We’re continuing to see how radical the democratic party and the pro-choice movement are getting on abortion. They keep denying how radical they are. Two weeks ago, it was the late term abortion ban in New York. People argued that it wasn’t really all that radical. It was a law that was strictly meant to provide late term abortions just in situations where it was medically necessary (which was already legal in New York), and that the only reason a person would even have a late term abortion would be situations where it was medically necessary.
Then why change the law when it was already legal? The new law was an expansion of abortion protections that has a wider scope than many wanted to acknowledge. The new law broadened circumstances when late term abortion was legal to vaguely include “health,” which was not necessarily merely referring to a life-saving procedure.
Last week, Virginia had a bill fail, but in its wake, embattled governor Ralph Northam addressed situations where a baby would be born alive in an attempted abortion and said: “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 desire, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Many in the pro-life camp took this as supporting infanticide. The pro-choice camp ridiculed that notion.
So we come to this week. Yesterday, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska proposed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill which would have required medical care for a baby in the car of an abortion attempt where the child was delivered alive.
Given the recent events, this is not an unreasonable bill. And given how the pro-choice camp is so clearly (allegedly) against infanticide, it would obviously be something they would agree with. Given their self-righteous indignation from last week, clearly they would be on board. Right?
The bill was proposed under a senate rule called “unanimous consent,” where individual votes are not recorded and the bill is submitted for approval of the entire senate. Under the unanimous consent rule, if just one senator opposes the bill, it fails. One senator, Patty Murray, a democrat from Washington opposed the bill.
What’s the excuse going to be this time?
Senator Murray argued that there were already laws, which is true. In 2002, the Born-Alive Protection Act passed a bipartisan vote in congress. But the new law expanded protections and spelled out more specific steps a medical care provider would be required to take in the event of a live-birth.
In the wake of the New York law and the Virginia failed law, if it’s so obvious that those in the pro-choice movement oppose infanticide, then WHY AREN’T THEY SUPPORTING THIS?
Infanticide was always the slippery slope of the abortion debate. There is no logical reason to support late term abortion and oppose that baby being killed five minutes after birth. Everyone knows there’s no fundamental difference at that point. And with more states allowing for late-term abortion, with the radical wing of the pro-choice movement ever insatiable in expanding abortion rights, it was worth passing protections for babies.
Does everyone who’s pro-choice support this? Of course not. But there’s also a deafening silence from the pro-choice camp this morning. The mainstream media is silent on the issue so far. The democrats in Washington are silent, no one denouncing Murray’s vote. It’ll be largely ignored.
I hope that this bill will be re-introduced and that every senator will have to cast a vote either for or against protecting babies born alive. Because the current climate is that the pro-choice movement is always working to expand abortion rights and never taking action to protect babies.
Again, I realize there are people who have varying degrees within the pro-choice spectrum, and not all citizens agree with late-term abortions. But the issue is that many of our lawmakers are far more radical than the average citizen on this issue.
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Josh Benner 