Those of us who criticized the disgraced Virginia governor Ralph Northam for describing his abortion-until-birth bill as permitting the killing of a child who is born if the mother goes into labor during the abortion were told that we mischaracterized what he said. Well, fine. Does that mean that the pro-abortion advocates reject abortions after viability? Or after the child reaches full term? Or after the child is born? Will they go on record clarifying their opposition to infanticide? Apparently not.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) drew up the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, requiring medical attention for any baby that survives an abortion. He presented it before the Senate under the “unanimous consent” provision. It could be passed immediately unless another senator objects to it.
How could anyone object? Even those who believe in abortion should have no problem opposing the protection of a baby who has been born. The argument that a woman has the right to control her own body would not apply in this case, since the baby has left her body and is living apart from her. If the mother does not want to keep and take care of the child, he or she could be put up for adoption, since there is a huge demand from parents who want to adopt a baby, the number of available children being drastically limited by abortion. What possible argument could there be that the child should be killed or left to die, uncared for?
Gov. Northam said that abortions this late are only for “deformed” babies or children that are not viable anyway. Some of his defenders repeated that claim. They must not have realized that this is not true. Research from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute found this: “[D]ata suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” The study found that 80% of the women getting late-term abortion had other reasons.
Sasse’s bill should not be necessary. Under the principle of “birth citizenship,” insisted upon by Democrats in immigration arguments, someone born in the United States is a citizen of the nation, entitled to all of the Constitutional rights and protections of the law. Surely that would apply to an abortion survivor. Besides, there are already laws against infanticide. There is even a law that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support: The 2002 Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which established that “every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development” is a “person” for all purposes of federal law. Democrats voted for that protection in 2002.
Sasse’s bill, which would strengthen the sanctions against doctors who refused to provide medical care for the child, was co-sponsored by 145 Republicans and one Democrats. But one Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) blocked the measure, preventing it from passing by unanimous consent.
Hopefully, the bill will pass in the normal way. It will be interesting to see who votes against it. And if it passes in the Senate if it Speaker Nancy Pelosi will take it up in the House of Representatives.
Let me ask you readers who are “pro-choice”: do you believe in abortion even after the baby is viable? do you believe in “40-week” abortion; that is, abortion of full-term “fetuses”? do you believe that if a baby survives the abortion he or she should be killed or left to die, if the mother and the doctor agree? If you believe this should be the treatment of “deformed” children, do you believe it should be an option if the infant is not deformed and is otherwise healthy? How old do you think the child should be before the mother is not allowed to kill him or her?
Photo: Sen. Ben Sasse by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America — Ben Sasse, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56558870
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