Exclusive — House GOP Plans Sustained Effort to Expose Leftist Democrats on Abortion

A newborn lies on his mother's stomach after a delivery at the medical clinic St Vincent d
Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images
Matthew Boyle
Washington, D.C.

House Republicans are gearing up for a sustained push to expose leftist Democrats in the House Democrat majority on their increasingly extreme views on abortion, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.

Specifically, Republicans–as they have demonstrated for three consecutive legislative days–intend to push for a floor vote against Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s wishes on a piece of legislation from Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) that would ensure babies who are born alive following an abortion attempt are given the same medical treatment and care any other newborn baby would receive.

“Protecting innocent life shouldn’t be a partisan issue and it shouldn’t be difficult. Infanticide is barbaric and the growing trend of Democrats advocating it is frightening,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, told Breitbart News. “Republicans are united in seeing that a bill protecting babies who survived an attempted abortion urgently receives a vote on the House Floor. It already passed the House with Democratic support last Congress. But so far the new Democrat majority refuse to even consider the bill. But we will ask again. And again. And again, until this body speaks up for life.”

The House Minority Whip, Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, added in an emailed statement to Breitbart News that the Democrats’ extremism has been exposed and will continue to be shown to the public by the GOP’s sustained effort. Scalise said:

It’s absolutely barbaric that in this country it would be allowed to kill a baby after it’s born alive during an abortion, but that’s exactly what some elected Democrat leaders have advocated in recent weeks. Yesterday, the moral indifference of the House Democrat majority was on full display when they refused my motion to even give the Born Alive Survivors Protection Act a vote on the House Floor. Every American deserves to know if their representative stands against infanticide or not, and that’s why this week I began the discharge petition process that would force a vote on our bill. Now Democrats will have to make a choice: stand with the most radical elements of their base, or with the vast majority of Americans who are appalled at the murder of innocent life.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, added in an emailed statement to Breitbart News that Republicans are fighting “pure evil” on the part of those who would kill babies after being born.

Cheney told Breitbart News:

This is about killing babies after they are born and it is the face of pure evil. We’ve seen the leadership of the Democrat Party on the Hill remain silent while elected leaders, including the Governor of Virginia, describe in very cold, clinical terms how he would facilitate the murder of a baby that has already been born. I want to say personally, as a mother of five kids, the idea that we have to describe what the Democrats are doing, is really horrific. I want to ask mothers across this country to join with us to make sure that we don’t see our maternity wards turn into killing fields, which is what the Democrats would do if we don’t stop this. House Republicans are absolutely dedicated to stopping this, and dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable among us, which is the unborn. The notion that we’re having the debate about whether or not you should be able to kill babies is absolutely horrific and evil, and we will stand up against that.

Earlier this week, at a press conference, McCarthy and GOP leaders rolled out their push on the anti-infanticide bill from Wagner, recommitting their efforts to it. Last Congress, the bill was pushed in the House of Representatives by then-Congresswoman and now Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and it passed with bipartisan support. Six Democrats crossed the aisle to join all the Republicans in the then-GOP-led-majority in January 2018 to pass the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The bill did not make it in the Senate.

Now, with Democrats in control of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections, and with states like New York and Virginia among others pushing boundaries on abortion to extremes, the Republicans in Congress is rolling out a long-term push to force the Democrats to hold a vote on the bill. Wagner, the Congresswoman from Missouri who has taken up the Blackburn bill mantle in the House, told Breitbart News that she is “proud” to push for a vote on this critical legislation protecting babies who are born alive surviving abortions.

“I was proud to introduce the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and help lead the discharge petition process to force a vote on this critical piece of legislation,” Wagner told Breitbart News. “Babies born alive deserve our protection and the proper medical care that any newborn would receive. I called for unanimous consent on the House Floor to bring this commonsense legislation up for a vote so we can protect these babies, but we were denied that vote.  My colleagues and I will keep fighting for the precious life of these babies and we will keep calling for this vote so born-alive babies can receive lifesaving medical care when they are at their most vulnerable.”

The Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, among other things, requires by law that healthcare professionals present at a live birth use their skills to preserve the life and health of a child at the same degree of care that would be offered to any child born prematurely at the same gestational age–and that after these efforts conclude, those healthcare professionals are legally responsible for the transportation and admission to a hospital. It also requires health officials to report any violations to law enforcement and penalizes intentional killing of born-alive children with various fines and up to five years in prison.

Leadership officials in the House GOP conference told Breitbart News that until the Democrats schedule a floor vote on this, on every legislative day when the House is in session, a different House Republican will go to the floor and ask for unanimous consent to have a vote on the bill.

Democrats have already blocked Republicans’ efforts three times. McCarthy tried on Wednesday, Scalise tried on Thursday, and Wagner tried on Friday. Cheney is expected to go to the floor next week, and many other members will get in the fight. There will be a different member each day pushing for unanimous consent on Wagner’s bill until Pelosi’s Democrat leadership team, which remains steadfastly in favor of not protecting babies born alive, cracks and allows a vote.

“This will force Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrat Majority to either go on record in blocking that request, or immediately proceed to passage of this important legislation,” a GOP leadership aide told Breitbart News.

Republicans say they will not be deterred and are ready for the long haul if necessary, because they believe that when the House votes on this bill protecting babies, many Democrats will be forced to–as six of them did in early 2018 when the Blackburn version of the bill passed the House on a bipartisan vote under Republican control–vote against their party leadership’s increasingly more extreme position on abortion.

Republicans are ready to take this request for unanimous consent on this bill to the floor, leadership aides say, every day that the House is in session for months and months–even more than a hundred days–if necessary.

The effort began on Wednesday, the day after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union addres in the very same chamber, where the president asked Congress to pass legislation protecting the most innocent lives–newborn babies and the unborn. Trump also criticized recent developments in New York, which made late-term abortions legal, and in Virginia, where the Democrat Governor Ralph Northam has come under serious fire for comments supporting abortion of a child during the birth of that child.

President Trump said:

Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments from birth. These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and their dreams with the world. And then, we had the case of the Governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth. To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb. Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: All children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.

On Wednesday afternoon, after Wagner reintroduced the bill Wednesday morning and leadership touted it at a press conference, McCarthy went to the floor to push for a vote via unanimous consent. Pelosi’s designate in the Speaker’s chair that day, Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), blocked the bill, saying Pelosi’s leadership team had not agreed to it.

Here’s video of the exchange between McCarthy and Pelosi’s designate:

Then, the next day, Scalise went to the floor and tried again. Pelosi’s designate, a different Democrat this time, blocked the GOP:

And Wagner tried again on Friday:

As each of these battles happens, McCarthy’s team and the rest of the GOP leadership are blasting out press releases to the national media highlighting the Democrat opposition to protecting babies from being killed during or after being born. Republicans also intend to push the message hard on social media, ripping Democrats for supporting what amounts to murder of babies already born:

According to a report in the Washington Post on Thursday, the GOP clearly views this as a winning issue politically–as it hands the Republicans the moral high ground on abortion, as the extremely radical view of killing a baby after he or she has been born–not when a baby is still in the womb–is so out there most of the country is aligned against it, even supporters of abortion.

Scalise is quoted in that Post story as saying the New York and Virginia developments on the life issue seem to have “woke a sleeping giant”– the movement of people across the country disgusted, outraged, and driven to action to protect human life from Democrats who could care less about it or would go so far as to pass laws stretching abortion to radical extremes.

The Northam comments hit America hard. He was making the case in favor of Virginia statehouse Delegate Kathy Tran’s bill that would allow abortion when a woman is going into labor–meaning as a baby is being born–and took it much, much further.

Northam, a Democrat, said in a radio interview with WTOP, adding:

This is why decisions such as this should be made by providers, physicians, and the mothers and fathers that are involved. When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physician—more than one physician, by the way—and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s non-viable.

Northam, who was a doctor before he got into politics, then said that the child would be “kept comfortable” while doctors and parents made a decision whether or not to kill him or her. Northam said:

If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. 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. So I think this was really blown out of proportion. We want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions.

Northam’s comments reportedly so outraged his medical colleagues that they leaked to the media photographs from his yearbook page in medical school that show two men in racially offensive garb–one in blackface, the other in a Ku Klux Klan outfit. Northan originally admitted one of the men was him but would not specify which, then walked back his admission and is now denying either of the men are him and refuses to resign despite nearly all of the Democrat Party nationally pushing for his resignation.

The scandal has rocked the Democrat Party nationally and reverberated heavily throughout Virginia, as not just Northam but both his presumed successors–next in line Democrat Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and the number three in line to the governor’s mansion, Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring–have been consumed by scandals of their own.

Fairfax has been hit with a pair of sexual assault allegations, including one woman who accused him of raping her. He denies the allegations despite calls from national Democrats for him to resign as well. Herring has admitted he too donned blackface in his college days. Herring had previously called on Northam to resign over Northam’s admission at a press conference that he wore blackface at a different time than the photo that appeared in his yearbook.

Republicans’ renewed focus on abortion in the wake of both the New York and Virginia developments–among others nationwide–has widespread public support. Recent polling shows that the public wants restrictions on abortion, and wants Roe v. Wade reinterpreted so as to allow for restrictions:

What’s more, Democrats who have embraced radical and extreme late-term abortion policy views in recent weeks–not just Northam–have come under fire. New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat who is reportedly considering running for president in 2020, wrote an op-ed in  the New York Times defending his state’s radical new law by saying: “I am a former altar boy.”

“My Roman Catholic values are my personal values. The decisions I choose to make in my life, or in counseling my daughters, are based on my personal moral and religious beliefs,” Cuomo wrote, backing the law by saying his oath is not to his personal beliefs but to the law and the Constitution.

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