Senate blocks bill on medical care for children born alive after attempted abortion
What is the objectivists viewpoint on this failed legislation?
In remarks on the Senate floor ahead of Monday’s vote, McConnell described the measure as “a straightforward piece of legislation to protect newborn babies.” Democrats, he argued, “seem to be suggesting that newborn babies’ right to life may be contingent on the circumstances surrounding their birth.”
“I want to ask each and every one of my colleagues whether or not we’re okay with infanticide,” Sasse said on the Senate floor Monday. “It is too blunt for many people in this body, but frankly, that is what we’re talking about here today. . . . Are we a country that protects babies that are alive, born outside the womb after having survived a botched abortion?”
“I want to ask each and every one of my colleagues whether or not we’re okay with infanticide,” Sasse said on the Senate floor Monday. “It is too blunt for many people in this body, but frankly, that is what we’re talking about here today. . . . Are we a country that protects babies that are alive, born outside the womb after having survived a botched abortion?”
But that characterization has infuriated abortion rights supporters, who note that infanticide is already illegal and argue that Sasse’s bill is actually meant to dissuade doctors from performing late-term abortions in the first place.
“We must call out today’s vote for what it is: a direct attack on women’s health and rights,” Leana Wen, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. “This legislation is based on lies and a misinformation campaign, aimed at shaming women and criminalizing doctors for a practice that doesn’t exist in medicine or reality.”
According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.3 percent of abortions in 2015 were performed at 21 weeks of gestation or later. About 91 percent took place at or before 13 weeks of gestation.
The issue was thrust further into the national debate when Northam discussed in a January radio interview what would happen if a child were born after a failed abortion attempt. “The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” he said — a statement that many Republicans cast as endorsement of infanticide.
That included Trump, who said in his State of the Union address that Northam “basically stated he would execute a baby after birth.” Since then, House Republicans have attempted, and failed, to get a bill similar to Sasse’s taken up in the Democratic-controlled chamber. McConnell, meanwhile, scheduled valuable Senate floor time to put that chamber’s Democrats on the record on the issue.
In response, Democratic lawmakers have made an aggressive and often-exasperated case that infanticide is already illegal and that the “born alive” bills are a stalking horse for more-thorough abortion restrictions.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) described the bill Monday as “clearly anti-doctor, anti-woman and anti-family.”
“It has no place becoming law. Its proponents claim it would make something illegal that is already illegal,” Murray said on the Senate floor. She added that the legislation would “do nothing except help Republicans advance their goal of denying women their constitutionally protected rights.”
Previous comments... You are currently on page 2.
Or, is it the role of each individual to choose whether or not to voluntarily supply the resources to do this?
Now, I don't care Who you are, or what definition of LIFE or HUMAN you hold, (legal or not)...This should raise very loud alarm bells within you.