They get pregnant. They decide to end their pregnancies or lumber around with growing girths for nine months. And ultimately, they push the babies out.

But on Capitol Hill, women serve a supporting role for the almost-exclusively male sponsors of abortion legislation.

House Health and Human Services Committee members Tuesday sent two abortion bills to the full House for debate. One would require a parent's consent before a girl under 18-years-old can get an abortion. The second would require doctors to inform women seeking abortions after 20 weeks' gestation that their fetuses might feel pain.

Two years ago, two abortion bills were sponsored by Provo Republican Sen. Curt Bramble. This year, two Republican men sponsoring the legislation - Clearfield Rep. Paul Ray and Ogden Rep. Kerry Gibson. But women provided the debate - and the expertise that backed up the legislation.

Gibson has 28 co-sponsors for his parental consent bill, including several female lawmakers. "They feel equally passionate about the topic," Gibson said. "Many would have done it themselves."

But they didn't. And lawmakers are at a loss to explain decades of the phenomenon.

"I don't think it is a gender issue. Clearly abortion happens to women. But it affects society as a whole," said Provo Republican Rep. Becky Lockhart. "When these things come up, I've thought, 'Maybe that's something I should have done'."

Still, male legislators end up sponsoring virtually all of Utah's abortion laws.

Planned Parenthood Director Karrie Galloway gives women legislators credit for sponsoring much of the legislation to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and cover women's birth control pills. She believes women are unable to see abortion in the black and white terms that men do.

"They realize the issues are too complex for legislation," she said.

Tuesday, all but one who testified for and against the bills were women.

"We don't really know for sure if anybody feels pain," said Ray. But based on heart monitors, he says, we can assume that fetuses and adults in comas do. Two years ago, 18 Utah women had abortions after 20 weeks.

Obstetrician/gynecologist Cynthia Jones, however, questioned Ray's research. She noted that no organization of doctors or anesthesiologists has agreed on whether fetuses feel pain or how to administer pain medication to a fetus being aborted. Beyond that, she said, Ray's legislation, HB222, does not tell doctors how to administer anesthesia or analgesics to an unborn child.

"I don't know how to do it," she said. "I wouldn't know how to go about doing this."

Gibson argues his parental consent bill, HB85, replaces Utah's 30-year-old parental notification law. He doesn't trust reports from Utah's abortion clinics that 95 percent of the 200 girls who got abortions in 2003 went to the clinic with a parent.

"Too many times, the government wants to get involved in our lives when they tell people they don't have rights and responsibilities," he said. "We need to put the responsibility where it belongs."

While Margaret Plane, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, agreed with Gibson's questions about existing state law, she said his bill is not the solution. She called it "constitutionally suspect," because it could allow parents to be notified while a girl appealed to a judge to bypass her mother and father.

"This will not create good family communication where it does not already exist. And it could create dangerous circumstances for a young girl already in a precarious situation," Plane said.