Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. (Photo: Screenshot/C-SPAN)
Do you think Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam was off base when he suggested that newborns could be “kept comfortable” after birth while the mother and doctor have a “discussion” about whether the child should live?
That complete disregard for the lives of the most vulnerable apparently is mainstream for Democrats.
Because when a bill was before the Senate on Monday to instruct doctors to offer life-saving aid to children who survive abortions, Democrats voted it down.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., opposes requiring life-saving treatments for infants. So do Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
They are among 44 Democrats who voted against a plan from Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., that would require those protections.
When the vote was revealed Monday, President Trump couldn’t understand why someone would refuse treatment for such a helpless person.
“Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children,” he tweeted. “The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies.”
Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children. The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2019
Northam, facing calls for his resignation over the blackface/KKK scandal, virtually affirmed infanticide in an interview last month when Virginia lawmakers were considering a bill that effectively would allow abortion at any time, even in the moments after birth.
He described what would happen in the case of an abortion procedure in which the baby is born alive.
“So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen … the infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
The president called it straight out infanticide.
Mat Staver, chairman of the Christian legal group Liberty Counsel, charged Democrats are “playing politics with the lives of newborn children.”
“These babies are living, breathing human beings. They are completely separate from their mothers and yet Democrats are demanding these children be sacrificed on the altar of abortion. We must recognize that everyone has a constitutional right to life, no matter if they are one hour or one hundred years old,” said Staver.
Catherine Glenn Foster of Americans United for Life said the Senate’s “inability to move on Sen. Ben Sasse’s straightforward and common sense bill to protect human life is the latest sign of our needlessly polarized times.”
“Too many in Washington are engaged in performative displays meant to appeal to fringe supporters,” she said. “As we know from our AUL/YouGov national poll, huge majorities even of pro-choice Americans oppose abortion in the final months of pregnancy and oppose denying babies medical care after birth. We’re living through a dark time when the Senate blocks a life-affirming bill that majorities of pro-choice Americans would appear to support.”
Forty-four senators opposed Sasse’s plan, and only 53 supported it, short of the 60 needed under Senate rules to advance the bill.
Trump said: “This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress. If there is one thing we should all agree on, it’s protecting the lives of innocent babies.”
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said the plan wasn’t about restrictions on abortion, which Democrats treat as a holy grail.
“It’s just about recognizing that a newborn baby is a newborn baby. Period.”
The only Democrats to vote against leaving abortion survivors to die without help were Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Doug Jones of Alabama and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
Sasse’s effort was started after Northam’s promotion of abortion after birth.
“In Virginia, disgraced Governor Ralph Northam tarnished the American idea of equality under law. He betrayed the universal truth of human dignity and he turned the stomachs of civilized people not just in this country but in every country on Earth,” Sasse said.
The Gateway Pundit blog said: “This means babies could potentially be murdered in the birth canal and if they are born alive — several Democrats RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT support it — truly scary and barbaric.”
Fox News said conservatives were wondering “whether Democrats were embracing ‘infanticide’ to appeal to left-wing voters.”
The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act would have required that “any health care practitioner present” at a birth use “the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.”
“Senators who could not bring themselves to vote to pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act should reconsider whether or not they have what it takes to serve,” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said in a statement. “Senator Sasse’s common sense bill would merely require doctors assist a newborn struggling to survive after a failed attempt on her life. Anyone who lacks the basic level of human compassion needed to vote in favor of this should quickly find another job.”
WND reported when James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and the James Dobson Family Institute, the author of dozens of books on family and adviser to at least five presidents, commented just before the vote.
“I am truly saddened that we as a country would even have need to protect a child who has survived the horrors of an attempted abortion and has been left to die on a porcelain tray. Shockingly, despite what some politicians like Sen. [Patty] Murray would have you believe, we do not currently have federal protection for babies who have survived such a procedure,” he said.
“Politicians such as Sen. Murray would have you believe that this bill is an affront to a woman’s ‘health,'” he said. That’s an outright lie and Sen. Murray knows this. She should be ashamed of herself for spreading such a fallacy. This has nothing to do with women’s health, but with the health of a precious, struggling newborn gasping for breath after attempted murder,” Dobson charged.
The abandonment of babies who survive abortion procedures was endorsed by Barack Obama while he was a state lawmaker in Illinois.
As president, his administration argued in court on the side of the mob that chanted “hail Satan” in 2013 in opposition to a Texas bill banning abortion after 20 weeks.
A video of the hail Satan chant:
Another: