Senate Rejects Measures to Protect Infants – Born and Unborn

Fanny Nurdiana, a female photographer, works during a photo session of a newborn baby in B
CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP via Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

The Senate failed Tuesday to garner the 60 votes required to pass two pieces of legislation that would protect babies – born and unborn.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortion past the fifth month of pregnancy, was rejected 53-44.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require babies who survive abortion to be provided with the same medical care as any newborn of the same age born prematurely, was also rejected, 56-41.

“Refusing to support a measure that would provide life-saving care to an infant who survives an abortion and is born-alive, is condoning infanticide,” said Tony Perkins, Family Research Council president. He added:

Continuing to allow this practice of either actively or passively allowing born-alive babies to die, as Virginia Governor Northam has advocated, is crossing the line from civilized to barbarous. The efforts in Congress to protect these babies should not stop, and voters have a moral duty to vote against those who condone infanticide.

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who introduced the Born-Alive bill, challenged Democrat senators to go beyond the talking points provided to them by Planned Parenthood in considering his bill.

He said Democrat senators “get real uncomfortable, and they try to change the subject” when he has tried to speak to them about the measure.

“Because they don’t want to have a conversation about the actual legislation and the actual babies that we’re considering today,” Sasse explained. “Why? Because they’re scared to death of Planned Parenthood’s army of lobbyists.”

Sasse provided “four straight, undeniable facts” on newborn babies who survive botched abortions in a floor speech.

The senator clarified that while “active infanticide is illegal under federal law,” the Born-Alive bill is concerned with “passive infanticide.”

“Every baby dies if you wander away from them & deny them care,” the senator said. “Passive infanticide is not illegal under federal law. That’s what this legislation is about.”

“It is deeply disappointing that some elected officials in the Senate have promised to block even legislation that mandates medical care for children who survive an abortion – an extremist view shared by all Democratic presidential candidates,” said Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life.

On the floor of the Senate, Nevada Democrat Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto repeated the talking points of the abortion industry when she said the two Republican bills to protect born and unborn babies are attempts “to turn back the clock on women’s health care” and would negatively impact women’s economic security.

Masto said the right to abort babies is “part and parcel not just of women’s health but of their economic security.”

“When women can’t control when and if they have children, they are more likely to struggle financially,” she said.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who introduced the Pain-Capable bill, stressed on the floor of the Senate, “We would like to get out of a club of seven nations that allow abortion on demand at a time when parents are encouraged to sing to the child.”

The United States is one of only seven countries in the world that permit elective abortion past 20 weeks of pregnancy. The other nations are: Canada, China, Netherlands, North Korea, Singapore, and Viet Nam.

Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, said in a statement about the failed votes:

Planned Parenthood and abortion extremists’ death grip have once again prevailed through the Democrat party. Today they voted to turn their backs to protect babies who feel pain or are born alive from a failed abortion. It is unconscionable that Democrats stand on the side of authoritarian regimes like China and North Korea who condone the killing of unborn children until birth and leave unwanted newborns to die. Unfortunately, that is where our country’s laws stand today.

In February 2019, the Susan B. Anthony List sponsored a poll conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, that found 77 percent of Americans support legislation that would ensure babies who survive abortion would be administered the same medical treatment as would any infant born prematurely at the same age.

That outcome included 75 percent of independent voters and 70 percent of Democrats.

A Marist poll released in January found seven in ten Americans, including 47 percent of those who identify as “pro-choice,” want significant restrictions placed on abortion.

In addition, the poll found over three in four of those Americans who say they are pro-choice (78 percent) or Democrat (76 percent) say state laws can protect both mothers and their unborn babies.

The poll also found that 55 percent of Americans want to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, when evidence has shown unborn babies can feel pain as they are being terminated.

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