If enacted, the bill would extend federal legal protection to babies who are born alive during an abortion.
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the nationwide federation of state right-to-life organizations, strongly urges you to sign the discharge petition.
In light of the radical trend that started with the signing of the Reproductive Health Act by Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York, allowing abortion through all stages of pregnancy and removing explicit protections for babies born alive during an abortion, there is renewed urgency to pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.
National Right to Life believes that it is time for Congress to act decisively to put the entire abortion industry on notice that when they 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, they will do so at grave legal peril.
H.R. 962 would enact 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.
In addition, the bill applies the existing penalties of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111 (the federal murder statute) to anyone who performs “an overt act that kills a child born alive.” This would apply, for example, to an abortion clinic staff person who dissects a breathing born-alive infant in order to harvest an intact liver, or to an abortionist who ends a born-alive baby’s whimpers with a sharp blow to the skull, or by snipping the spine.
The bill provides a civil cause of action to women who are harmed by violations of the act.
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