for Gov. Bullock.

The Olszewski bill should have been able to bring people together: If one might be able to reduce even the potential suffering of another creature (not even saying “human creature”), shouldn’t we? But for the pro-abortion movement, bills like Olszewski’s (like the bans on dismemberment abortion in Kansas and Oklahoma) pose a threat, because if you suggest that the unborn can feel pain, you begin to chip away at the idea that the unborn are not alive … and asking questions about that threatens to bring the whole edifice of the abortion license crashing down.

This bill should also be a challenge, a challenge to the “personally opposed.” Why are you personally opposed? What produces in you at least that level of opposition? Even if you favor abortion, are you personally opposed to making the procedure more excruciating for the unborn child?

The bill should also be a challenge for the “consistent ethic of life” and “common cause” crowds. It should be a challenge either to stand up for this minimal palliative in the case of abortion or give up the whole bogus pretense of a “consistent ethic” that only seems consistently to leave out the unborn.

Contrast what is called the “humane” position on capital punishment. Those who argue for a “consistent ethic of life” urge the abolition of capital punishment. But even in those states where capital punishment still exists, most have adopted some form of trying to make the death penalty less painful.

The whole movement to execution by lethal injection was predicated on this goal. States that execute by lethal injection usually employ a triad of drugs, which include a sedative, a muscle relaxant and a drug that stops the heart. Note that the sedative is intended to relieve pain or at least anxiety. Montana is among the states that use lethal injection (but has not executed anybody since 1997).

Although death by lethal injection spread across America as a “humane” method of capital punishment, it has not been without controversy, in part because its claim to reduce or eliminate the executed’s pain is disputed. Clayton Lockett’s “botched” execution in Oklahoma, followed by similar episodes in Ohio and Arizona, rekindled the debate in America in 2014 about just how painless capital punishment by lethal injection really is.

So my challenge to the “consistent ethic of life” and “common cause” communities: If you can demand an end to capital punishment precisely because you do not believe the current protocols for drugs used in lethal injections effectively block pain, how can you not demand an end to second- and third-trimester abortions — or at least insist on the anesthetization of the unborn child to block the pain of dismemberment?

Anesthesia as a prelude to killing at least aspires to match the “humanitarian” standards of ancient Rome.

John M. Grondelski, a moral theologian, writes from Shanghai, China.