January 19, 2018

National Right to Life applauds House passage of Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

preemie and nurse
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) today applauded a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives to extend federal legal protection to babies who are born alive during abortion. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H.R. 4712) passed 241-183. All Republicans voted for final passage, but only six Democrats voted in favor of it.

National Right to Life President Carol Tobias commented, “The 183 House Democrats who voted against the bill will need to try to explain why they voted against making it a crime to treat a born-alive human person as medical waste, as a source for organ harvesting, or as a creature who may be subjected to lethal violence with impunity.”

H.R. 4712 contains an explicit requirement that a baby born alive during an abortion must be afforded “the same degree” of care that would apply “to any other child born alive at the same gestational age,” including transportation to a hospital. This language does not dictate bona fide medical judgments nor require futile measures, but rather, requires that babies born alive during abortions are treated in the same manner as those who are spontaneously born prematurely.

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