The Republican effort to override North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s (shown) veto of the “Born Alive Abortion Survivors Act” failed on Wednesday, suggesting once more that the Democratic Party has become the “pro-infanticide” party.
Senate Bill 359 would have ensured babies who are born alive as a result of failed abortions receive life-saving medical care and would have punished medical professionals who failed to provide that care. It protected the mother from legal action in the event a healthcare professional failed to provide adequate care to the baby.
“If an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of North Carolina and entitled to all the protections of such laws,” the bill reads.
The measure passed in both the House and Senate before Cooper vetoed it on April 18.
The Senate voted 30 to 20 to override the veto weeks ago, thanks to the support of lone Democratic Senator Don Davis, but support from Democrats in the House dipped from four who initially voted for the “Born Alive Survivors Protection Act” to just two — Representatives Charles Graham of Robeson County and Garland Pierce of Scotland County — who voted to override the veto, Time.com reports.
Fox News reports that lawmakers in the North Carolina House debated Senate Bill 359 for more than an hour before the vote failed 67-53, falling short of the necessary 72 votes to override the veto.
“By practice, and according to the law of North Carolina, as well as federal law, all living infants in North Carolina are legally entitled to the care that they need,” said Democratic Representative Deb Butler of New Hanover County, who spoke out against the bill on Wednesday. Butler claims the legislation would have created “division between caregiver and patient,” but provided no further explanation for how the bill would have done that.
Cooper has defended his veto of the legislation, claiming that laws already exist to protect babies after they are born.
“It’s important to protect the lives of all children, and laws already exist to protect newborn babies,” Cooper said in a statement following the vote.
Sadly, contrary evidence undermines this claim. The North Carolina Values Coalition reports that five states reported at least 25 children were born alive during attempted abortions in 2017, and while North Carolina does not maintain those sort of statistics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 140 infant deaths nationwide involved induced terminations from 2003 to 2014, the Washington Times reports.
Live Action president Lila Rose also issued a statement indicating that video evidence contradicts claims that “born-alive” bills are unnecessary:
Live Action has documented on camera how abortionists in our country’s notorious late-term abortion facilities talk about survivors of abortion. Washington, D.C. abortionist Cesare Santangelo told our undercover investigators that he would make sure babies “do not survive” if they were born alive at his facility. A New York abortion worker told our Live Action investigator to “flush” the baby down the toilet or “put it in a bag” if she’s born alive. In Arizona, an abortion worker told us there “may be movement” after the baby is outside of the mother and that they would refuse to provide help and instead let her die. Dr. DeShawn Taylor, former medical director for Planned Parenthood, told a Center for Medical Progress investigator that identifying “signs of life” after a baby survives an abortion is contingent upon “who’s in the room.”
North Carolina State Representative Pat McElraft also testified on the need for “born-alive” legislation by recounting her own experiences as a phlebotomist.
“I was on a break and went in to visit with the pathologist in the pathology lab and I asked him, I said, ‘What are all these little pigs doing in these buckets?’ He told me, ‘Pat, look again,’ and I did. They were perfectly formed little human babies in those buckets,” she said.
She added that she knew of a doctor at the hospital who drowned newborns who had survived abortions.
Sponsors of the bill assert that state law provides a loophole for doctors who allow newborn babies to die after a failed abortion through purposeful negligence, and that the bill would have addressed that loophole.
“This bill is nothing except requiring care for a newborn child, separate from its mother, born alive,” Senator Joyce Krawiec, a Forsyth County Republican who sponsored the bill, in the Senate debate.
Photo: AP Images
