Republicans to Introduce Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Republican lawmakers are set to introduce legislation requiring doctors to provide the same medical assistance to babies born alive following an abortion as they would to a baby of the same gestational age in other circumstances.

Titled “Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act,” the bill will be introduced by Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford with the support of 38 other Republican senators on Thursday, January 16.

The bill requires doctors to “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age,” and to ensure that “the child born alive is immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.” The bill also prescribes punishment for anyone who “performs or attempts to perform an overt act that kills a child born alive.”

Republicans have made repeated efforts to pass such legislation in the past, but their attempts were thwarted by Democratic lawmakers who denied them the necessary votes. Democratic senators including Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) have contended that such bills are unnecessary because existing federal law already protects babies born alive in such circumstances. Democrats have held that Republicans introduce these bills to mislead the public and generate fear about why and how often late-term abortions are carried out, and to thus interfere with women’s bodily autonomy and ability to make their own medical decisions.

In any event, explaining his reasons for bringing the legislation again, Lankford told The Daily Wire: “No child should be denied medical care simply because they are ‘unwanted.’ Today, if an abortion procedure fails and a child is born alive, doctors can just ignore the crying baby on the table and watch them slowly die of neglect. That’s not an abortion, that’s infanticide.”

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