Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has vetoed a bill that would have protected newborn babies from infanticide in Kentucky, claiming the legislation was unnecessary, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under Senate Bill 9, infants born alive after botched abortions would have been required to receive “reasonable life-saving and life-sustaining” medical care. Medical professionals who failed to provide such care would have been subjected to criminal penalties with the potential of having their licenses revoked. The bill is similar to federal legislation that has been blocked by Democrats in the U.S. House 80 times.
Beshear, a pro-abortion Democrat, vetoed the bill, claiming it would divert important focus away from the coronavirus crisis.
“Existing Kentucky law already fully protects children from being denied life-saving medical care and treatment when they are born,” the governor said. “During this worldwide health pandemic, it is simply not the time for a divisive set of lawsuits that reduce our unity and our focus on defeating the novel coronavirus and restarting our economy.”
The state legislature is unable to override Beshear’s veto because the bill was passed on the last day of its session, Life News reports.
Beshear’s veto statement echoes the sentiments of other pro-abortion leaders who have claimed that born-alive legislation is unnecessary, despite this being disproved by government health data. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 2003 and 2014, at least 143 babies were born after botched abortions and lived anywhere from minutes to days. The CDC admits their numbers could be significantly understated, a likely possibility according to Family Research Council’s Arina Grossu, who observed, “[Kermit] Gosnell is only one abortionist who was responsible for ‘hundreds of snippings’ of born-alive babies, yet he did not report even one.” She added, “His numbers alone exceed the ‘definitive’ numbers of the CDC.”
The numbers are particularly hard to determine, as most states do not require such data to be maintained, but the American Center for Law and Justice believes the figure could be as high as 362 babies born alive between 2001 and 2010.
More recently, data from just Minnesota, Florida, and Arizona reveals at least 40 babies were born alive during failed abortions between 2016 and 2018, leaving critics to believe the actual figures may be significantly higher than estimated.
“These numbers are in just three states, which means it’s a lot higher than we’d ever suspect,” Connor Semelsberger of the pro-life Family Research Council told Fox News.
Likewise, personal testimony has also underscored the need for born-alive legislation. On February 11, registered nurse Jill Stanek provided personal testimony about her experience with infants born alive during failed abortions during congressional testimony on the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (S. 311). Her disturbing testimony revealed the protocol at the hospital at which she worked was to leave the infants in a “soiled utility room” to die.
During debate on North Carolina’s House floor over such legislation, Republican state Representative Pat McElraft recalled her own experiences of seeing newborns who survived abortions being left to die in the hospital, where she worked 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.
McElraft also reported that she knew of a doctor at the hospital who drowned newborns who survived abortions, North Carolina Health News reported.
An undercover investigation by Live Action revealed horrific truths about the treatment of infants born alive following failed abortions:
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.”
Pro-life lawmakers have attempted to pass born-alive legislation in states across the country with varying success. Just last month, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, who claims to be pro-life, vetoed born-alive legislation, while similar legislation was signed into law by West Virginia Governor Jim Justice.
As noted by the National Review, there are still more than a dozen states that do not mandate medical care be administered to infants who survive abortions. What’s more, in New York and Illinois, all protections for infants who survive abortions were repealed last year, Life News reports.
Image: Narongrit Sritana/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Raven Clabough acquired her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English at the University of Albany in upstate New York. She currently lives in Pennsylvania and has been a writer for The New American since 2010.
